Al Hammond is a serial entrepreneur, a widely published author, and a global leader in market-based solutions to poverty. He is co-founder and Executive VP for Strategy of Healthpoint Services, a global company implementing a disruptive model for delivering safe drinking water to rural and small town communities in India, and is also associated with Ashoka, a global network of social entrepreneurs. Earlier, he helped to launch the base-of-the-pyramid (BOP) movement that transformed how large companies and the international development community address poverty. He has served as a consultant to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, to several US federal agencies, to the United Nations, to a number of major corporations, and to several private foundations. He holds degrees from Stanford and Harvard Universities in engineering and applied mathematics.