Founder and Executive Chairman of ‘Room to Read’ John J. Wood, who is in Sri Lanka on a brief visit, says Sri Lanka has recorded incredible progress in 150 school development programmes in a short period of four years, since the International Non Governmental Organizations operation began in 2006.

Wood left an executive career track at Microsoft Corporation and founded ‘Room to Read’ out of deep concern that most people lack basic literacy and more than 200 million children in the developing world are not enrolled in school.

Addressing a press conference in Colombo yesterday, he said that he would be meeting the top 100 businessmen to spell out their contribution on a common cause.

He said he needs the help of businessmen to cover only 10 per cent of the ‘Room to Read’ budget. Annually Sri Lanka gets around USD 23 million through ‘Room to Read’.

In his award winning memoir, ‘Leaving Microsoft to Change the World’, he tells the story of how he raised more than USD 80 million in financial commitments from a standing start to develop one of the fastest growing non profit ventures in history, which he attributes to his selling ability.

The book already translated into 18 languages, is also translated into Sinhala and English. In Sri Lanka ‘Room to Read’ is working in seven districts.

‘Room to Read’ Country Director Glenfrey de Mel said that they are the only INGO where even the Country Director is not provided with a vehicle. Their administrative cost is below 15 per cent and in Sri Lanka it is only 13 per cent.

He said that they work with all zonal offices, which he terms as a great collaboration and they have a memorandum of understanding with the Education Ministry for four years.