Friday, August 1, 2008

The Mover

Kane forgoes pay in leading OLPC

By Catherine Williams, Special to Mass High Tech

Charles Kane has stopped wearing suits. However, despite the informal business attire at his new office, his post at Cambridge-based nonprofit One Laptop per Child is the most important job he’s ever had, the veteran technology executive said.

After a string of posts at some of Massachusetts’ top technology companies, Kane took up the pro bono position as president and chief operating officer in May.

“I’ve been fortunate in my career. Now I have a chance to give back,” said Kane. “This project is bigger than any one of us. This is not a business, it’s a movement.”

Spun out of the MIT Media Lab in 2005, One Laptop Per Child manufactures and distributes laptops to children in poor and developing regions around the globe. Designed to be affordable and to withstand rural conditions in developing countries, the laptops cost close to $200 each and use solar and hand-crank power sources.

OLPC’s goal is to produce $100 laptops, said Kane, and some countries (including Rwanda and Ethiopia) are getting two laptops for the price of one.

Kane said OLPC, which employs 23 full-time workers, will pull in between $150 million and $175 million in revenue in 2008. He has hired organization presidents in China and India, and his goal is to forge partnerships with non-government organizations and technology companies. Kane said he plans to announce a partnership with Amazon.com later this year. He also plans to launch a Peace Corps-type-initiative to recruit college students as worldwide laptop deployment volunteers.

“Clearly, the way to be successful in any business is through partnerships,” said Kane, who first joined OLPC in 2006 as a financial consultant.

In 2007, Kane served as vice president of finance and partner at Boston-based Global BPO Services headed by former 3Com Corp. CEO Scott Murray. Kane continues at Global BPO as an investor.

Kane was CFO at Bedford-based RSA Security Inc. and managed the sale of RSA to Hopkinton-based EMC Corp. for $2.3 billion in 2006.

In 2003, Kane joined Aspen Technology Inc. as CFO. Prior to Aspen, he served as the CEO and president of Boston-based Corechange Software. Until 2000, Kane served as the CFO of Westborough-based Ardent Software Inc.

Kane earned his bachelor’s degree in accounting from the University of Notre Dame and a master’s degree in business administration from Babson College. He began his career as a CPA at Deloitte and Touche.

When not helping bring affordable technology to underserved children, Kane is a senior lecturer of international finance at the MIT Sloan School of Management and a board member at Progress Software Corp. and Borland Software Corp.

 

Catherine Williams is a freelance reporter in Boston.