Xavier Helgesen is NWILL 2013 Keynote Speaker

We are thrilled to announce that Xavier Helgesen, Co-founder and Chairman of Better World Books, will be our keynote speaker this year.

F. Xavier Helgesen is serial social entrepreneur. He is the Co-Founder and Chairman of Better World Books, the world's largest online used bookstore. Founded in 2002 on a triple bottom line business model, Better World Books has partnered with thousands of libraries in the US, Canada and UK to sell their discards and donations online, raising over $13 Million for literacy around the world. Better World Books is also the world's biggest book donor, giving millions of University-level books to Universities in Africa (through Books for Africa) and giving millions of children's books in partnership with Feed the Children.

After 8 years of full-time work with Better World Books he moved to a board role and spent a year at Oxford University as a Skoll Schol in Social Entrepreneurship. Based on research there, he launched a new venture as the Co-Founder and CEO of Off.Grid:Electric, a distributed renewable energy company operating in Arusha, Tanzania. Off.Grid:Electric radically reduces the cost and risk of adopting solar energy for the 1.6 billion people who live without electricity worldwide, allowing them to replace kerosene with solar for as little as $1.25/week. He holds a BA from Notre Dame and an MBA from Oxford.