LARRY BRILLIANT, MD, serves as the Chairman of the Advisory Board for Ending Pandemics. Larry is also on the board of the Skoll Foundation and a Senior Advisor at the Jeff Skoll Group. He previously served as the Skoll Global Threats Fund's President and CEO, the Vice President of Google, and as founding Executive Director of Google.org.
Dr. Brilliant is board certified in preventive medicine and a former Professor of Epidemiology at the University of Michigan. He and his wife Girija lived in India for more than a decade, working as a United Nations medical officer where he ultimately helped lead the successful World Health Organization (WHO) smallpox eradication program in South Asia. He is also the co-founder of The Seva Foundation, an international NGO with programs and grantees that have given back sight to more than 5 million blind people in over 20 countries.
He has worked with four Presidents, the United Nations, G8, and Chaired George Bush's National Bio-surveillance Advisory Subcommittee created by Presidential Directive. He co-founded with Stewart Brand, one of the first digital social networks, the Well.
Dr. Brilliant has been recognized as one of the "100 Most Influential People," by Time Magazine, received the TED Prize, and has four honorary doctorates. He is the author of Sometimes Brilliant: The Impossible Adventures of a Spiritual Seeker and Visionary Physician Who Helped Conquer the Worst Disease in History. He also wrote "The Management of Smallpox Eradication," and has written articles in Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, Fortune, and many other magazines. He has lectured in hippie communes and the Pentagon, NIH, The Royal Society, Harvard, Oxford and dozens of major universities and has been the keynote speaker for Google, Salesforce, Cisco and dozens of other companies.
He helped create the movie Contagion, working with Scott Z. Burns on the screenplay and serving as Senior Technical Advisor on the film and he produced the HBO film Open Your Eyes, created the Oscar-nominated The Final Inch, and was featured in CNN's Unseen Enemies and many other films.
Click here for Larry Brilliant's half-hour presentation during the TED Prize sessionLinks: "TOTAL EARLY DETECTION; RAPID RESPONSE: Lawrence Brilliant's TED Prize Wish" [2.23.06]
