About

Al Hammond is senior entrepreneur in residence and a member of the Leadership Group at Ashoka: Innovators for the Public.  He works with a team of social entrepreneurs advancing Ashoka's Full Economic Citizenship initiative by creating partnerships between private companies and citizen sector organizations to unleash competitive low- income markets on a global scale. Al focuses primarily on the health care and rural connectivity sectors.

Prior to joining Ashoka, Al was Vice President for Special Projects and Innovation at the World Resources Institute.  At WRI, he directed the Institute's Development Through Enterprise project, which worked with foundations, development agencies, and a number of major corporations to further the use of pro-poor business strategies and digital technologies in development. Dr. Hammond has published extensively in the scientific, policy research, and business literature, including articles in Foreign Affairs ("Digitally Empowered Development," March, 2001), the Harvard Business Review ("Serving the World's Poor, Profitably," September, 2002), and Foreign Policy ("Selling To the Poor,", May-June, 2004). In 2007, he was lead co-author of the definitive study of the size and scope of BoP markets, "The Next 4 Billion: Market Size and Business Strategy at the Base of the Pyramid."

Dr. Hammond holds degrees from Stanford University and Harvard University in engineering and applied mathematics.