Dr. Lawrence Brilliant
Medical doctor, epidemiologist, technologist, activist, author who is healing the world
Board-certified in preventive medicine and public health, Larry lived in India for ten years, first at a Himalayan monastery studying with Neem Keroli Baba, and later as a diplomat working for the United Nations. He was one of the leaders of the successful World Health Organization smallpox eradication program.
When he came back to the United States, he became a professor of international health at the University of Michigan and later co-founded, with Stewart Brand, The Well, a legendary online community. Time and WIRED magazines call him a “technology visionary.” Larry was also the founder and is chair of the international health nonprofit the Seva Foundation. Seva’s projects in Tibet, Nepal, India, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Tanzania, Mexico and Guatemala have given back sight to more than 2 million blind people through innovative surgery, self-sufficient eye care systems, and low-cost manufacturing of intraocular lenses.
Brilliant, a technology patent holder, has been CEO of two public companies and other venture-backed startups. He spent the first half of 2005 as a volunteer helping out in the tsunami in Sri Lanka and working in India with WHO in the campaign to eradicate polio. As his nominator sums it up, “‘Dr. Brilliant’ is a name to live up to, and he has.”
