FICARIV

Some of the world’s most successful people are school dropouts.
By Maggie Tiojakin
Reuters

Our parents told us to go to school and study hard, claiming a formal education is the key to our future security. But traditional education systems do not meet the needs of everyone, and many drop out or fail.

But losing out in school does not mean losing out in life, just as having a diploma in hand (preferably a genuine one) is no guarantee of success. Other qualities – resourcefulness, ingenuity and a desire to learn – come into play.

“Ryan” spends his days on the floor of the Jakarta Stock Exchange predicting the rise and fall of international bonds. This is the kind of job that takes both guts and smarts; not everyone can do it, let alone make a profit out of it – least of all someone who doesn’t even have a high school degree. Unless it’s him, that is.

“I learned this trade by reading the newspaper religiously and asking a lot of people a lot of questions,” says Ryan, 37. “It took me more than 10 years to master the deals, to know when to go in and when to pull out an investment – but I never spent a day in the classroom.”

The good thing about being a free agent stockbroker, says Ryan, is that people don’t ask for a résumé; instead, they ask for your portfolio, which is “an account of how much profit you’ve made, and how much loss you’ve inflicted throughout your career as a stockbroker”. In total, Ryan says he has generated close to US$5 million for his clients – a small percentage of which is his for the taking. He also owns several companies, which he runs with his business partners.

Despite the government’s noble intentions of encouraging everyone to obtain a formal education, it’s equally important to recognize each student’s individual potential. Because there will always be those people who just aren’t meant to be educated in a classroom or work behind a desk. This is true mostly of creative personalities whose passion for the undiscovered usually overwhelms their desire to “fit in” (and therefore do what everyone else does).

School systems favor those model students who score As on their tests over those who display creative inclinations in their given tasks, but intelligence isn’t always measured by good grades.
It’s about coming up with solutions where there seems to be none. A grade-oriented system is part of a classical education system in need of radical reform, especially in an era that requires more pragmatic approaches in education.

“Most people need to be properly schooled,” says Ugur Laksmana from the National Education Ministry. “And it’s difficult to distinguish which people fit into the majority, and which into the minority – who can learn things on their own, without guidance.”

The government makes a compelling case, certainly: Good jobs require higher education, which ensure higher living standards and a comfortable future. Even data-entry positions require at least a bachelor’s degree nowadays. And the standards also have gone way up: Where once a master’s degree sufficed to secure one’s position above the average milieu, today it’s a PhD.

Then, there’s the appeal of working your way from the ground up on your own, which has become far more attractive given the abundance of opportunities.

“What we lack in college education, we more than make up for in tenacity, strong business sense and courage,” says Doni Tambunan, a 32-year-old contractor who makes more than $200,000 a year.

He adds that he knew since early in his youth that he would never be a “pencil-pusher” or a corporate worker, opting for the uncharted path of self-taught business savvy. “Just because I have never gone to college doesn’t mean I’m any less knowledgeable. I’m very proud of how I have built my own fortune.”

He is in good company. IT magnates Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are successful dropouts who built their empires from scratch by trial and error. They have become the role models for struggling self-employed business personalities, whose drive for success is often rooted in the fanned flames of known examples.

Does that mean formal education is unnecessary?

While a formal degree doesn’t guarantee a successful career, it does provide an important foundation for success. Education is essential not only because it ensures employment, but also because it is usually the only way to prepare oneself for the “real world”. In a class-divided society, education is the golden ticket to a factory of riches.

Different models of learning have surfaced in the past decade to replace the traditional formal education system, such as apprenticeships and long-distance learning. And these have enough success stories to put paid to claims that those without a formal education are in the same category as the unemployed and/or miserably unsuccessful. But, sometimes, obtaining a degree has less to do with securing a high-paying job, and more with the pride that comes with being a graduate.

Consider Luke Sharrett, a 21-year-old photojournalist and intern at the White House, who recently told US President Obama he intended to quit his internship to pursue a bachelor’s degree and apply for a job at The New York Times.

With more than 400 photographs syndicated by the largest newspapers in the United States, Sharrett is about as successful as any seasoned photographer fit to be his mentor. His decision to leave the Capitol came as a surprise to many, including Obama, who – on record – said, “Why do you need a degree to work at The New York Times … why don’t you just show them your portfolio?”

To which the young photojournalist replied, “Mr. President, it’s just something I have to do.”

Making the Grade

The following four dropouts successfully followed their dreams.

Tom Hanks

Once a student at Sacramento State University, Hanks quit college to pursue his acting career by interning full time at the Great Lakes Theater Festival. Look where it got him: One of Hollywood’s most respected stars, he won Academy Awards two years in a row, first for his role in Philadelphia, and then for Forrest Gump.

Tiger Woods

Sure, he’s a pro athlete who can hit a golf ball like nobody else in the world (and also play the field). But did you know he quit college after receiving a full scholarship from Stanford University? Having once decided on a major in economics, Tiger Woods pulled out of school in his second year and went straight back to perfecting his sport.

Richard Branson

The founder of Virgin didn’t drop out of college, because he never went to one. In 1970, he built his empire as a mail-order record retailer, and then two years later he produced a record by Mike Oldfield. In 1992, he sold the rights to Virgin Music Group for $1 billion. Today, his company is working on commercial outer space travels.

Anna Wintour

The hard-as-nails fashion editor Miranda from The Devil Wears Prada was allegedly modeled after Anna Wintour, the most recognized – and most feared – fashion editor in the world. She attended North London Collegiate School, but records show she never quite finished her studies. She went to Harper’s Bazaar, followed by a three-year stint as creative director at American Vogue, before securing the top spot of editor-in-chief. Way back, the bobbed one also had her sensitive side; Andy Warhol wrote in his diaries in 1981 that the young Wintour cried after she was told her fashion spread was trash: “She’s such a tough cookie that I could never even imagine her crying, but I guess it was her femininity coming out.”

Not everyone who’s on top today got there with success after success. More often than not, those who history best remembers were faced with numerous obstacles that forced them to work harder and show more determination than others. Next time you’re feeling down about your failures in college or in a career, keep these fifty famous people in mind and remind yourself that sometimes failure is just the first step towards success.

Business Gurus

These businessmen and the companies they founded are today known around the world, but as these stories show, their beginnings weren’t always smooth.

Henry Ford: While Ford is today known for his innovative assembly line and American-made cars, he wasn’t an instant success. In fact, his early businesses failed and left him broke five time before he founded the successful Ford Motor Company.

R. H. Macy: Most people are familiar with this large department store chain, but Macy didn’t always have it easy. Macy started seven failed business before finally hitting big with his store in New York City.

F. W. Woolworth: Some may not know this name today, but Woolworth was once one of the biggest names in department stores in the U.S. Before starting his own business, young Woolworth worked at a dry goods store and was not allowed to wait on customers because his boss said he lacked the sense needed to do so.

Soichiro Honda: The billion-dollar business that is Honda began with a series of failures and fortunate turns of luck. Honda was turned down by Toyota Motor Corporation for a job after interviewing for a job as an engineer, leaving him jobless for quite some time. He started making scooters of his own at home, and spurred on by his neighbors, finally started his own business.

Akio Morita: You may not have heard of Morita but you’ve undoubtedly heard of his company, Sony. Sony’s first product was a rice cooker that unfortunately didn’t cook rice so much as burn it, selling less than 100 units. This first setback didn’t stop Morita and his partners as they pushed forward to create a multi-billion dollar company.

Bill Gates: Gates didn’t seem like a shoe-in for success after dropping out of Harvard and starting a failed first business with Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen called Traf-O-Data. While this early idea didn’t work, Gates’ later work did, creating the global empire that is Microsoft.

Harland David Sanders: Perhaps better known as Colonel Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken fame, Sanders had a hard time selling his chicken at first. In fact, his famous secret chicken recipe was rejected 1,009 times before a restaurant accepted it.

Walt Disney: Today Disney rakes in billions from merchandise, movies and theme parks around the world, but Walt Disney himself had a bit of a rough start. He was fired by a newspaper editor because, “he lacked imagination and had no good ideas.” After that, Disney started a number of businesses that didn’t last too long and ended with bankruptcy and failure. He kept plugging along, however, and eventually found a recipe for success that worked.

Scientists and Thinkers

These people are often regarded as some of the greatest minds of our century, but they often had to face great obstacles, the ridicule of their peers and the animosity of society.

Albert Einstein: Most of us take Einstein’s name as synonymous with genius, but he didn’t always show such promise. Einstein did not speak until he was four and did not read until he was seven, causing his teachers and parents to think he was mentally handicapped, slow and anti-social. Eventually, he was expelled from school and was refused admittance to the Zurich Polytechnic School. It might have taken him a bit longer, but most people would agree that he caught on pretty well in the end, winning the Nobel Prize and changing the face of modern physics.

Charles Darwin: In his early years, Darwin gave up on having a medical career and was often chastised by his father for being lazy and too dreamy. Darwin himself wrote, “I was considered by all my masters and my father, a very ordinary boy, rather below the common standard of intellect.” Perhaps they judged too soon, as Darwin today is well-known for his scientific studies.

Robert Goddard: Goddard today is hailed for his research and experimentation with liquid-fueled rockets, but during his lifetime his ideas were often rejected and mocked by his scientific peers who thought they were outrageous and impossible. Today rockets and space travel don’t seem far-fetched at all, due largely in part to the work of this scientist who worked against the feelings of the time.

Isaac Newton: Newton was undoubtedly a genius when it came to math, but he had some failings early on. He never did particularly well in school and when put in charge of running the family farm, he failed miserably, so poorly in fact that an uncle took charge and sent him off to Cambridge where he finally blossomed into the scholar we know today.

Socrates: Despite leaving no written records behind, Socrates is regarded as one of the greatest philosophers of the Classical era. Because of his new ideas, in his own time he was called “an immoral corrupter of youth” and was sentenced to death. Socrates didn’t let this stop him and kept right on, teaching up until he was forced to poison himself.

Robert Sternberg: This big name in psychology received a C in his first college introductory psychology class with his teacher telling him that, “there was already a famous Sternberg in psychology and it was obvious there would not be another.” Sternberg showed him, however, graduating from Stanford with exceptional distinction in psychology, summa cum laude, and Phi Beta Kappa and eventually becoming the President of the American Psychological Association.

Inventors

These inventors changed the face of the modern world, but not without a few failed prototypes along the way.

Thomas Edison: In his early years, teachers told Edison he was “too stupid to learn anything.” Work was no better, as he was fired from his first two jobs for not being productive enough. Even as an inventor, Edison made 1,000 unsuccessful attempts at inventing the light bulb. Of course, all those unsuccessful attempts finally resulted in the design that worked.

Orville and Wilbur Wright: These brothers battled depression and family illness before starting the bicycle shop that would lead them to experimenting with flight. After numerous attempts at creating flying machines, several years of hard work, and tons of failed prototypes, the brothers finally created a plane that could get airborne and stay there.

Public Figures

From politicians to talk show hosts, these figures had a few failures before they came out on top.

Winston Churchill: This Nobel Prize-winning, twice-elected Prime Minster of the United Kingdom wasn’t always as well regarded as he is today. Churchill struggled in school and failed the sixth grade. After school he faced many years of political failures, as he was defeated in every election for public office until he finally became the Prime Minister at the ripe old age of 62.

Abraham Lincoln: While today he is remembered as one of the greatest leaders of our nation, Lincoln’s life wasn’t so easy. In his youth he went to war a captain and returned a private (if you’re not familiar with military ranks, just know that private is as low as it goes.) Lincoln didn’t stop failing there, however. He started numerous failed business and was defeated in numerous runs he made for public office.

Oprah Winfrey: Most people know Oprah as one of the most iconic faces on TV as well as one of the richest and most successful women in the world. Oprah faced a hard road to get to that position, however, enduring a rough and often abusive childhood as well as numerous career setbacks including being fired from her job as a television reporter because she was “unfit for tv.”

Harry S. Truman: This WWI vet, Senator, Vice President and eventual President eventually found success in his life, but not without a few missteps along the way. Truman started a store that sold silk shirts and other clothing–seemingly a success at first–only go bankrupt a few years later.

Dick Cheney: This recent Vice President and businessman made his way to the White House but managed to flunk out of Yale University, not once, but twice. Former President George W. Bush joked with Cheney about this fact, stating, “So now we know –if you graduate from Yale, you become president. If you drop out, you get to be vice president.”

Hollywood Types

These faces ought to be familiar from the big screen, but these actors, actresses and directors saw their fair share of rejection and failure before they made it big.

Jerry Seinfeld: Just about everybody knows who Seinfeld is, but the first time the young comedian walked on stage at a comedy club, he looked out at the audience, froze and was eventually jeered and booed off of the stage. Seinfeld knew he could do it, so he went back the next night, completed his set to laughter and applause, and the rest is history.

Fred Astaire: In his first screen test, the testing director of MGM noted that Astaire, “Can’t act. Can’t sing. Slightly bald. Can dance a little.” Astaire went on to become an incredibly successful actor, singer and dancer and kept that note in his Beverly Hills home to remind him of where he came from.

Sidney Poitier: After his first audition, Poitier was told by the casting director, “Why don’t you stop wasting people’s time and go out and become a dishwasher or something?” Poitier vowed to show him that he could make it, going on to win an Oscar and become one of the most well-regarded actors in the business.

Jeanne Moreau: As a young actress just starting out, this French actress was told by a casting director that she was simply not pretty enough to make it in films. He couldn’t have been more wrong as Moreau when on to star in nearly 100 films and win numerous awards for her performances.

Charlie Chaplin: It’s hard to imagine film without the iconic Charlie Chaplin, but his act was initially rejected by Hollywood studio chiefs because they felt it was a little too nonsensical to ever sell.

Lucille Ball: During her career, Ball had thirteen Emmy nominations and four wins, also earning the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Kennedy Center Honors. Before starring in I Love Lucy, Ball was widely regarded as a failed actress and a B movie star. Even her drama instructors didn’t feel she could make it, telling her to try another profession. She, of course, proved them all wrong.

Harrison Ford: In his first film, Ford was told by the movie execs that he simply didn’t have what it takes to be a star. Today, with numerous hits under his belt, iconic portrayals of characters like Han Solo and Indiana Jones, and a career that stretches decades, Ford can proudly show that he does, in fact, have what it takes.

Marilyn Monroe: While Monroe’s star burned out early, she did have a period of great success in her life. Despite a rough upbringing and being told by modeling agents that she should instead consider being a secretary, Monroe became a pin-up, model and actress that still strikes a chord with people today.

Oliver Stone: This Oscar-winning filmmaker began his first novel while at Yale, a project that eventually caused him to fail out of school. This would turn out to be a poor decision as the the text was rejected by publishers and was not published until 1998, at which time it was not well-received. After dropping out of school, Stone moved to Vietnam to teach English, later enlisting in the army and fighting in the war, a battle that earning two Purple Hearts and helped him find the inspiration for his later work that often center around war.

Writers and Artists

We’ve all heard about starving artists and struggling writers, but these stories show that sometimes all that work really does pay off with success in the long run.

Vincent Van Gogh: During his lifetime, Van Gogh sold only one painting, and this was to a friend and only for a very small amount of money. While Van Gogh was never a success during his life, he plugged on with painting, sometimes starving to complete his over 800 known works. Today, they bring in hundreds of millions.

Emily Dickinson: Recluse and poet Emily Dickinson is a commonly read and loved writer. Yet in her lifetime she was all but ignored, having fewer than a dozen poems published out of her almost 1,800 completed works.

Theodor Seuss Giesel: Today nearly every child has read The Cat in the Hat or Green Eggs and Ham, yet 27 different publishers rejected Dr. Seuss’s first book To Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street.

Charles Schultz: Schultz’s Peanuts comic strip has had enduring fame, yet this cartoonist had every cartoon he submitted rejected by his high school yearbook staff. Even after high school, Schultz didn’t have it easy, applying and being rejected for a position working with Walt Disney.

Steven Spielberg: While today Spielberg’s name is synonymous with big budget, he was rejected from the University of Southern California School of Theater, Film and Television three times. He eventually attended school at another location, only to drop out to become a director before finishing. Thirty-five years after starting his degree, Spielberg returned to school in 2002 to finally complete his work and earn his BA.

Stephen King: The first book by this author, the iconic thriller Carrie, received 30 rejections, finally causing King to give up and throw it in the trash. His wife fished it out and encouraged him to resubmit it, and the rest is history, with King now having hundreds of books published the distinction of being one of the best-selling authors of all time.

Zane Grey: Incredibly popular in the early 20th century, this adventure book writer began his career as a dentist, something he quickly began to hate. So, he began to write, only to see rejection after rejection for his works, being told eventually that he had no business being a writer and should given up. It took him years, but at 40, Zane finally got his first work published, leaving him with almost 90 books to his name and selling over 50 million copies worldwide.

J. K. Rowling: Rowling may be rolling in a lot of Harry Potter dough today, but before she published the series of novels she was nearly penniless, severely depressed, divorced, trying to raise a child on her own while attending school and writing a novel. Rowling went from depending on welfare to survive to being one of the richest women in the world in a span of only five years through her hard work and determination.

Monet: Today Monet’s work sells for millions of dollars and hangs in some of the most prestigious institutions in the world. Yet during his own time, it was mocked and rejected by the artistic elite, the Paris Salon. Monet kept at his impressionist style, which caught on and in many ways was a starting point for some major changes to art that ushered in the modern era.

Jack London: This well-known American author wasn’t always such a success. While he would go on to publish popular novels like White Fang and The Call of the Wild, his first story received six hundred rejection slips before finally being accepted.

Louisa May Alcott: Most people are familiar with Alcott’s most famous work, Little Women. Yet Alcott faced a bit of a battle to get her work out there and was was encouraged to find work as a servant by her family to make ends meet. It was her letters back home during her experience as a nurse in the Civil War that gave her the first big break she needed.

Musicians

While their music is some of the best selling, best loved and most popular around the world today, these musicians show that it takes a whole lot of determination to achieve success.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Mozart began composing at the age of five, writing over 600 pieces of music that today are lauded as some of the best ever created. Yet during his lifetime, Mozart didn’t have such an easy time, and was often restless, leading to his dismissal from a position as a court musician in Salzberg. He struggled to keep the support of the aristocracy and died with little to his name.

Elvis Presley: As one of the best-selling artists of all time, Elvis has become a household name even years after his death. But back in 1954, Elvis was still a nobody, and Jimmy Denny, manager of the Grand Ole Opry, fired Elvis Presley after just one performance telling him, “You ain’t goin’ nowhere, son. You ought to go back to drivin’ a truck.”

Igor Stravinsky: In 1913 when Stravinsky debuted his now famous Rite of Spring, audiences rioted, running the composer out of town. Yet it was this very work that changed the way composers in the 19th century thought about music and cemented his place in musical history.

The Beatles: Few people can deny the lasting power of this super group, still popular with listeners around the world today. Yet when they were just starting out, a recording company told them no. The were told “we don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out,” two things the rest of the world couldn’t have disagreed with more.

Ludwig van Beethoven: In his formative years, young Beethoven was incredibly awkward on the violin and was often so busy working on his own compositions that he neglected to practice. Despite his love of composing, his teachers felt he was hopeless at it and would never succeed with the violin or in composing. Beethoven kept plugging along, however, and composed some of the best-loved symphonies of all time–five of them while he was completely deaf.

Athletes

While some athletes rocket to fame, others endure a path fraught with a little more adversity, like those listed here.

Michael Jordan: Most people wouldn’t believe that a man often lauded as the best basketball player of all time was actually cut from his high school basketball team. Luckily, Jordan didn’t let this setback stop him from playing the game and he has stated, “I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the game winning shot, and I missed. I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

Stan Smith: This tennis player was rejected from even being a lowly ball boy for a Davis Cup tennis match because event organizers felt he was too clumsy and uncoordinated. Smith went on to prove them wrong, showcasing his not-so-clumsy skills by winning Wimbledon, U. S. Open and eight Davis Cups.

Babe Ruth: You probably know Babe Ruth because of his home run record (714 during his career), but along with all those home runs came a pretty hefty amount of strikeouts as well (1,330 in all). In fact, for decades he held the record for strikeouts. When asked about this he simply said, “Every strike brings me closer to the next home run.”

Tom Landry: As the coach of the Dallas Cowboys, Landry brought the team two Super Bowl victories, five NFC Championship victories and holds the records for the record for the most career wins. He also has the distinction of having one of the worst first seasons on record (winning no games) and winning five or fewer over the next four seasons.

Lifted without permission from www.onlinecollege.org

The CNN website described her as “an American woman who has helped thousands of poor Indonesian women have a healthy pregnancy and birth.” But to relatives in Baguio City, Robin Lim, the CNN Hero of the Year for 2011, is “very Filipino”.

The 54-year-old Filipino-American midwife, fondly called Mother Robin or Ibu Robin, drew applause for her work in the Yayasan Bumi Sehat (Healthy Mother Earth Foundation) health clinics in Indonesia, which extend prenatal care, birthing services and medical aid to impoverished women. She particularly promoted traditional healing practices and offered her services in Nyuh Kuning, a small village on Bali island.
Named this year’s hero by the American cable news channel after an 11-week vote on CNN.com, Lim will receive $250,000 for her foundation, on top of the $50,000 she and other honorees got for making it to the Top 10.

Lim is the second honoree of Filipino descent to be included in CNN’s roster of heroes. In 2009, educator and social worker Efren Peñaflorida Jr. was named CNN Hero of the Year for his exceptional advocacy of educating Filipino out-of-school youths through his so-called “pushcart classes.” Peñaflorida, who grew up in the slums of Cavite province, founded the Dynamic Teen Company, which also supported Lim’s nomination.

In one of her letters to the Inquirer Northern Luzon Bureau, Lim described her campaign for the CNN Hero title as a crusade she made on behalf of every mother in the world.

True heroines

“My CNN nomination is for the new mothers, who give birth in small dimly lit rooms all over our planet day and night,” she wrote in a letter dated Oct. 17. “They are the true heroines. When I ask people to vote for me, I know it is not for me… I want it for them.”

Lim accepted her award on Monday in an event dubbed “CNN Heroes: An All-Star Tribute” at Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles.

“Lim’s nomination and selection as CNN Hero of the Year is a victory for all of us because she is so proud of her Filipino ancestry. Her mother was born in Baguio. Her late maternal grandmother, Vicenta Munar Lim—whom she idolized—is pure Filipino,” according to Robin’s cousin, Remy Lim. Remy said Lim often gave credit to her grandmother, Nanang Vicenta, a midwife who served in Baguio during World War II, in all the literature about the nonprofit, village-based organization that she organized in 2003.

Lim’s family in the Philippines had also campaigned for her bid in the CNN search through social networking sites, Remy added. Part of the campaign was last month’s showing of the film “Guerrilla Midwife,” a documentary about Lim’s natural child birth advocacy, at the Mt. Cloud Bookshop on Baguio’s Session Road.

“Much love and big congratulations to Robin Lim!” Mt. Cloud said in a message posted on its Facebook account.

‘Butterfly People’

The company also invited the public to get “more insights into Robin’s life” by reading her novel, “Butterfly People.” Launched by Lim at the bookshop in November last year, the novel set in Baguio City is based on the life of her grandmother and their family’s history, it added.

“We hope that with her winning the CNN Hero title, Robin will be able to pursue her dream of putting up a clinic in Baguio… I hope that the people here will support her if she ever pursues her dream,” Remy said.

At the rites in Los Angeles, Lim accepted her award from the host, CNN anchor Anderson Cooper, and called on the public to promote “safe and loving birth.”

“Today on our Earth, 981 mothers in the prime of their life will die… I’m asking you to help change that. Every baby’s first breath could be one of peace and love. Every mother should be healthy and strong. Every birth could be safe and loving, but our world is not there yet,” she said.

Lim also noted that the high maternal and infant mortality rates in Indonesia, for example, were due to medical costs rising beyond the reach of many women.

In a CNN interview earlier this year, Lim said: “The situation is bad … babies are unattended, deliveries have become commercialized and mothers die from hemorrhage after childbirth because they can’t afford proper care.”

Other awardees

Monday’s program also honored the nine other individuals in the CNN Heroes Top 10:

Eddie Canales, who founded Gridiron Heroes, an organization that helps paralyzed young football players in Texas.

Taryn Davis, who established the American Widow Project, which extends assistance to young military widows.

Sal Dimiceli, who supports 500 people a year with food, rent, utilities and other necessities through his charity column for the Lake Geneva Regional News in Wisconsin.

Derreck Kayongo, who created the Atlanta-based Global Soap Project that has provided about 150,000 bars of soap for communities in 10 countries.

Diane Latiker, who formed the antigang violence community program Kids Off The Block and opened her home on the south side of Chicago to get the youth off the streets.

Patrice Millet, who put up a nonprofit youth soccer program in Haiti that offers coaching and food to hundreds of participants from the slums.

Bruno Serato, who has been serving free pasta dinners to poor children at the Boys & Girls Club in Anaheim, California.

Richard St. Denis, who founded the World Access Project, which has provided hundreds of wheelchairs and mobility aids to people with disabilities in rural Mexico.

Amy Stokes, who has helped orphans rebuild their lives through the nonprofit organization Infinite Family, which connects with volunteer mentors via the Internet.

Celebrity presenters

Presenting this year’s honorees were comedians Jerry Seinfeld and George Lopez, actors JR Martinez and Chris Colfer, musical artists Ice Cube and will.i.am, model Christy Turlington Burns, former NFL quarterback Kurt Warner, and actresses Laura Dern, Mary-Louise Parker and Sofia Vergara.

Burns, founder of Every Mother Counts, a campaign to boost education and support for maternal and child health, introduced Lim’s video tribute during the show.

“Eight years ago, after giving birth to my first child, Grace, I felt what could have been a life-threatening complication,” Burns said. “It suddenly got very scary, very fast. If I hadn’t received the expert care in the hospital birthing center I was in, then I may have not been so fortunate.”

Lifted without permission from Philippine Daily Inquirer

Maria Yuryevna Sharapova is a Russian professional tennis player. Her parents are originally from Gomel, Belarus, but moved to Russia in 1986 in the aftermath of the Chernobyl nuclear accident. Sharapova was born in Nyagan, Siberia, the following year.

At the age of three, Sharapova moved with her family to the resort town of Sochi, beginning to play tennis at the age of four, using a racquet given to her by Yevgeny Kafelnikov’s father. At age five or six, at a tennis clinic in Moscow, Sharapova was spotted by Martina Navratilova, who urged her parents to get her serious coaching in the United States.

At the age of seven she and her father Yuri, who could speak barely any English, boarded a plane to the USA with only $700. When they arrived at Miami airport the next morning, her father took her on the handlebars of a bicycle to the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy without any notice whatsoever. They arrived at the academy and one of the coaches checked her out. The story goes that Maria knocked his hat off with the tennis ball, thereby making a favourable impression. This led to her obtaining a scholarship. At the age of 9, she was signed up by a number of sponsors including Prince (racquets), Oakley and Nike.

In 2004, Sharapova became the second youngest Wimbledon women’s champion in the Open Era (after Martina Hingis) by defeating defending two-time champion Serena Williams in straight sets (6-1, 6-4). In the process she also became the first Russian ever to win that tournament.

Sharapova is regarded by many as possessing a natural beauty and figure and has done some modeling, having signed a contract in November 2003 with IMG Models. She enjoys fashion and is known to read celebrity magazines. However, she says she does not want to overdo these activities, preferring to focus on her tennis. She is often compared to Anna Kournikova, also a Russian Bollettieri student and model. However, Sharapova, Bollettieri, and Kournikova all reject the comparison.

Manuel V. Pangilinan (born July 14, 1946 in Manila), also known as MVP to associates and media, is the chairman of the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company from 1990 up to the present, chairman of TV5 from 2009 to present and CEO of Hong Kong-listed First Pacific Company, Ltd. He is also a member of the University of the Philippines Board of Regents, the highest governing body in the UP System.

Background

Pangilinan came from humble beginnings. He is like his grandfather and father who started at the bottom before making it to the top. His father was a messenger at the Philippine National Bank and retired as the president of the Traders Royal Bank. His grandfather started as a public school teacher until he became Secretary of Education.

Education

Pangilinan took his secondary education at San Beda College and his college degree from Ateneo de Manila University, both under scholarship programs. He also pursued a Master’s Degree at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Economics as a scholar (he won from a national competition conducted by Procter and Gamble).

Career

He started as assistant to the president of Philippine Investment Management Inc. (Phinma), only earning PhP1,000 a month. Afterwards, he became an overseas Filipino worker in Hong Kong. He worked with Crown Colony where he met well-connected clients (who eventually became his friends) and learned the dynamics of international finance. Among those he befriended was Anthoni Salim, son of the Indonesian billionaire Liem Sioe Liong. They shared the idea of putting up a regional banking and trading business.
He served as First Pacific’s managing director after founding the company in 1981, was appointed executive chairman in February 1999 and resumed the role of managing director and CEO in June 2003. The company acquired and gained majority control of PLDT in 1998. Pangilinan became the PLDT’s president and CEO. He managed to restore the company’s financial status and made it the country’s second and third most profitable companies in 2005.
Former president Fidel Ramos praised Pangilinan (along with Enrique Razon, Jr., president of International Container Terminal Services Inc.) for being responsible corporate citizens. Makati Mayor Jejomar Binay also revealed in an interview that the only person he thought could have been a threat to his iron grip on the city (during the 2007 elections) was Manny Pangilinan. [1]
In 2009, Pangilinan played a key role in what the media dubbed the “Meralco takeover.” [2] Together with the Lopez Family, PLDT under Pangilinan owns 47 percent shares of Meralco. This gives the Lopez-PLDT alliance majority share ownership of the electric company. The group that owns the next largest share of 43 percent is San Miguel Corp, under Ramon Ang.

Personal life

MVP loves sports, basketball and squash.

Awards and recognitions

Forbes magazine Heroes of Philanthropy 2009

Controversy

Pangilinan admitted to plagiarizing his commencement speech for Ateneo de Manila University’s 2010 graduating class. In his letter, Pangilinan apologized to delivering a speech that was “borrowed from certain other graduation speeches.” He also offered to resign from his post as chairman of Ateneo’s board of trustees as his term will not end until 2011.
Pangilinan’s speech was posted on ADMU’s website but was later removed due to stirred concerns. Days later, blog posts circulated on the internet, juxtaposing Pangilinan’s speech and those of celebrities and renowned authors like J.K. Rowling, Oprah Winfrey and Conan O’Brien. GMANews.tv also reported that a portion of Pangilinan’s speech were copied from a speech by American president Barack Obama.
Pangilinan also admitted in his speech that he once cheated in his high school tests at the San Beda College but he was caught by school officials and stripped of his academic honors.

Lifted from WikiPilipinas

Lawrence Joseph “Larry” Ellison (born August 17, 1944) is an American business magnate, co-founder and chief executive officer of Oracle Corporation, a major enterprise software company. As of 2011, he is the fifth richest person in the world, with a personal wealth of $39.5 billion

Early life

Larry Ellison was born in New York City to Florence Spellman, an unwed 19-year-old. Ellison’s biological father was an Italian-AmericanU. S. Air Force pilot, who was stationed abroad before Spellman realized that she had become pregnant by him. After Larry Ellison contracted pneumonia at the age of nine months, his mother determined that she was unable to care for him adequately, and arranged for him to be adopted by her aunt and uncle in Chicago. Lillian Spellman Ellison and Louis Ellison adopted him when he was nine months old. Lillian was the second wife of Louis Ellison, an immigrant who had arrived in the United States in 1905 from Russia. Larry Ellison did not meet his biological mother until he was 48.

Ellison graduated from Eugene Field Elementary School on Chicago’s north side in January, 1958 and attended Sullivan High School at least through the fall of 1959 before moving to South Shore.

Ellison was raised in a Reform Jewish family. He grew up in a two-bedroom apartment in Chicago’s South Shore middle-class Jewish neighborhood. Ellison remembers his adoptive mother as warm and loving, in contrast to his austere, unsupportive, and often distant adoptive father, who adopted the name Ellison to honor his point of entry into the USA, Ellis Island. Louis, his adoptive father, was a modest government employee who had made a small fortune in Chicago real estate, only to lose it during the Great Depression.
Ellison was a bright but inattentive student. He left the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign at the end of his second year, after not taking his final exams because his adoptive mother had just died. After spending a summer in Northern California, where he lived with his friend Chuck Weiss, he attended the University of Chicago for one term, where he first encountered computer design. In 1964, at 20 years of age, he moved to northern California permanently.

Career

During the 1970s, after a brief stint at Amdahl Corporation, Ellison worked for Ampex Corporation. One of his projects was a database for the CIA, which he named “Oracle”.
Ellison was inspired by the paper written by Edgar F. Codd on relational database systems called “A Relational Model of Data for Large Shared Data Banks”.

In 1977, he founded Software Development Laboratories (SDL). In 1979, the company was renamed Relational Software Inc., later renamed Oracle after the flagship product Oracle database. He had heard about the IBMSystem R database, also based on Codd’s theories, and wanted Oracle to be compatible with it, but IBM made this impossible by refusing to share System R’s code. The initial release of Oracle was Oracle 2; there was no Oracle 1. The release number was intended to imply that all of the bugs had been worked out of an earlier version.

In 1990, Oracle laid off 10% (about 400 people) of its work force because it was losing money. This crisis, which almost resulted in Oracle’s bankruptcy, came about because of Oracle’s “up-front” marketing strategy, in which sales people urged potential customers to buy the largest possible amount of software all at once. The sales people then booked the value of future license sales in the current quarter, thereby increasing their bonuses. This became a problem when the future sales subsequently failed to materialize. Oracle eventually had to restate its earnings twice, and also to settle out of court class action lawsuits arising from its having overstated its earnings. Ellison would later say that Oracle had made “an incredible business mistake.”

Although IBM dominated the mainframe relational database market with its DB2 and SQL/DS database products, it delayed entering the market for a relational database on UNIX and Windows operating systems. This left the door open for Sybase, Oracle, and Informix (and eventually Microsoft) to dominate mid-range systems and microcomputers.
Around this time, Oracle fell behind Sybase. In 1990–1993, Sybase was the fastest growing database company and the database industry’s darling vendor, but soon fell victim to its merger mania. Sybase’s 1993 merger with Powersoft resulted in a loss of focus on its core database technology. In 1993, Sybase sold the rights to its database software running under the Windows operating system to Microsoft Corporation, which now markets it under the name “SQL Server.”

In 1994, Informix Software overtook Sybase and became Oracle’s most important rival. The intense war between Informix CEO Phil White and Ellison was front page Silicon Valley news for three years. In April, 1997, Informix announced a major revenue shortfall and earnings restatements; Phil White eventually landed in jail, and Informix was absorbed by IBM in 2000. Also in 1997, Ellison was made a director ofApple Computer after Steve Jobs came back to the company. Ellison resigned in 2002, saying that he did not have the time to attend necessary formal board meetings.

Once Informix and Sybase were defeated, Oracle enjoyed years of industry dominance until the rise of Microsoft SQL Server in the late 90s and IBM’s acquisition of Informix Software in 2001 to complement their DB2 database. Today Oracle’s main competition for new database licenses on UNIX, Linux, and Windows operating systems is with IBM’s DB2, and with Microsoft SQL Server (which only runs on Windows). IBM’s DB2 still dominates the mainframe database market.

In April 2009, Oracle announced its intent to buy Sun Microsystems after a tug of war with IBM and Hewlett-Packard. The European Union approved the acquisition by Oracle of Sun Microsystems on January 21, 2010 and agreed that “Oracle’s acquisition of Sun has the potential to revitalize important assets and create new and innovative products”.

On August 9, 2010, Ellison denounced Hewlett-Packard’s board for firing CEO Mark Hurd, writing: “The H.P. board just made the worst personnel decision since the idiots on the Apple board fired Steve Jobs many years ago.” Ellison and Hurd are close personal friends – Hurd often plays tennis at Ellison’s house. Then on September 6, Oracle hired Mark Hurd and made him Co-President alongside Safra A. Catz. Ellison retained the CEO position.

Ellison owns stakes in Salesforce.com, NetSuite, Quark Biotechnology Inc. and SuperGen.

Compensation

In 2005, Oracle paid Ellison a $975,000 salary, a $6,500,000 bonus, and other compensation of $955,100. In 2007, Ellison earned a total compensation of $61,180,524, which included a base salary of $1,000,000, a cash bonus of $8,369,000, and options granted of $50,087,100. In 2008, he earned a total compensation of $84,598,700, which included a base salary of $1,000,000, a cash bonus of $10,779,000, no stocks granted, and options granted of $71,372,700. In the year ending May 31, 2009 he made $56.8 million.

For a short period in 2000, Ellison was the richest man in the world.

In 2006, Forbes ranked Ellison as the richest Californian.
On July 2, 2009, for the fourth year in a row, Oracle’s Board awarded Ellison another 7 million stock options.

On August 22, 2009, it was reported that Ellison would be paid only $1 for his base salary for the fiscal year of 2010, down from the $1,000,000 he was paid in fiscal 2009.

As of March 10, 2010, Ellison was listed on the Forbes list of billionaires as the sixth richest person in the world. He is the third richest American, with an estimated net worth of US $28 billion.

On July 27, 2010, The Wall Street Journal reported that Ellison was the best-paid executive in the last decade, collecting a total compensation of US $1.84 billion.

Personal life

Ellison has been married and divorced four times. He was married to Adda Quinn from 1967 to 1974. He was married to Nancy Wheeler Jenkins between 1977 and 1978. From 1983 to 1986, he was married to Barbara Boothe: two children were born of this marriage, a son and daughter named David and Megan. Both Megan and David were Executive producers for the 2010 Coen Brothers film True Grit.

On 18 December 2003, Ellison married Melanie Craft, a romance novelist, at his Woodside estate. His friend Steve Jobs (CEO of Apple, Inc) was the official wedding photographer,[26] and Representative Tom Lantos officiated.

Ellison and Melanie Craft-Ellison divorced in September 2010.

Yachting

Ellison recently ended his ownership of the sixth largest yacht in the world, named Rising Sun. He sold his remaining shares in the yacht to music and film mogul David Geffen. Rising Sun is 453 ft. (138 m) long, and reportedly cost over US $200 million to build.

Ellison is a financier of the BMW Oracle Racing team, which won the 2010 America’s Cup.

Tennis

Ellison has followed professional tennis all his life, and took up the game in 2004. In 2010, he purchased a 50% share in one of the top four tournaments in the United States, the BNP Paribas Open. This purchase saved the tournament from being sold and moved outside of the U.S.

2007 America’s Cup

BMW Oracle Racing was the Challenger of Record on behalf of the Golden Gate Yacht Club of San Francisco for the 2007 America’s Cup inValencia, Spain until eliminated from the 2007 Louis Vuitton Cup challenger selection series in the semi-finals.

2010 America’s Cup

On 14 February 2010, Ellison’s yacht USA 17 won the second race (in the best of three “deed of gift” series) of the 33rd America’s Cup, after winning the first race two days earlier. Securing a historic victory, Ellison and his BMW Oracle team became the first challengers to win a “deed of gift” match. The Cup returned to American shores for the first time since 1995. Ellison was a crew member for the second race.

Previously, Ellison had filed several legal challenges, through the Golden Gate Yacht Club, against the way that Ernesto Bertarelli (also one of the world’s richest men) has proposed to organize the 33rd America’s Cup following the 2007 victory of Bertarelli’s team Alinghi. The races were finally held[clarification needed] in February 2010 in Valencia, Spain.

Private jet

Ellison is a licensed pilot who has owned several aircraft. Ellison was cited by the City of San Jose, California, for violating its limits on late-night takeoffs and landings from San Jose Mineta International Airport by planes weighing more than 75,000 pounds (34?019 kg). In January 2000, Ellison sued over the interpretation of the airport rule, contending that his “plane is certified by the manufacturer to fly at two weights: 75,000 pounds, and at 90,000 pounds, for heavier loads or long flights requiring more fuel. But the pilot only lands the plane in San Jose when it weighs 75,000 pounds or less, and has the logs to prove it…” U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel ruled over the matter in June 2001, calling for a waiver for Ellison’s jet, but did not invalidate the curfew.

Cars

Ellison owns many exotic cars, including an Audi R8, and a McLaren F1. His favorite is the Acura NSX, which he was known to give as gifts each year during its production. He is also reportedly the owner of a Lexus LFA and a Lexus LS600hL.

Home

Ellison styled his estimated $70 million Woodside, California, estate after feudal Japanese architecture, complete with a man-made 2.3-acre (9,300 m2) lake and an extensive seismic retrofit ( 37°24?44.34?N 122°14?51.40?W). In 2004 and 2005, Ellison purchased more than 12 properties in Malibu, California, worth more than $180 million. The $65 million Ellison spent on five contiguous lots on Malibu’s Carbon Beach was the most costly residential transaction in United States history until Ron Perelman sold his Palm Beach, Florida compound for $70 million later that same year. His entertainment system cost $1 million, and includes a rock concert-sized video projector at one end of a drained swimming pool, using the gaping hole as a giant subwoofer.

In early 2010 Ellison purchased the Astor’s Beechwood Mansion in Newport, Rhode Island for $10.5 million. The property was the former summer home of the prominent Astor family.

In 2011 Ellison purchased the 249 acre Porcupine Creek Estate and private golf course in Rancho Mirage, CA for $42.9 million. The property was the former home of Yellowstone Club founders Edra and Tim Blixseth, sold to Ellison by creditors following their divorce and bankruptcy.

Charitable donations

In order to settle an insider trading lawsuit arising from Ellison’s selling nearly $1 billion of Oracle stock, he was allowed to donate $100 million to his own charitable foundation without admitting wrongdoing. A California judge refused to allow Oracle to pay Ellison’s legal fees of $24 million. Ellison’s lawyer had argued that were Ellison to pay those fees, it could be construed as an admission of guilt. Ellison’s charitable donations to Stanford University were an issue in that case on the independence of two Stanford professors who evaluated the merits of the case for Oracle.

In response to the September 11th terrorist attacks, Ellison made a controversial offer to donate to the Federal government software that would enable it to build and run a national identification database and issue ID cards.

The 2004 Forbes list of the charitable donations made by the wealthiest 400 Americans stated that Ellison had donated $151,092,103 in the preceding year, about 1% of his estimated personal wealth.

In June 2006, Ellison announced that he would not honor his earlier pledge of $115 million to Harvard University, claiming it was due to the departure of former President Lawrence Summers. Oracle spokesman Bob Wynne announced, `It was really Larry Summers’ brainchild and once it looked like Larry Summers was leaving, Larry Ellison reconsidered… It was Larry Ellison and Larry Summers that had initially come up with this notion.”
In August 2010 it was reported that Ellison is one of the 40 billionaires who has signed “The Giving Pledge”.

Ellison wrote: “Many years ago, I put virtually all of my assets into a trust with the intent of giving away at least 95 percent of my wealth to charitable causes. I have already given hundreds of millions of dollars to medical research and education, and I will give billions more over time. Until now, I have done this giving quietly—because I have long believed that charitable giving is a personal and private matter.”

Lifted from Wikipedia

Position: Co-Founder, Microsoft
Market Cap: $226.2 billion

Paul Allen, who co-founded Microsoft with Bill Gates, his childhood friend, is another chief executive who never got a college degree.

According to Allen’s memoir, “Idea Man,” Allen was inspired to write a coding language when he saw the Altair 8800 computer on the cover of a Popular Electronics magazine. Allen knew Gates and he both had the skills to code a programming language for the Altair and after convincing his friend to collaborate, the pair ushered in a new technological era.

Today, Allen has a multibillion-dollar investment portfolio, which includes multiple technology and media companies, along with a major real estate redevelopment in Seattle.

Allen also owns the Seattle Seahawks football team, the Portland Trail Blazers basketball team, and is part of the primary ownership group for the soccer team Seattle Sounders Football Club.

Allen has given away more than $1 billion toward his philanthropic efforts and has said he plans to leave the majority of his estate to charities.

Lifted without permission from the CNBC artilce: Biggest Businesses Run by College Dropouts by Kaitlyn Bigica

Position: Founder/CEO, Facebook
Company Value: $100 billion (Recent estimate)

Although Facebook isn’t publicly traded, we can’t leave this chief executive out of a successful college-dropout list—besides you are probably on his site everyday.

Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO of Facebook, showed an early interest in computers. As a child, he created early communication tools and games from his bedroom. In high school, he created an MP3 program and soon received offers from AOL and Microsoft , which he ignored.

After being accepted at Harvard University, Zuckerberg built a program called Facemash, which showed pictures of students and allowed their peers to vote on who was more attractive.

Eventually, word of Zuckerberg’s talent spread and fellow Harvard students Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss asked him to work on an idea for a social networking site called Harvard Connection. Zuckerberg decided to drop out of the project soon after and began work on a different social networking site, which he originally named TheFacebook.com. (The Winklevoss brothers later sued Zuckerberg , claiming he stole their idea.)

Zuckerberg dropped out of Harvard before graduating to put all of his focus on the social networking site, which could be worth as much as $100 billion if Zuckerberg ever takes the company public.

Lifted without permission from the CNBC artilce: Biggest Businesses Run by College Dropouts by Kaitlyn Bigica

Position: Founder/CEO, Apple
Market Cap: $362.4 billion
As a young boy, this college dropout showed an early interest in computers.

When he was 12, Steve Jobs, the chief executive of Apple , called Bill Hewlett, co-founder of Hewlett Packard , after finding his number in the phonebook. When Hewlett answered, Jobs said, “Hi I’m Steve Jobs. I’m twelve years old and I’m a student in high school. I want to make a frequency counter. I was wondering if you had any spare parts I can have?”

Hewlett gave Jobs the spare parts and hired him that summer to work on the assembly line at his company. During this time, Jobs formed a friendship with Stephen Wozniak, a soon-to-be dropout from the University of California at Berkley.

Jobs enrolled at Reed College after high school, but he later dropped out. He connected once again with Wozniak and the pair quit their jobs to start production on a computer in Jobs’ garage.

There are different versions of how the pair came up with the name for Apple. The best-known story comes from Jobs summer spent working on an apple orchard and his love for the fruit. The bite in the side of the apple is said to be a play on the computer term “byte.”

In a biography, Jobs said he was worth more than $1 million when he was 23, $10 million when he was 24, and $100 million when he was 25.

Apple went from a garage-based operation to a multibillion-dollar, worldwide corporation, and it all started with two college dropouts tinkering in a garage.

Lifted without permission from the CNBC artilce: Biggest Businesses Run by College Dropouts by Kaitlyn Bigica

Position: Co-Founder/Chairman, Microsoft
Market Cap: $226.2 billion
College dropouts such as Mark Zuckerberg and Dustin Moskovitz are not the only successful business founders who attended, and then left, Harvard University.

Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft , enrolled at Harvard as a freshman in 1973. Gates, who lived down the hall from Microsoft’s current chief executive, Steve Ballmer, created BASIC, a programming language for the first microcomputer, during his first year of college.

Gates dropped out of Harvard in his junior year to concentrate all his efforts on a company he called Micro-soft with his childhood friend Paul Allen.

As if founding Microsoft wasn’t enough, Gates went on to found Corbis , one of the world largest resources of visual information. He also earned a seat on the board of directors for Berkshire Hathaway , an investment company engaged in diverse business activity.

Today, Gates serves as Microsoft’s chairman and as an advisor on key development projects.

Lifted without permission on the CNBC article: Biggest Businesses Run by College Dropouts by Kaitlyn Bigica