Dr. Larry Brilliant Joins Jeff Skoll to Combat Global Challenges

As the founding president of eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY), Skoll developed the company's first business plan, generating entrepreneurial opportunities for millions of individuals around the world. He also pioneered creation of the eBay Foundation through the allocation of pre-IPO shares.

In 1999, Skoll launched the Skoll Foundation, which provides unrestricted financing and services to leading social entrepreneurs whose innovations are poised to achieve large-scale impact.

Skoll founded Participant Media in 2004 as an independent global media company focused on creating entertainment that inspires and compels social change. Participant’s films to date have garnered 16 Academy Award® nominations. These films include, among others, An Inconvenient Truth, Good Night and Good Luck, North Country, Syriana, Fast Food Nation, Jimmy Carter - Man From Plains, Darfur Now, The Kite Runner, Charlie Wilson's War and The Visitor. Participant will release a number of films in 2009, including The Soloist (with Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Jr.) on April 24.

Skoll serves on the board of the National Center for Arts and Technology and on a number of advisory boards, including the Ploughshares Fund and The Elders, launched by Nelson Mandela, Richard Branson and Peter Gabriel in 2007 to focus attention on critical global issues. Skoll was one of Time Magazine's 100 People of the Year in 2006 and received the Outstanding Philanthropist Award from the International Association of Fundraising Professionals in 2003. In 2008, he was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and in 2009 was awarded the Producers Guild of America Visionary Award.

Skoll holds a bachelors degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Toronto, and an M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He also holds an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the University of Toronto.