Sam Carlson
Executive Director
World Links

Sam is Executive Director of World Links, an international non-profit based in Washington, DC, dedicated to providing e-learning to kids and teachers in developing nations in order to maximize their educational and economic opportunities. Sam's primary focus is helping teachers and kids create new opportunities so they have an equal chance to compete in today's global economy. He believes that, together, education and the Internet are the great equalizers in today's highly unequal world, and the source of wealth in the future.

Trained as an education economist, Sam worked for the World Bank for 11 years before becoming Executive Director of World Links. In fact, he initiated the World Links for Development (WorLD) program in 1997 inside the World Bank before spinning it off as an independent non-profit organization in 1999. From 1992-1996 Sam worked in Bamako, Mali as the World Bank's education specialist. Before that he worked on large-scale education investments in Mexico, Costa Rica and Venezuela which focused on primary, secondary and vocational education.

Sam did his graduate work at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University, after four years teaching adults and high school students in Taiwan, Thailand and Connecticut. He holds a B.A. in International Relations (with an Education minor) from Dartmouth College (Phi Beta Kappa). He speaks English, French and Spanish and is married with three young children.

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