Mark Sears

husband & father
social entrepreneur
living in Kathmandu (Nepal)
love me some Jesus

Company: Sprout Technology

Uploads

My YouTube

Profile

Mark Sears
Social Entrepreneur - CEO at CloudFactory
Internet | Nepal, NP

Summary

I have a passion for technology, business and making a difference in the world around me.

In 2008 my wife and I came to Nepal for a two week vacation and decided to stay. What started with me training four young Nepali computer engineers around one iMac on a kitchen table, has grown into a multinational company with 90 full-time staff and 800 part-time data entry operators. CloudFactory exists to connect 1 million people in the developing world to sustainable computer work. But along the way we are raising up leaders of high character and competency to fight poverty in their own communities.

Nepal is a beautiful country filled with amazing people. I wake up every day and learn something new. We love living and raising our kids cross-culturally. As a Christian I love that CloudFactory is a practical way for me to walk out "loving God and loving others". My faith in God and passion for Jesus is what drives me to be excellent in business and find ways to make the world a better place than it was yesterday.

Specialties: social entrepreneurship, microwork, crowdsourcing, sustainable development, ICT4D, Ruby on Rails

Experience

  • Jan 2010 - Present
    Founder & CEO / CloudFactory
    CloudFactory is a distributed workforce company for business automation. Typical clients have large volumes of data entry, data collection or data processing work where quality is the critical component. The work is broken down into microtasks that are completed along "virtual assembly lines" by CloudFactory's global, on-demand, managed workforce. As a social enterprise, CloudFactory exists to connect 1 million people in developing countries to basic computer work while raising them up as leaders to address poverty in their own communities.
  • Oct 2008 - Present
    Founder & CEO / Sprout Technology
    Sprout Technology worked with startups and entrepreneurs to sprout web and mobile app ideas into reality for 3 years. Based in Hong Kong with our development office in Nepal, Sprout raised up a team of Ruby on Rails rockstars that managed client projects while also building CloudFactory, a cloud labor platform with the goal of creating work for 1 million people in developing nations. Sprout was a social enterprise that was created to do more than just build great software. We wanted to see our employees become integrity-filled leaders in their families and communities. We wanted to see the beautiful country of Nepal reach its full potential given the immense resources here. Sprout did its small part to make the world a better place while being a fun, profitable and sustainable business.
  • Jun 2001 - Present
    President & CEO / Godspeed Computing Inc.
    I co-founded this small technology company focused on Bible software products back in 2001. I was the President & CEO and had the pleasure of working with a long list of amazing people to accomplish some great things. Our first line of business was selling an e-book class device called the "Godspeed eBible" through Christian bookstores around the world. It retailed for $299 USD and was just starting to take off when our Korean manufacturer went out of business. Fortunately we had already began porting our Bible study software to the Palm operating system which became our second line of business, a suite of eBible for PDA products in cooperation with Thomas Nelson Publishers. From 2004, the company became focused on Web 2.0 applications and created eBible.com. This online Bible was the core of the company until it was sold in 2010.
  • Feb 2000 - Present
    Product Manager / Zucotto Wireless
    Because of my mobile Java work with Sun Microsystems and AudeSi technologies, I was invited to join the four founders of Zucotto as one of the first employees. In just two years I helped to grow the team from 5 to 130+ people. I started as a software developer, then project manager and finally a product manager that represented the company at dozens of technology conferences across the US and Europe . On the way towards building a Wireless Java Microchip for mobile phones we helped establish Java 2 Micro Edition (J2ME) and I served on working groups within standards bodies such as the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) and the Java Community Process (JCP).
  • 1999 - Present
    Software Developer / AudeSi Technologies
    Coming over from Sun Microsystems I remained the technical contact back to my former team there as well as began contributing to the core software that led to this company later being acquired by WindRiver (WIND).
  • 1999 - Present
    Software Developer / Sun Microsystems
    I was very privileged to start my career with a company and technology (Java) I was very passionate about and quickly decided to not return to University to finish my remaining semester of options. My team was focused on a suite of PersonalJava applications (web browser, PIM, etc) and I specifically worked on an application framework for the KVM which later matured into Java 2 Micro Edition (J2ME) and CLDC/MIDP. I also became the technical representative to a key licensee, AudeSi technologies that recruited me to join their company in my home town.

Education

  • 1997 - 1999
    University of Alberta
    BSc in Computer Science w/ Business Minor
  • 1995 - 1997
    Red Deer College
    BSc in Computer Science
    Activities: RDC Volleyball Team RDC Badminton Team Fellowship of Christian Athletes

Additional Information

Websites:
Personal Website, Company Website, Company Website
Honors:
Central Alberta Young Entrepreneur Award and Bursary in 1997 for my first startup (Power Technologies)
Interests:
badminton, volleyball, tennis, ping pong
My LinkedIn
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz