Applied Technology and Market Development
Michael North is the President and co-founder of Greenstar Corporation, a technology company that focuses on solar power, wireless communications and media development.
Through Greenstar’s “digital culture” programs in the developing world, solar-powered community centers are installed in remote, rural off-the-grid villages. A Greenstar system includes health, education, employment, telecommunications, agriculture and ecommerce services.
Greenstar co-operates with the US Department of Energy, US Agency for International Development, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Sandia National Labs, the United Nations Development Programme, the International Telecommunications Union, the World Bank, the World Resources Institute, Capital Missions, Rotary Clubs International, Motorola, Hewlett-Packard, the Technology Empowerment Network and other international organizations. Interviews with Michael North about Greenstar can be read here at the Center for Digital Government and at Interactivist.
He is also President of America-China Bridge, a citizen diplomacy effort aimed at building better business and cultural relationships between the United States and China, and principal of Prevocative, a group of technology innovators.
Previously, Michael served for 20 years as the founder and CEO of North Communications, which was responsible for many innovations in touchscreen networks. In partnership with IBM, SAIC, Xerox and others, North Communications won a major federal procurement for Info/USA, awarded through the U.S. Postal Service.
Other major clients included the Social Security Administration, Veterans Administration, the State of California, the City of New York, the Congressional Printing Office, the State of Texas, the cities of Singapore and Brisbane. The company designed and supported a fully-integrated network management system, including hardware, systems and application software, media production, installation and maintenance, telecomm and transaction processing. Its key investor was billionaire John Kluge of Metromedia.
In 2010, he formed Prevocative with colleague Clyde Musgrave, to provide business development services to growing technology companies.
