Bio

Canadian, 35 years veteran of a hybrid business commercial/development career within the finance, publishing, and digital technology in Canada, Europe and Asia both as a corporate executive, dotcom entrepreneur and social business innovator. After two successful Internet start-up exits in the EU, David joined the United Nations (UNAIDS, UNCTAD) in Geneva in 2005. David was invited to Asia-Pacific region by UNDP (2010) where he founded the Social Innovation, Entrepreneurship programs and most recently, the UN Social Impact Finance initiative (UNSIF) which brought together venture philanthropists, family trusts, foundations, governments and private sector growth investors to create a 'blended financing' investment and capacity building platform. David left the UN in July 2019 to become a Co-founding and Managing Partner of the SDGx Group (Singapore) with a mandate to research, accelerate and invest in the next generation of technology startups creating positive disruption by leveraging Artificial Intelligence, IoT/5G, ClimateTech, Automation/Robotics, Cognitive Computing and new material sciences such as Nanotechnology and Biomimicry. David is also Faculty member of the United Nations System Staff College (UNSSC) and the Director of the SDGx Yunus Near Future Lab - a non-profit, deep technology research lab in partnership with Nobel Laureate Prof. Muhammad Yunus’ Social Business Centers and the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT).