Martin Varsavsky

Business mentor, Designer, Entrepreneur, Idea generator

Martin Varsavsky is an Argentine/Spanish entrepreneur, founder of seven companies in the past 20 years. In 1984, while still in college, Varsavsky started his first business, Urban Capital Corporation, one of the early leaders of the loft movement in downtown Manhattan. This was soon followed in 1986 by Medicorp Services, a Canadian biotechnology company, a pioneer in AIDS and PSA testing. His third business, Viatel Ltd., Varsavsky's first venture into the world of telecom, was founded in 1990. This company is best known for inventing call back and building the first pan European fiber optic network ahead of liberalization. Martin Varsavsky's best-known ventures were founded during the last decade. In 1998, he started Jazztel Telecomunicaciones (Jazztel), Spain's second largest publicly traded telecom operator. In 1999 he founded Ya.com, Spain's third largest internet web site/DSL provider that includes the second largest Spanish language web agency www.viajar.com. But not all of MV's companies were successful. In 2000, he started Germany's leading cloud computing company, Einsteinet, and the company was sold in 2003 at no return to him or investors. Martin Varsavsky's current venture is Fon. With over a 12 million hotspots Fon is the largest WiFi network in the world. The company is headquartered in Madrid Spain but its customers are in Asia, EU and USA. Its investors include Google, eBay, Index, Sequoia, and BT. Martin Varsavsky manages the Varsavsky Foundation best known as founder of two large educational projects in Latin America, Educ.ar (Argentina) and EducarChile (Chile) and the Safe Democracy Foundation. Martin was Ambassador at Large of Argentina between 2001 up to 2005. He is also on the Board of Trustees of the William Jefferson Clinton Foundation, and is a board member of Instituto de Empresa, Spain's leading business school, where he has been teaching entrepreneurship for the past 8 years. Martin Varsavsky has written numerous articles on business and international relations that have been published in several international publications including El Pais and Newsweek. He is also a frequent speaker at conferences around the world and active blogger. He is the recipient of various honors and rewards. Martin Varsavsky received his BA from New York University, and holds an MA in International Affairs and an MA in Business Administration from Columbia University. In his spare time, Martin enjoys spending time with his family, cycling, piloting, photography and sailing. Martin Varsavsky is married to Nina Varsavsky and has six children.

Entrepreneurship. Internet. Music. Telecommunications. Mountain Biking. Using technology to improve education.

100 Hours of Common Education It is estimated that from K to 12 children around the world go to school around 10,000 hours. I would like to see 100 of those 10,000 be common to all children around the world. During this 100 hours that would be taught when children are 12 years old a special common curriculum would be studied that would focus on two main subjects: how to get along with each other, and how to get along with our planet.

I am a serial entrepreneur. I started three companies that sold for over $700 million in the fields of telecom and internet: Viatel, Jazztel, Ya.com. I am also an investor in over 30 start ups and have had 6 successful exits. I started two foundations: one focused on education and the other one on conflict resolution. Currently I am the CEO of Fon, the largest WiFi network in the world, which is based on the principle of shared WiFi "you share a little wifi at home and roam the world for free connecting to others who share with you". Before Fon, I lost over 50 million dollars of my own money as a pioneer in cloud computing. I also teach entrepreneurship at Columbia, NYU and IE. I am happily married to Nina Varsavsky who is here with me. I am the father of 6 great kids.

Sailing, cooking, cycling.