Executive Director
Lou August
was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, receiving his bachelors degree from the University of Michigan and MBA from Loyola University. From 1984 to 2000 he served as the founder and president of a successful West Coast high tech firm with offices in Los Angeles, Portland and Seattle.He witnessed the unfolding of the digital divide first-hand, with its devastating inequity for the poor and people of color, and decided to do something about it. Using profits from his company, in 1992 he built a technology camp for at-risk youth on Mount Rainier in Washington state, then operated it from 1995 to 2009, serving thousands of youth and winning some of America’s highest awards for education excellence.
This became the Wilderness Technology Alliance. From 2009 to 2016 he served as Global Leader of Technology for Development (ICT4D) at Save the Children and World Vision, two of the largest international development organizations in the world, leading teams of technologist to create technology solutions in the poorest, often most remote areas of the world. Yet, he always dreamed of coming back to lead the WTA, and in 2016 Lou became its Executive Director.