Michael Furdyk is a young innovator, consultant, and speaker. He is passionate about helping to raise awareness and make sense of how organizations can engage and motivate the next generation of students, employees, and entrepreneurs.
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Michael was born in 1982, the year that the Commodore 64 made its entry onto the market. A few years later, at the age of 3, his family purchased a Commodore 64 for Michael. Michael's facination with technology led to starting his first business, M&S Enterprises, before he turned 10. He discovered Bulletin Board Systems in the early 1990's, and started his own, participating in the early stages of technology-empowered community. After discovering the Internet through Compuserve in 1995, Michael presented to his Grade 8 class about a new phenomenon called Banner advertising, and a new company called Yahoo! that was relying on this form of advertising as a sole revenue model. He soon became captivated with the idea of creating web sites after meeting people from around the world on Internet Relay Chat (IRC), and created a site called the Internet Exposed with a group of others. The idea behind the site was to 'expose' how easy the Internet was to use -- to review software tools and to explain to anyone interested how to use the Internet and create web sites. He met Michael Hayman, a young Australian, in an IRC chat room, and the two decided to merge their sites together to create a 'megasite' called MyDesktop. MyDesktop grew to reach over 500,000 monthly users by 1999, at which time the pair and a number of others involved sold the site to New York City-based Internet.com, in exchange for a non-disclosed seven-figure sum and investment in BuyBuddy.com, the Michaels' next project. After the sale of MyDesktop.com, Michael received thousands of e-mails from young people around the world due to the media attention resulting from the sale. After meeting with friend Jennifer Corriero at a reunion of a summer program from 1997, Michael and Jennifer both recognized the need to create an organization that would respond to the global need of young people to be connected to opportunities, share their expressions, take action, and collaborate in a community, and called it TakingITGlobal. After meeting with a number of their mentors and advisors, including author Don Tapscott and RBC Financial Group SVP Charles Coffey, the pair connected with an executive from Microsoft, who invited them to share their message and understanding of the next generation with the company's business units. Furdyk and Corriero moved to Seattle and worked with Microsoft for 6 months in 2000, working with various product groups at Microsoft, and at the same time speaking at conferences around the country and the world about their idea for TakingITGlobal. At the same time, BuyBuddy.com was still growing. The idea was to provide an un-biased source to help people make buying decisions, from computers to music to books, helping consumers help each other decide what products to buy and what retailer to buy them from. In early 2000, CNET bought competitor MySimon.com for $700 million, and the BuyBuddy team went to look for partners and investors to take their technology and success to a similar level. After a meeting with Rogers New Media CEO Mike Abramsky and CFO Butch Langlois, the pair (Mike and Butch) decided to leave Rogers and become BuyBuddy's CEO and CFO. In September 2000, the BuyBuddy team raised $4.5 million of venture capital from XDL Intervest. The company grew until late 2001, when the stock market affected customers to such a degree that the business model behind the company required the site to scale down to be run as a hobby by several of its staff. Furdyk now invests his time as Director of Technology for TakingITGlobal, which has now grown into a community that has attracted over 5 million vistors and over 200,000 members from over 200 countries and territories. The site acts as a platform, resource, and network for the next generation, and connects young people together to help them be more effective in their quest for learning, expression, and the creation of positive change. He also continues to consult for major corporations on how to engage young people in their businesses, and speaks at approximately 3 conferences every month. He is on a variety of boards of directors and advisory boards for corporations and non-profit/charitable organization.

© 2009 Michael Furdyk