With over 30 years’ experience in computers, networking, multimedia design, teaching, and applications development, Missen oversees the WiderNet’s efforts to improve digital education in underserved communities.
He leads the development of the eGranary Digital Library, an innovative way to deliver the world’s knowledge to people and institutions with inadequate Internet access. The eGranary Digital Library is installed in more than 2,000 schools, hospitals, clinics, and universities in Africa, India, Bangladesh, and Papua New Guinea.
Since 2001, Missen has trained over 8,700 people across Africa and India in information and communication technologies, including hundreds of decision makers from dozens of universities in sub-Saharan Africa.
Missen began working and volunteering in prisons in 1982 and since 2010 has been spearheading the effort to use off-line digital resources for education within the walls. The Corrections Offline Information Platform, a custom and secure version of the eGranary, is now installed in dozens of U.S. prisons.
A TED Fellow in 2007, a Senior Fulbright Scholar in Nigeria in 1999, he has made presentations at Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Google, World Bank, MIT, USAID, and dozens of professional conferences. Missen has provided consulting services to the U.S. Department of State, the Carnegie Corporation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, amongst others.