Google and Gapminder

What does it mean when a foundation owns a piece of software or an innovation? Since we´re in the process of starting a foundation for my innovation I wanted to look into this, and I came to think of the Gapminder Foundation.

Gapminder is a foundation that was started by Professor Hans Rosling at Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. Prof. Rosling has an incredible understanding of the statistics that describes counties development over time and Gapminder developed a software that visualized these statistics in a way that anyone can understand it.

To my knowledge, Prof. Rosling's major public break-though came when he talked at TED 2006 and presented "the best stats you've ever seen" in a fantastically enthusiastic and engaging way. What did this result in? Google bought the Gapminder software for an undisclosed sum of money...

Is that what we want? No. My innovation is a non-profit project with the aim of changing the world for the better, and that is not something we want to sell for personal profit. Why did Prof. Rosling do it then? Well, he didn't really...

"It is a charity that has sold the programme so I haven't had any money." says Hans Rosling.

The Gapminder Foundations statues says that "Gapminder is a non-profit venture promoting sustainable global development and achievement of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals by increased use and understanding of statistics and other information about social, economic and environmental development at local, national and global levels.". Selling their software to Google enables them to work towards their goal, and should in no way discredit neither the Gapminder Foundation nor Prof. Rosling.

In my case, I do not see a potential sale of my innovation but there will always be people that are suspisious of charity. I think that the Gapminder case shows that if the innovation is owned by a foundation it is hard for anyone to doubt the sensarity of our attempt to change the world.