Dr. Larry Brilliant, who in February stepped down as leader of the search giant's Google.org philanthropic arm to become its chief philanthropy officer, now is leaving Google altogether to run a $100 million project to address several major global challenges.

Brilliant now is president of a new organization called the Skoll Urgent Threats Fund founded "to address urgent threats confronting humanity and the planet," the Skoll Foundation said Tuesday. The initial funding of $100 million will be used "to combat climate change, water scarcity, pandemics, nuclear proliferation, and Middle East conflict."

That's a daunting list of challenges, but Brilliant has a daunting resume. Besides his work at Google.org, he was prominent in the effort to eradicate smallpox, worked for a decade as a professor of international health and epidemiology at the University of Michigan, founded Seva Foundation to cure blindness, co-founded the pioneering Internet community called The Well, and was chief executive of two publicly traded companies.

Source:http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-10219528-76.html