Tom Vander Ark has been named the president of the X Prize Foundation in Santa Monica, Calif., a nonprofit organization that runs high-profile competitions to motivate breakthroughs in several fields. It plans to establish an education prize. Mr. Vander Ark stepped down in December as the executive director for education programs at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where he oversaw more than $1.3 billion in K-12 grantmaking.
A version of this article appeared in the January 10, 2007 edition of Education Week