Michael North is the founder of North Communications, a leading public access network company. Since 1986, the firm has built hundreds of electronic commerce solutions that deliver complex transactions to the general public through public access touchscreens.

The company's clients include the states of California, Texas, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Utah, Washington, Michigan, Kansas and Florida, the U.S. Congress, Los Angeles, Tulare and San Diego Counties, Northrop, Cadillac, City of Chicago, New York City, University Credit Union, Citizens Bank, Microsoft, IBM, BellSouth, GTE, MCI, Sears, Hewlett-Packard, the PGA, Andersen Consulting, Social Security Administration, Veterans Administration, Medicare, U.S. Postal Service, Puerto Rico, the Republic of Singapore, Brisbane Australia, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia Canada, and others.

As President and CEO, Michael initiated and developed a strategic relationship with billionaire broadcasting and telecommunications investor John W. Kluge of Metromedia Company, New York. Metromedia is now the majority shareholder of North Communications, and Mr. Kluge sits on the Board of Directors.

North Communications has received many international awards for its work, including the Gold and Silver Cindy (Cinema in Industry), the Kennedy School of Government/Ford Foundation (twice), and the Byte Invision Award (twice). Michael speaks extensively to industry and professional groups, including Comdex, Service to Citizens, Government Technology, the Library of Congress, the National Science Foundation, the Congressional Forum on Social Security, the General Services Administration, the International Engineering Consortium, and the International Telecommunications Union. He serves as a judge on the annual Global Information Infrastructure Awards, a founding member of The Standard for Internet Commerce, authors papers for network and media industry publications, and has consulted independently on internet security and biometrics to GTE Corporation.

Michael's early professional background was in publishing (editor of New Directions magazine), in computer networking (creator of conferencing projects in the 70's on the proto-Internet at the New Jersey Institute of Technology) and in television production (associate producer of prime-time shows for CBS Network). In the mid-80's, as vice president of CompuSave, he directed media and software development for a pioneering multimedia public access retail operation.

Recently, Michael helped to establish Greenstar Foundation, a non-profit organization which installs solar-powered community centers in developing countries worldwide. A Greenstar system incorporates health, education, employment, telecommunications and ecommerce functions in a single enclosure; it was first installed in Al-Kaabneh, an "off-the-grid" community on the West Bank near the Dead Sea. He also helped establish Greenstar Corporation, a business which holds the license to commercialize Greenstar technologies worldwide. Greenstar co-operates closely with the US Department of Energy, the United Nations Development Programme, the International Telecommunications Union, and other international organizations.

Several recent papers are available online: The 21st Century ATM , The Unwebbed Majority, The Greenstar Opportunity and A Call for Smart Electrons, Digital Culture and E-Philanthropy.

The North Communications site on the Web provides more detail, at http://www.infonorth.com. The Greenstar website is available at http://www.greenstar.org. Further materials are at http://www.mediasense.com.