Professor William Gumede founded several successful private, including technology companies, social impact non-profit companies and state companies. 

He founded and chairs the Democracy Works Foundation, now expanded to eight countries, and which amongst others develop technology products to strengthen democracy and environmental, sustainable and governance (ESG) impact. 

He is a director of BBD software.

His passion for technology, and its applications for sustainable development, started during the apartheid-era in South Africa, when as a teenager he taught community members and students basic computer literacy under the auspices of the Computer Laboratory of the Education Department, at the University of the Western Cape and the Cape Educational Computer Society, established to boost computer literacy in the country’s black townships. He was deputy editor, of The Sowetan, then SA’s largest daily newspaper, where he helped bring the paper into the digital era. He was a member of the PostGlobal Panel of the Washington Post and Newsweek, one of the early newspaper online interactive opinion sites. 

He spent a significant time in academia and is attached to the School of Governance, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. Previously, he was Senior Associate Member & Oppenheimer Fellow, St. Antony’s College, Oxford University; Program Director, Africa Asia Centre, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London; Senior Research Fellow, London School of Economics and Political Sciences (LSE); Press Fellow, Wolfson College, Cambridge University; Course Leader, School of Public Policy, Central European University, Budapest; Course-Leader, New School University, New York; and Visiting Fellow, Duke University, North Carolina. 

He is a multiple number 1 bestselling author of internationally award-winning non-fiction and children’s fiction books. He won a number of local and international awards, including a Special Commendation from UNESCO.