Alan Pence is UNESCO Chair for Early Childhood Education, Care and Development and Professor, University of Victoria. He is the recipient of the International Education Leadership Award from the Canadian Bureau for International Education and the University of Victoria’s Craigdarroch Research Award for Societal Benefit. Dr. Pence’s career began with a decade of work in non-profit child and community development programs and he carried those commitments and concerns through into his academic career. In 1989 he established the First Nations Partnerships Program, a community-initiated partnership supportive of locally based, culturally appropriate education. In 1999, at the request of seminar participants in Africa, he founded the Early Childhood Development Virtual University, an approach to leadership promotion and capacity building that is based on the pursuit of objectives identified by countries themselves.