Thomas Kamber, Ph.D.

Director
OATS (Older Adults Technology Services)

Tom Kamber is an award-winning social entrepreneur, educator and activist who has created new initiatives in aging, technology, affordable housing and the arts. As founder and executive director of Older Adults Technology Services (OATS), Tom has helped over 30,000 seniors get online and created the country’s first technology-themed community center for older adults. Tom teaches social entrepreneurship and philanthropy at Columbia University and has published widely in academic journals on topics including public policy, business strategy, and technology. He speaks regularly at local, national, and international conferences, including the Consumer Electronics Show, the Institute of Medicine (National Academies), the American Society on Aging, the Federal Communications Commission, TEDx Columbia, and the Amplify Festival in Australia. Tom is a member of the Aging Working Group of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, and also serves on the New York City Mayor’s Broadband Task Force, the Age-Friendly New York Commission, and the New York State Broadband Advisory Council. His work has been featured widely in the media, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The Washington Post, National Public Radio, and The Today Show, and in 2014 he won the PR Week award for Community Relations Campaign of the Year. Tom is a co-founder and board member of the nonprofit Afro-Latin Jazz Alliance, which has won multiple Grammy awards, and is fluent in Spanish. Prior to founding OATS, Tom worked as a political campaign manager, branding strategist for a French IT corporation, project manager on a democracy-building initiative in Moscow, and tenant organizer in Harlem and the South Bronx. He has a BA in Latin from Columbia College and a PhD in Political Science from the City University of New York.