Ted Dintersmith is an education advocate, author, and filmmaker who has spent the past 15 years working alongside educators to rethink what learning should look like in the modern world. He has visited more than 200 schools across all 50 states, listening to teachers and students and studying approaches that prepare young people for real life beyond tests. His work earned him the NEA Friends of Education Award for his support of educators and public education. Earlier in his career, Ted earned a PhD in Engineering (focused on mathematical modeling) from Standford and went on to become an influential business leader at one of the world’s leading venture-capital firms. There, he carved out a niche investing in math-intensive startups, including companies building the systems that quietly shape daily life, from personalized news feeds and social-media algorithms to logistics optimization and healthcare simulation models. That experience gave him a firsthand look at how modern, revealing math actually operates in the real world, far beyond classrooms.