This blog post is part of a series featuring each of the 2015 Net Impact Conference keynote speakers. This year's theme is Game On, and we couldn't be more excited to see these players take the field in November. Here's why... 

Stephen Ritz

Founder & Chief Eternal Optimist, Green Bronx Machine

Why we're excited:

As the global population balloons, we have to rethink global food systems and reimagine how to use existing spaces to grow healthy food. Stephen Ritz is doing just that with his students in the Bronx, New York.

Not only has Stephen produced more than 300,000 pounds of vegetables in the Bronx, he has shared his message with the world, reaching more than 900,000 people with his TEDxManhattan talk. Stephen is challenging us to think outside of the box when it comes to schools, students, and urban farming.

Interested in joining us in Seattle this fall? Get more information on NI15 and register here.

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About Stephen:

Stephen Ritz is a South Bronx educator / administrator who believes that students shouldn’t have to leave their community to live, learn, and earn in a better one. Moving generations of students into spheres of personal and academic successes they have never imagined, while reclaiming and rebuilding the Bronx, Stephen’s extended student and community family have grown more than 30,000 pounds of vegetables in the Bronx while generating extraordinary academic performance.

Just named a 2015 Top Ten Finalist for the Global Teacher Prize, Stephen’s accolades include a 2014 Greenius Award, 2014 Green Difference Award, 2013 Latin Trends Award, ABC Above and Beyond Award, Chevrolet / General Motors National Green Educator Award, USS Intrepid Hometown Hero Award, NYC Chancellor’s Award and various others.
 
In 2013, American Teacher: Heroes in the Classroom identified and featured Stephen as one of the top fifty teachers in America. Stephen helped earn his school the first ever Citywide Award of Excellence from the NYC Strategic Alliance for Health and directly attributes these results to growing vegetables in school.

The National Association of Secondary School Principals cited Stephen’s work and Green Bronx Machine as one of five national exemplars of service learning. In 2014, Stephen’s fourth and fifth grade students received a personal invitation to the White House by Chef William Yosses. His Bronx classroom featured the first indoor edible wall in NYC DOE, which routinely generated enough produce to feed healthy meals to 450 students while training the youngest nationally certified workforce in America. His students, traveling from Boston to Rockefeller Center to the Hamptons, earn living wages en route to graduation.

Stephen has consistently moved attendance from 40 percent to 93 percent daily, partnered towards 2,200 youth jobs in the Bronx and captured the United States EPA Award for transforming mindsets and landscapes in NYC. A strong advocate for Project Based Learning, Stephen is an annual presenter for the Buck Institute and works with school districts and universities across the country. Stephen has worked with and conducted professional development for the AFT, UFT as well as charter, independent, public and private schools. Internationally, he consults with Instituto Thomas Jefferson in Mexico, was named a Delegate at WISE (World Innovation Summit for Education), lectures for the Hebrew University and recently spoke at Congreso Nacional de Educacion in Medellin, Colombia. 

Stephen’s speech at Columbia University, entitled “From Crack to Cucumbers,” along with the release of a YouTube Video, “Urban Farming NYC,” resulted in a national following, including an invitation to the White House Garden. Dubbed the Pied Piper of Peas by Lorna Sass, Stephen launched Green Bronx Machine to a national audience and was selected as a national Green Apple Education Ambassador for the US Green Building Council and Center for Green Schools. He is currently working on embedding the concepts of sustainability, food, energy and environmental justice into K-12 programming and beyond while building the first ever independently financed National Health, Wellness and Biodiversity Center in a 100+ year old reclaimed school library in the heart of Claremont Village, South Bronx at Public School 55. Green Bronx Machine celebrated a 2014 Best of Green Schools Award; one of only ten recipients across the United States.
 
Stephen has electrified and inspired audiences of all types with his “Si Se Puede” message of hope, urgency and Amer-I-Can innovation. His TEDx Manhattan Talk trended on Twitter and has over 900k views – ranked in the Top 25 Food / Education TED Talks of all time and is used for teacher training / workforce development globally. In February 2013, Stephen received the first standing ovation in the thirteen-year history of Green Biz and went on to standing ovations at the United Nations Social Innovation Summit and City Resilient. In 2014, he keynoted the Green Schools National Conference, Innovation Land, American Institute of Architects and WOBI (World of Business Ideas), Landmark’s Social Innovation Summit, amongst numerous others, all to standing ovations. Stephen uses his platform of public speaking to support numerous philanthropic activities locally, nationally and abroad.

To date, Stephen’s work has been featured in Forbes, Wall Street Journal, Fast Track, The Guardian, Caring Magazine, Triple Pundit and on ABC, CNN, NBC, TNT, Disney and NPR as well as internationally and regionally across the country. In 2013, the United States Department of State and New York Foreign Press Corps toured representatives from 40 countries across Stephen’s worksites and classrooms. Stephen is an Office Depotfeatured teacher – Teachers Change Lives! Dedicated to harvesting hope and cultivating minds, Stephen dreams of opening a nationally replicable Career Technical Education public school in the poorest Congressional District in America rooted in urban agriculture, green, and sustainable initiatives. Stephen recently lost more than 100 pounds by modeling positive behavior and eating what he and his students grow in school.

Stephen believes that together, via collaboration, coalition and get to yes solutions, we can all prosper!