TED Community » John Werner

About Me

John is an activist, athlete, change agent, connector, educator, idea generator, parent, photographer, social entrepreneur, technologist and founding member and current Managing Director and Chief Mobilizing Officer of Citizen Schools. John has helped transform Citizen Schools from a concept on paper in 1995 into a thriving national educational program. At the current time, Citizen Schools has 500 employees, 5000 students, 3200 volunteers, a budget of $25 million, and programs in 7 states and 20 cities. Over 16 years John has redesigned and redefined classroom learning; developed a pipeline for the next generation of leaders; created opportunities for all adults to take part in the education of youth in their community; and helped youth create paths towards high school graduation, college, and career success. At Citizen Schools, John's work has included launching Citizen Schools first campuses, created the 8th Grade Academy, led Citizen Schools’ interest in a 20,000 sqf TechCenter in Dorchester, and was the first Executive Director of the Flagship Region. John was in-residence at Harvard University 2008/9, as 1/10 Loeb Fellows based out of Harvard Graduate School of Design, awarded to post-professionals for independent study with access to all the schools of Harvard and MIT. In college John defied game theory’s “Prisoner's Dilemma” and organized a world record swim rely. John has spoken and taught classes on game theory, Rubik's cube, Star Trek and social entrepreneurship. John is an active photographer (blog: www.johnwernerphotography.com), has created a video on China and been an on-air Host of Yo! What's the Origin of That?, 200 weekly live shows he created. John has presented at TED University in Long Beach CA, Intel Visionary Conference, TechTalk at Google, TEDxBoston and is presenting at BIF Conference. John is active in the TED community (X, ED, Youth and is 1 of 5 Executive Curators of TEDxBoston). John has participated in 36 Ironman races, including qualifying for the 70.3 World Championships 2008 & ’10 and WTA Age-group National 2011. Some of his associations include: LeadBoston (class of 2000); Renaissance Weekend; City to City Leadership Exchange; BWP (Connector). John is also coach for the Brookline U9 Lacrosse. John was a Boston Public Schools teacher for 4 years and principal of Wediko Children Services prior to starting Citizen Schools. John has served on: Governor's Readiness Project; Lt. Governor's STEM Advisory Council; WGBH Community Advisory Board; Citizen for Safety (stopping handgun violence); Schools/Scholarship: TechBoston, Epiphany, Codman Academy, Posse, Hamilton College (Boston President, 2000-2005). For 10 years John ran the Boston Harbor 10 Mile Swim. John has been Senior Advisor to Khazei for Senate and was Director of Operation/Volunteers for Roosevelt for Governor. John is an advisor to internet start-up company HowAboutWe. John is married to Erika Alvarez Werner and they are parents of three (3, 5, & 8) and have a bilingual Spanish household.