SocraticExperience.com, a secondary school for parents seeking a warm, motivating, high performance virtual educational experience for their children, specializing in creative, intellectual, and entrepreneurial students whose needs are not being met by conventional schools.

Founder of the Academy of Thought and Industry, an innovative Montessori-aligned high school with campuses in SF, NYC, Austin, and St. Louis.  They are managed by Higher Ground Education, the leading Montessori network in the U.S.

Twenty-eight years creating innovative K-12 programs and schools, based on Montessori, Socratic, and entrepreneurial principles, including an inner city school at which minority females gained four years of critical thinking skills in four months (on a test that correlates with SAT and IQ); a Montessori middle school in Palo Alto where the average 8th grade SAT for students was higher than the average private school senior; a school for gifted children where middle schoolers passed AP science courses; MVHS, a rural New Mexican school ranked the 36th best public high school in the U.S.; and KoSchool in Austin.  My book, The Habit of Thought:  From Socratic Seminars to Socratic Practice summarizes my approach.  All of my schools are based on the cultivation of respectful, civil, authentic intellectual dialogue.

This led to FLOW, a non-profit devoted to promoting entrepreneurial solutions to world problems, co-founded with John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods Market.  My second book, Be the Solution:  How Entrepreneurs and Conscious Capitalists Can Solve All the World's Problems, co-authored with Mackey, Mohammad Yunus, Hernando de Soto, and others summarizes our approach.

Because global poverty is the biggest of all problems, FLOW led me to focus on bringing better law and governance to the global poor.  As a consequence, I began working to create Special Development Regions and e-government in  Honduras, Senegal, and other regions around the world.

I'm passionate about entrepreneurial solutions to world problems, with personal interest and experience in education and law/governance.  I write on these issues at Medium.

Michael Strong

Greenergyze

Enhance processes and boost sales to lead the Solar Revolution

Business Analyst

Independent Consultant

Project Management
Innovation
Digital Transformation
Digital Marketing
Sales

Management Consultant

Innovation Everywhere

I gave talks and workshops on Design Thinking and Innovation to more than 3,000 people.

Over the course of 20 years studying —and nearly a decade teaching— innovation and design thinking, I discovered that the biggest obstacle that people and companies face is the belief that innovation is out of their reach. Based on this insight, I created Innovation Everywhere with the specific goal of helping to overcome such obstacle.

Founder and Trainer 

Municipalidad de Guatemala

I trained and coached more than 2,200 entrepreneurs in Business Model Generation. 

I created and continuously improved the syllabus for all the programs offered by the Municipal Entrepreneurship Center —the first formal entrepreneurship center in all Central America. 

After analyzing the impact of the technical training offered by the Municipality of Guatemala, we discovered that most people managed to learn to produce goods and services, but they rarely knew how to build a successful business around the skills they had learned. To overcome this limitation, we decided to create a free training program in entrepreneurship and business administration. We made it free because we intended to help the people who needed it the most. We were baffled when we discovered that more than 25% of those enrolled had university degrees and had come to us because all their education hadn't actually taught them how to start a business in real life —including MBA's from fancy universities.

Co-Founder and Board Member of the Municipal Entrepreneurship Center 

I led and achieved the proposal, discussion, and approval of innovative regulation, such as the controversial Territorial Arrangement Plan of Guatemala City.

Aware of the fact that private investment is the engine that drives economic growth, we strictly followed the Design Thinking methodology to determine what would be the single change in municipal regulation that would cause the greatest positive impact possible on the acceleration of private investment, to shape it into a viable proposal, to discuss it with all the relevant political and civil authorities, and to get it approved and successfully implemented.

Councilman VII of the Guatemala City Council 

I performed economic analyses of proposals for modification of current regulations.

Back then, Economic Analysis of the Law was practically unheard of in Guatemala. We knew about it in the universities, but there was no documentation of it been used by any governmental authorities. 

Leading the field as usual, my contention that I was the first person to implement Economic Analysis of the Law in this country has not been disputed up to this day.

Advisor to the Guatemala City Council 

Universidad Galileo

I delivered Business Model Generation lessons to over 9,000 students from all over Latin America.

It can be hard to imagine nowadays, but back in 2014 online learning was still incipient. At that time, I hadn’t heard about any other initiative to produce a MOOC in Guatemala. When Galileo University came up with this pioneering project, I knew I just had to be in.

Entrepreneurship MOOC Teacher 

I gave the Business Model Generation course to the Postgraduate students.

This Postgraduate was designed as the most effective way to improve the employability and job prospects of the Engineering graduates, by adding to their already excellent technical skills: business acumen, entrepreneurship networking, and more than 100 hours of hands-on start-up experience.

Postgraduate in Entrepreneurship and Technological Innovation Teacher

Universidad Francisco Marroquin

I delivered the courses Economic Process I, II, and III to students from all faculties of the university. 

Universidad Francisco Marroquín was the first university in Guatemala to adopt the Socratic Method as a means to improve the learning experience. I was lucky enough to be part of the first cohort of teachers who received the training to use this method and then implemented it in the classrooms. Such was our success that the use of the Socratic Method was extended to all departments and is still the norm up to this day.

Catedrático de Economía

Back in the 90's, I decided to be a Boy Scout. In just a few years I became a Scout Quetzal —the highest possible rank in my country. 

When I entered university, I decided to get a Bachelor's degree in Economics. I ended up getting a Master's degree in Economics, Cum Laude, and becoming an Economics teacher at Universidad Francisco Marroquín.

I didn't continue with my Economics PhD because I got headhunted to work for the Municipality of Guatemala City, as an advisor to the City Council. Four years later, I was elected Councilman. 

I decided to part with politics in 2016. I'd been on my own since then, mostly doing Management, Business Management, and Innovation Consulting. I excel at it. But it's time for the next big step.

taplio

The Battle

Michael Strong

Jorge Luis Contreras Herrera

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