TED Fellow Juliette LaMontagne is pushing education further—outside of the classroom. A former New York City high school teacher, LaMontagne is the founder of Breaker, a social innovation program in which "legions of underestimated young people with new insights to old problems” use design solutions and entrepreneurial savvy to address our biggest social challenges.

LaMontagne connects interdisciplinary groups of youth with industry leaders and innovators to bring new ideas to fruition. Successful business solutions have been found for everything from the future of the book to urban agriculture. The idea for this creative problem-solving process began with LaMontagne's personal experiences in teaching. She noticed, time and again, that the most effectively learning strategies often involved extra-curricular activities. The interaction and hands-on approach simply stuck better than more traditional methods. Breaker arose from the desire to focus and intensify these results and establish a model for education in the real world. Before Breaker, LaMontagne taught at public school, and was a professor at Columbia University, where she was also the coordinator of the MA student teaching program for pre-service teachers.