Stephen Ritz
Founder of Green Bronx Machine
Stephen is a pioneer in urban agriculture and education, famous for transforming classrooms into high-yield, indoor farming labs. His work addresses the technical intersection of food security, community health, and educational engagement.
Urban Agriculture as a Public Health Tool
Stephen provides a technical blueprint for integrated agricultural technology in public schools. He demonstrates how these "indoor ecosystems" serve as a scalable solution for improving community health outcomes and economic resilience, proving that growing food is a fundamental act of social innovation.
Biography
Stephen Ritz is an award-winning, global educator, best-selling author of The Power Of A Plant, & Founder of Green Bronx Machine. Known as America's Favorite Teacher, he created the first edible classroom in the world supported by whole-school K-12 curriculum. He and his students have grown more than 375,000 pounds of vegetables in the South Bronx, been celebrated at the Obama White House three times, been featured by Forbes, Fast Company, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, FOX, TNT, Disney, NPR, and internationally from Colombia to Dubai. His TED talk boasts more than 1M views, ranked the Top 10 Food/Education TED Talk of all time, and is used for teacher training/workforce development globally. Stephen’s work is the subject of a full-feature documentary, Generation Growth. Stephen manages a network of 1,100 schools and is featured in the Educational TV Series called Let’s Learn with Mister Ritz.
Creator of the first edible classroom
TED talk speaker with over 1 million views (Top 10 Food/Education talk)
Celebrated at the Obama White House on three separate occasions
Manager of a global network of 1,100 schools
Best-selling author of The Power Of A Plant