Transforming Systems, Empowering Students | The Vision of Mike Ross
From a technology-focused classroom in New England to the underserved communities of Los Angeles, Mike Ross’s journey is a powerful testament to how personal challenges can fuel a transformative vision for society. Diagnosed with autism and faced with learning difficulties during his early school years, Mike found empowerment not through traditional academics, but through hands-on experience and creative exploration, laying the foundation for a lifelong commitment to education reform.
His story is not just about overcoming adversity, it’s about reimagining the very systems that shape our future. After moving to California, Mike’s exposure to systemic inequalities in education sparked a deep resolve to act. What began as a creative career evolved into a mission-driven pursuit: building Future Forward Education, a nonprofit organization focused on reshaping how education functions at its core.
In this exclusive journey article, Mike shares how he transitioned from personal growth to public impact, developing scalable models for education, implementing innovative curricula, and leveraging data to foster long-term academic change. With a research-intensive approach and a system-centric mindset, Mike is not just supporting students, he’s rebuilding the educational frameworks that support entire communities.
Read on to discover how Mike Ross is leading with purpose, blending creativity with advocacy, and proving that the future of education lies in bold, visionary reform.
Early Challenges That Sparked a Vision
Tell us about your early life, education, and what led you to start your business?
I grew up in New England and spent my entire childhood there. I attended a Center for Technology at my high school and spent junior and senior year being exposed to hands-on learning and to the technologies that I'm passionate about to this very day. I eventually moved out west to California in 2010 to pursue my interest in the creative industry.
That move was amplified in importance by the fact that when I was a child going through school, I dealt with mental and emotional challenges such as being autistic and having learning difficulties. This made my time during high school in the Center for Technology pivotal to my ultimate transformation, opening up and realizing a potential I never knew I had.
After settling out west, I spent the first couple of years in college continuing to study and eventually entered the workforce, putting my craft into practice. My creative interests never faded, and I became increasingly interested in education the more time I spent in Los Angeles. I was no longer seeing the typical venues such as the Santa Monica Pier, the Hollywood Strip, or other famous landmarks. I started seeing other sides of the community that I never saw growing up, communities with adversity, poverty, crime, and other challenges, which upset me. This is how I went from combining my creative background into a passion for wanting to improve our system of education.
Building Future Forward Education: A System-Centric Mission
What is your business, and what makes it unique in the market?
Future Forward Education is a nonprofit organization with a mission to improve the education experience for students and their families through reform by creating solutions with increased access to resources, building partnerships, and monitoring student progress. It is the result of many years of research in academics, school climate, pedagogy, etc. Initially, before conducting all the necessary research, it was about the student. I thought we could create opportunities in tutoring, mentoring, and STEM offerings. However, after studying the system, I continued to see more problems and wanted the organization to zoom out and look at the foundation that supports that system. So, we became system-centric versus student-centric, a whole-family, bottom-up approach to finding more solutions.
I envision the organization as an opportunity not just to produce one-off solutions in small, designated chunks but rather as an entity that develops models that can be scaled for long-term adoption, models that are representative of the products we implement, the services we provide, and the overall transaction of how we educate in the classroom going forward.
A Major Milestone: Financial Literacy in the Classroom
What is one key achievement or milestone your business has reached?
One of the major components of what we would like to keep building out is placing more relevant content in front of students. Content can be any instructional or learning material such as curriculum. We developed an early-stage financial literacy curriculum and had a full course completed at a middle school. This was a huge milestone because it was our first effort that consisted of a full class, and it was during normal school hours versus being implemented in an after-school effort. We feel that if we reach students during school hours, we will likely be able to work with more of them over time rather than programs that run outside of school hours, since those become electives.
The Road Ahead: Redefining Educational Systems
What are your future goals for the business?
I feel very strongly that we need to focus on the most important asset we have in society, education. This system is tasked with producing generational opportunities in the form of students and humans, and yet the system is fragile and flawed. I feel some of the issues have remained stagnant for decades, and that we need to become more innovative in how we develop solutions and make sure they can be future-proofed so that, over time, communities benefit from what that system produces. Educational progress is essential to creating more paths of prosperity.
I want Future Forward Education to continue to engage with schools and to develop partnerships that give us access to key resources in terms of staffing, educators, and students so that we can then continue to plan out the development of a "privatized" academic entity. I want the organization to not only look at the current system but to start defining what a new system could look like, one that gives us more flexibility in the act of pedagogy and a space where we are allowed to be innovative through the transaction of the educator and the learner of tomorrow.
Staying Ahead with Innovation and Research
How do you stay competitive in your industry?
I am always thinking to myself how fortunate it is to have experience in a background that allows me to further push ideas and solutions into the education space. Over the years, I have developed a skill set that allows me to design, develop, and engineer applications and systems that can be launched onto a shared platform. In the case of education, I can take this skill set and develop learning-based solutions as well as tools that can collect and analyze data which can be used for tracking learning growth over time.
I understand that the education landscape is extremely dynamic and we must be able to be responsive to the changes, not only in the types of technology and content that students receive but also in how the classroom functions. I am very interested in the science of learning and pedagogy and feel that we need to focus on educational modeling to enhance and sustain how we let learners interface within the transaction of education itself.
We are also research-intensive in that everything we do is backed by data and analysis to better understand the customers and the need. I want us to be inside the system as a means of obtaining more of that necessary research, as I feel the best way to understand the livelihoods of our customers is to be with them during the process.
Advice to Future Changemakers and Visionaries
What advice would you give to aspiring entrepreneurs?
I would tell them that if they are at all passionate about wanting to see change or are interested in contributing to a cause, to zoom out a little bit. What I mean by that is to take this one thing you are looking at that grabs your attention or that you want to analyze a bit more and maybe forces you to question why it is the way it is, then take a step back and look at the bigger picture and strive to determine the system that supports that one thing. Then, study that system to gain an understanding of the root problems and make that your focal point for positive change. Ultimately, once you become passionate about wanting to see a change in something, zoom out. Focus on the system-of-things, not the individual-of-things.
I would also say that our visions and passions are our greatest gifts in the professional realm, and not to fear the weight or feeling of pressure they may give us. When getting new ideas, start writing down the goal projections and outlines. Initially, this can be the high-level itemization, which can be broken down later into smaller, actionable steps.
Conclusion
Mike Ross’s work is a clear reminder that real change in education begins with questioning what exists and having the courage to envision what could be. His approach, rooted in personal experience, driven by system-level insight, and backed by data, goes far beyond temporary solutions. Instead, he is building a scalable, inclusive, and sustainable educational model that speaks to the needs of both learners and communities.
Through Future Forward Education, Mike is not only advocating for reform, he is actively engineering it. From developing in-class financial literacy programs to designing platforms that track student progress, his commitment is unwavering: to create an education system that empowers every student by addressing the root, not just the result.
To follow Mike’s journey, explore his organization’s mission, or connect with his team, visit:
- Website: https://futureforwardeducation.org
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/futureforwardeducation
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/97404002
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/futureforwardeducation
Mike Ross is redefining how we think about education, one solution, one partnership, and one future-forward step at a time.
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