The Tech & Learning Innovative Leader Awards recognizes exceptional district administrators in select regions around the country who are leading innovation in their schools. Nominees must meet one or more of the criteria below: 

• Future-Ready Pedagogy: The nominee demonstrates a strategic shift from rote memorization toward durable, future-ready competencies that prepare students for an evolving landscape.

 

• Emerging Technology Leadership: The nominee champions initiatives that integrate cutting-edge technologies within meaningful contexts, ensuring students move beyond consumption to creation and fluency.

 

• Scalable Systems Integration: Evidence of leveraging technology to personalize learning, modernize professional development, and build sustainable frameworks that outlast short-term budget cycles.

 

• Culture of "Failing Forward": The nominee cultivates a high-trust environment where staff and students are encouraged to take calculated risks, celebrating the iterative process and lessons learned from failure.

 

• Strategic Ecosystem Partnerships: Candidates have bridged the gap between the classroom and the real world by fostering mutually beneficial alliances with industry, higher education, and civic leaders.

 

• Measurable Equity & Opportunity: This criterion prioritizes creative, data-driven solutions that have demonstrably closed achievement or opportunity gaps, ensuring high-level innovation is accessible to every student.