Christine Ortiz

Christine Ortiz is a social entrepreneur, with expertise in the fields of marketing and branding, youth empowerment, education and curriculum design. An MIT grad with two masters’ degrees (M.Ed and MNM from the University of Central Florida), Ortiz spent her high school years working on the national, teen anti-smoking Truth Campaign and advising corporate executives on engaging youths for social change. At the age if 18 she founded her company, Allen Ortiz Consulting, through which she developed youth empowerment curriculums, designed marketing and branding strategies for social change initiatives, launched state and country-wide change campaigns, and spoke in front of hundreds of thousands of youth and adults. She opened a tutoring and test prep center, a stepping-stone to her most recent venture, a K-12 school. Lawton Chiles Preparatory School is an innovative school, with mixed-age classrooms, an integrated and thematic curriculum design, and a constant focus on individuality. While this alternative structure works well for all students, it is particularly successful with students that would otherwise have fallen through the cracks, particularly twice-exceptional students, students that are gifted and also have a learning disability. Her background in entrepreneurship, branding, marketing and empowerment help mold her innovative approach to education. Christine is constantly working on multiple projects and ventures simultaneously, including consulting on different for-profit and non-profit organizations, projects encouraging minority and youth entrepreneurship, and empowering youth to engage in social change issues. Christine and her organizations have been featured in various publications including the M.I.T. Newsletter, Success Magazine, Alpha Phi Quarterly, USA Today, Seminole Voice, the Orlando Sentinel, the Orlando Business Journal and Entrepreneur Magazine. Christine has also been a keynote speaker at state and national conferences on topics of youth empowerment and social change. Her book “Kinetic Transformation” is due out Spring of 2012. Christine founded The Knowledge Laboratory at the age of 24 and Lawton Chiles Preparatory School at the age of 26.