Leena Marie Saleh has been coined, "The Edtech Guru." She has devoted the majority of her professional life to helping to provide educators, administrators, and students with practical skills that will stand the test of time.

She gained insight into the disadvantages experienced by many students, as she was the very first generation in her family to graduate from both high school and college. Leena consistently achieved high grades as a student, yet she was never cognizant of the employment opportunities that existed outside her K–12 education.

When Leena first walked into her student teaching, she walked directly into a familiar room that undoubtedly had the same look and feel of a classroom she had dawned many years before. The desks sat in rows, the teacher was still at the center of the room. The curriculum resources were outdated. Although year after year the students who occupied those seats would change, the teaching practices themselves stood still. Teacher centric. It was then that she knew this wasn’t the way that she wanted to teach her students. Leena couldn't help but think that there had to be more.

It was in her second year of teaching that her administrative team brought the teaching staff on a field trip. On their way to the trip, the group of teachers had no idea where they were headed. When they arrived, the building was rather plain. It looked like a building that anyone would have driven by a thousand times and never even had known that it existed. Entering inside that building would forever change her. 

Inside that plain old building was an engineering firm that was abuzz. Each department within the building was working on something new, problem-solving, and communicating with one another. As she traveled from department to department, observing the local engineers, she could her own self in them. If she had only known that this type of career existed, that she might have changed her career path. It was then, at that moment, that she knew that this was the type of environment she wanted to bring to her own students.  That it was just the beginning of her education journey.

Leena has always been technology adverse, taking risks and exploring new platforms with ease. She always believed that the more platforms and resources that her students could be exposed to, the more flexible and risk-adverse they would be. With her approach and dedication, she watched students transform. Students who were often underachieving and left out of the possibility of exposure to new things. Once you give students the chance. They will fly. 

Leena knew that she couldn’t stand by and only watch her own student achieve. So she took what she knew and began to share her passion of what students could achieve with other educators, and edtech companies to help them with the same methodology that she brought to her students. 

Over her career, Leena has been dedicated to working collaboratively with educators, thought leaders and edtech companies, guiding them through this next 'ERA' of education. Disrupting old dated practice. Triumphantly bringing in new trends for tomorrow’s learners.  Leena devoutly believes that providing students the necessary skills for our viable future is vital and important in creating equitable opportunities for ALL learners. 

Leena has also spent the better half of four years helping to guide and coach educators who are looking to leave the classroom. If a student were to ask for help navigating their life post K12, why wouldn’t she help her own kind?