Sugata Mitra

Educational Researcher

Sugata's famous Hole in the Wall project demonstrated how young kids could figure out how to use a PC to learn on their own.  More amazingly, those kids could learn almost anything, in groups of four.  Here's a link to his speech.

Daphne Koller

Co-founder, Coursera

Daphne Koller gave a wonderful TED Talk – an inspiration to everyone who is helping the use of technology to will improve education for everyone.  Here's a link to her speech.

Bill Gates

Philanthropist

"Personalized learning is shaking up the classroom and letting students go at their own pace."

"One study found that among 62 schools using personalized learning, students made more progress in two years than their peers at other schools.  They started below the national average in reading and math; two years later, they were above it."

Here's more on what Bill Gates has written on improving education.

Salman Khan

American Educator

Sal Khan of Khan Academy wrote a book in 2012.  He explained the history of education, and how to improve what we have been doing for the last hundred years, and what the future will look like.  Here is a link.