Rick Smolan

Rick Smolan, CEO of Against All Odds Productions is a New York Times best-selling author with more than five million copies of his books in print.  A former Time, Life, and National Geographic photographer, Smolan is best known as the co-creator of the “Day in the Life” book series.  His global photography projects, which feature the work of hundreds of the world’s leading photographers and combine creative storytelling with state-of-the-art technology, are regularly featured on the covers of prestigious publications around the globe including Fortune, Time, and GEO.  Fortune magazine describes Against All Odds as “One of the 25 Coolest Companies in America.”

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Smolan’s publishing projects include From Alice to Ocean (1992) and Passage to Vietnam (1994), two groundbreaking books which showcased the potential of interactive technology to the book publishing world; 24 Hours in Cyberspace (1996), a book and online project that created a digital portrait of the Internet in its infancy; One Digital Day (1998), which explored the impact of the microprocessor on society;  AMERICA 24/7 (2003), the first mass customized New York Times bestseller and The Obama Time Capsule (2008), the first print-on-demand best seller.

His recent project “The Human Face of Big Data” captures how our planet is developing a nervous system. The “Human Face” iPad app won the WEBBY for best educational app and the companion TV documentary was broadcast nationwide on PBS on Feb 26, 2016 and won the award for “Best Cinematography” at the Boston Film Festival.

In late 2014 the Oscar Winning Producers of “The Kings Speech” released TRACKS, a feature film based on Smolan’s National Geographic story about Robyn Davidson’s 1700 mile nine month camel trek across the Australian outback.  In the movie Robyn is portrayed by Mia Wasikowska (“Stoker”, “The Kids are Alright”, “Alice in Wonderland” with Johnny Depp). Smolan is played in the film by Adam Driver, star of the hit TV series “GIRLS” and bad guy Kylo Ren in “Star Wars; The Force Awakens”.  Smolan’s new book  “INSIDE TRACKS: Alone Across the Outback” is a smart phone enabled coffee table book weaving together Davidson’s original journey, her story’s road to the silver screen and a delightful interactive component which enables readers to point their smart devices at Smolan’s original photographs and see how that scene was brought to life in the film.

Smolan has spoken at TED, The World Economic Forum in Davos, The Ford Foundation, The Wired Health Conference, TEDMED, Techonomy, DLD in Munich, IdeaCity in Canada, INK in India, The Strata Conference, etc. More than a million people have watched Smolan’s “Natasha’s Story” talk on TED.com (www.NatashaStory.com).

Smolan lives in New York City with his wife and business partner, Jennifer Erwitt, and their children, Phoebe and Jesse.