Rick Smolan, CEO of Against All Odds Productions, is a New York Times bestselling author and technology pioneer 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" books, the bestselling photography series in publishing history. His global photography projects feature the work of the world’s leading photojournalists and combine creative storytelling with state of the art technology.
Smolan’s newest book, “Inside Tracks: Alone Across the Outback” (2014), is a smartphone enabled coffee table book chronicling one of the most beloved stories in the history of National Geographic: Robyn Davidson’s 1700 mile solo trek across the Australian desert with four camels and a dog, The book’s publication was tied to the release of the movie “Tracks”, produced by the Oscar winning team behind “The King’s Speech”. In the movie, Robyn Davidson is portrayed by Mia Wasikowska ("Alice in Wonderland") and Smolan is played by Adam Driver, (HBO’s “GIRLS”).
In the fall of 2012 Smolan released "The Human Face of Big Data," focused on how our planet is developing a nervous system thanks to humanity's new ability to collect, analyze, and visualize vast amounts of data in real time. The project, sponsored by EMC, Cisco and SAP, resulted in a large format book, an WEBBY AWARD winning iPad app, and a TV special which won the 2014 Boston Film festival Award for Best Cinematography. The book was delivered simultaneously to 10,000 key influencers in 50 countries courtesy of FedEx.
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.
Smolan is a frequent speaker at business and technology conferences, including TED, The World Economic Forum at Davos, TEDMED, Techonomy, IdeaCity in Canada, DLD in Germany, and INK in India. More than a million people have watched his “Natasha’a 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.
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