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Jeff Smith: How Much Entrepreneurial Potential Lives Inside Our Prisons?

Part 1 of the TED Radio Hour episode Hidden Potential

About Jeff Smith's TED Talk

After serving a year in prison, Jeff Smith realized his fellow inmates were just as business savvy as many on the outside. He now works to help inmates harness those skills when they leave prison.

About Jeff Smith

Jeff Smith is an executive vice president of Concordance Academy, an organization dedicated to restoring individuals, rebuilding families, transforming communities and advancing the field of re-entry services.

Smith is a former Missouri state senator who was convicted in 2009 for lying on an official FBI affidavit about a 2004 campaign violation. Smith served one year and one day in jail. Since being released from prison, Smith served as assistant professor at the New School's Milano Graduate School of Management and Urban Policy. He has also published a memoir, Mr. Smith Goes to Prison.

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NPR/TED Staff
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