In honor of our 10th anniversary, eSchool News has put together a list of 10 people who have had a profound impact on educational technology in the last decade.

Chosen by the editors of eSchool News with help from our advisory board members, our list is by no means all-inclusive, as so many people have played a huge role in advancing educational technology over the last 10 years. But here are those we think are among the most responsible.

 Julie Evans
 CEO, Project Tomorrow

In the mid-90s, Sun Microsystems executive John Gage founded NetDay, which began as a grassroots campaign in California to wire schools but soon blossomed into a national nonprofit organization. Evans has been running the organization since 2000, when it expanded its mission beyond one-day "electronic barn-raising" efforts connecting neighborhood schools to the internet and started helping schools integrate technology effectively into the curriculum. Last year, NetDay merged with a California-based science education group to become Project Tomorrow.

Under Evans' leadership, the group has made its biggest impact through a series of annual surveys, called "Speak Up." These surveys aim to collect students', teachers', and parents' views on science, math, and technology, and how to improve education for the 21st century. Since 2003, more than 850,000 K-12 students and their teachers and parents have participated in the annual online Speak Up surveys, and the surveys' findings have helped shape ed-tech policy at the federal, state, and local levels.

 Bill Gates
 Chairman, Microsoft Corp.

Say what you want about Microsoft and its controversial business practices, but there is no denying that Gates and his company have made an immeasurable impact on education.

Gates has been a leading proponent of high school reform. Three years ago, he addressed the nation's governors and implored them to redesign America's high schools to meet the challenges of the new century. "America's high schools are obsolete," Gates told the governors that day. "By obsolete, I don't just mean that our high schools are broken, flawed, and under-funded—though a case could be made for every one of those points. By obsolete, I mean that our high schools—even when they're working exactly as designed—cannot teach our kids what they need to know today. Training the workforce of tomorrow with the high schools of today is like trying to teach kids about today's computers on a 50-year-old mainframe. It's the wrong tool for the times."