Does the name Jean Case sound familiar to you?

It should; she is, after all, why you’re able to read this article, right now. She’s the reason you can check your email while you commute. And she made possible Googling every burning question that pops into your mind. Back in the ’80s, Case directed the marketing and branding at AOL—when it was still a fledgling start-up. There, she made her mark as an Internet trailblazer, who helped bring the Internet into the homes of America.

The same courage and determination that have fueled her career and the innovations that define it, are what led the Be Fearless author to WE Day UN 2019. Before an audience of 19,000 young change-makers—full of passion and vision—she shared her famed five fearless principles for transformational change.

“As I looked out to the crowd, I knew that the greatest asset that we have for our future was sitting there,” she says from the green room at Brooklyn’s Barclay’s Center. “I know the work that WE Day has done is not just inspiring the kids, but giving them tangible knowledge and ways that they can get engaged.”

Case is, without a doubt, a fearless leader and role model. Following her success at AOL, she founded the Case Foundation, which invests in people and ideas that address pressing social challenges—the very actions taken by the youth seated before her at WE Day. She is also the chairman of the board of trustees for the National Geographic Society (a group dedicated to conservation and environmental protection), and she and her husband, Steve Case, joined The Giving Pledge, publicly committing to giving away the majority of their wealth to charitable causes.

But before she became a thought-leader encouraging others to push boundaries, she had her own strong female role models inspiring her to pursue her dreams, and molding her into the powerhouse she is today.

Her mother, Norma Norton, was among the most significant. “She was really my ‘fearless’ role model,” remembers Case.

As a single mother raising four kids, Norton worked double shifts as a waitress to provide for her children. As Case shares, she wore a smile, no matter what struggles the family was facing.

When Case was 11, Norton moved the family to South Florida, and Case became a self-described latchkey kid. It was her sixth grade teacher who began to keep an eye on the young Case, often under the guise of running errands or needing help with classroom tasks, until her mother returned home from work. The two have remained close to this day. “It was life-transforming for me,” says Case of the kindness she was shown by her teacher. “She, a little bit like my mom, gave me rope and let me run.”

Thinking back to everything the teacher did to support Case as a child, she points to a critical issue still affecting educators today: lack of resources. Research shows that 94 percent of teachers spend more than $500 of their own money on school supplies for their classrooms every year.

To combat the problem, WE and Walgreens launched the WE Teachers Award. Part of the WE Teachers program, which provides educators with free training and resources to help them address critical social issues in their classrooms, the award helps winning candidates, a.k.a. extraordinary educators, purchase the school supplies they need to empower their students.

Case recalls noticing the resource gap as a young student. “For some of those errands that I would run with my sixth grade teacher, she was taking money out of her very meager salary to buy what she wanted for her class. What so many people don’t realize is that teachers spend out of their own pocket for things that they bring into the classroom,” says Case. “That needs to change. We can all support them.”

WE Teacher and past WE Day speaker Jacqueline “Dr. J” Sanderlin agrees. As a principal in Los Angeles’ Compton, Inglewood and Culver City districts for almost two decades, Dr. J has seen firsthand the assistance that teachers need. Dr. J spent five years fundraising to refurbish schools in her district, including fixing playgrounds, renovating teacher’s lounges and acquiring new computers. “I want the future of my students to be limitless,” says Dr. J. “My perspective is for us not to just think big, but to think even bigger.”

Case wants the same limitless possibilities Dr. J references for students, and for the educators guiding them. “It’s hard to put into words the value of teachers to society,” she says. “Education is an incredible pathway into a great, purposeful life.”

In that spirit, to cap off her time on the WE Day stage, the philanthropist invited a teacher from Harlem’s Kipp Star Middle School to join her on stage. After sharing a heartfelt thank you with the educator for raising awareness around gun violence in her community, Case presented her with a $10,000 donation to the school’s Tylik Allen Scholarship Fund, started in memory of its namesake, a Kipp Star student who lost his life to gun violence in 2017.

That Case has been struck by the awe of WE Day is apparent. “I really love being here. It’s mindboggling.” For her, knowing each seat in the audience is filled with a passionate youth with the power to change the world gives her hope in the future. She just hopes they remember one thing along the path to change: be fearless.