Ferdi's Musings

I am astonished by what Salmon Kahn is creating. This will surely revolutionize education around the world! Here’s a video of Salman Khan talking at TED 2011 (from ted.com):

From the The Khan Academy website:

All of the site’s resources are available to anyone. It doesn’t matter if you are a student, teacher, home-schooler, principal, adult returning to the classroom after 20 years, or a friendly alien just trying to get a leg up in earthly biology. The Khan Academy’s materials and resources are available to you completely free of charge.

The software associated with the video lectures is just as impressive:

And, just to emphasize, his motivation is not to make money — from the website’s FAQ:

Are you interested in turning this into a business? Maybe with some VC funding?

I’ve been approached several times, but it just didn’t feel right. When I’m 80, I want to feel that I helped give access to a world-class education to billions of students around the world. Sounds a lot better than starting a business that educates some subset of the developed world that can pay $19.95/month and eventually selling it to some text book company or something. I already have a beautiful wife, a hilarious son, two hondas and a decent house. What else does a man need?

With that said, if you are a social venture capitalist and are looking to deploy capital with the highest possible social return per dollar invested, we should talk. I think you’ll find that there is no more measurable, scalable and high impact way to educate the world.

Filed under: Cool! | Tagged: Bill Gates, Education, K through 12, Khan Academy, Non-profit organization, Salman Khan, TED, ted.com |