Khan Academy

 "Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world"-Nelson Mandela

Today, I'll be writing about a very innovative organisation, something that can truly change the world. An organisation by Salman Khan.

Wait...... before you guys start thinking of this guy

It's not him, this has been started by the guy below

 

Salman Khan is a Bangladeshi American educator, from MIT and Harvard, running Khan Academy which is a non profit educational organisation.

For a better idea have a look at the below video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTFEUsudhfs

Vision

As can be seen from the video the vision of Khan Academy is to have a world when anyone from any part of the world can gain knowledge as long as he has a computer as cited by him in the example of a kolkata boy who has to work all day long and doesn't get the time to get to school or a person feels oo old to go back to school.

Mission

To raise the level of education and ensure that it's reach is available to anyone and everyone.

This can be inferred when he talks about the number of modules increasing and kids trying to learn more to gain badges. Thereby, the competition would increase and the bar would only go higher leading to innovation in future.

Conceptual, Human and Technical Skills

In the video when Bill gates questions Salman about the merit badges and such to motivate the kids he says he leaves it all to the technical team and he's just responsible for the videos and coming up with the concepts and ideas, in this case, the offering of merit badges. This is where we can see the essence of what is required of a manager, conceptual skills with very little technical skills as portrayed by Salman, while the technical team needs more of technical skills than conceptual ones. And with both of these human skills are equally important for all of them, be it managers or technicians.

Organisation

Also the Education System would undergo a drastic change as the students would be able to learn things while sitting at home so when they go to the classrooms the teachers could directly start with the applications of the fundamentals and solve problems. Also, with the software used to provide the data about the students progress and the problems faced by them the teachers could use their classroom time effectively by helping the students having issues with their concepts.

A more drastic approach could be that educational institutes can be completely phased out as well and the students would then be required only to attend tests and exams. This could even help bring the present price hefty education system back on ground. The only problem with this though could be the socializing factor might be removed from the development of kids. Despite all of this considering that the world illiteracy rate is 16.3% this would be a lifesaver, especially in countries like India. This problem of illiteracy is very well depicted in the below video and the image.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qy0IAt6mvqo

Business Model

Providing education online completely all the data can be shared with the parents of the kid as well immediately i.e. as and when their tests are logged their parents can monitor the data. Making it online would even reduce the infrastructure cost incurred on the building which could be used as play-areas for children. And most importantly voluntary contributions made by people... no voluntary contribution made by you... me  can help provide more and more knowledge on the internet and the overall education cost of the system would reduce. Going back to the very first phrase I had stated at the beginning of this blog, once this education is available to everyone the world might not be limited to earth and earthlings alone, but it could extend way beyond our solar system as well. I truly believe that such a day will come when every human on earth won't feel handicapped because of lack of education.

Creative Problem Solving

As we saw in the video of Salman Khan, the reason he started with it was because he wanted to explain something to his nephews and therefore uploaded a video on youtube, from which they were able to grasp the concepts because it could be played and paused again and again till they understood the concept, something that cannot happen in an actual class room discussion. After observing this Khan came with the idea of providing the entire educational system online so that kids could learn things at their own pace. This approach of Khan of creating a video to help his nephews understand the concepts can be referred to as Creative Problem Solving. And this approach could very well be the single most defining moment in the history of education in the years to come.

Strategy Of Khan Foundation

This is one of the most unique selling points about this. Allowing teachers to give inputs on what kinds of softwares need  to be designed to monitor the progress of kids and assigning them work. By doing this they are capitalizing on the already existing veterans in the field and making them come up with the requirements. Also, by slowly capitalizing on one institute at a time and with Ted as a platform they are showcasing their projects to improve their chances of expansion faster. Although portrayed as a nonprofit organization right now, with time and with increasing numbers adopting this, it can generate revenue by way of advertisements as well.

Entrepreneurship

As Salman rightly says in the video, "If Newton had the technology to create videos like this than science would have become much simpler". This idea of his to take the educational videos online could well change the whole world. And the fact that he left a plum Hedge Fund job for it truly embodies an entrepreneur in him.

Looking at Salman, who had a very good paying job, becoming an entrepreneur I feel we should try the same as well. Only with this attitude can we truly achieve Excellence.