Sal Khan attained a perfect score in the math portion of his SAT, a undergraduate/masters in electrical engineering/computer science from MIT and a MBA from Harvard. He then worked as an analyst at a Silicon Valley based Hedge Fund where earned “under $1 million” in a relatively short period. In short, a very smart guy.
Somewhere along the way he began teaching his niece algebra via YouTube and MS paint. Pretty soon he was receiving comments from people all over the world exclaiming how incredible his tutorials were and begging for more. So he kept going.
To date his Khan Academy’s 2,000 tutorials have been viewed 20 million times and include everything from basic mathematical concepts to advanced university subjects, including: Banking and Money, Finance, Venture Capital, Valuation and Investing, Credit Crisis, Physics, Probability, Statistics, even GMAT Preparation.
I stumbled across and tweeted about this incredible resource last year when attempting to get my head around Credit Default Swaps. It has been thrilling to follow the success of the Academy since. Fareed Zakaria’s GPS programme among many other top media sources have featured it and MAJOR kudos to Google for awarding Khan Academy a $2 million grant this month.
It’s clear a new era of education is upon us. It’s unbelievable to think that anyone can now have free access to same teacher as Bill Gates chooses for this kids, or attend lectures from the leading universities in the world via iTunesU. Thinking of developing a IPhone app? I just completed a 5 hour Stanford lecture series.
I had major learning difficulties in first year at school and was diagnosed with an having ‘learning block’. The learning expert I was sent to took the approach of starting all over again with all the basic concepts: “What goes through your mind when you add 3 + 4 + 6?” I would then be taught a good method for approaching this (i.e. 6+4=10, then 10+3=13).
The results were dramatic and life changing. Within 6 months I went from absolute bottom of the class to near the top and remained there for the rest of my academic life.
Khan’s tutorials like ‘basic addition‘ are strikingly similar to those tutorials that helped me grasp critical concepts and ultimately radically changed the trajectory of my academic career. I think that’s why the story of Khan Academy resonates deeply with me. While online video can never trump 1 on 1 interactive teaching, it has the power to transform the lives of so many for the better. I simply feel compelled tell as many people as I can about it.