I always get inspired whenever I see any presentation from Salman Khan - the founder of Khan Academy. He surprised me with the numbers he presented at Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. Few highlights from his talk:
- Number of ‘proficient’ students increased from 23% to 41% in less than 9 months (80% improvement - this is phenomenal)
- Khan academy has taught 6x more students that students who have graduated from Harvard since 1636. This is just in one month alone! Imagine, what will happen once Khan Academy reach all countries in the world!
- They achieved this with just $1 million - this is a small fraction of Harvard’s landscaping budget! Average price of homes in the area where I live (Palo Alto) is more than $1 million. One house price = impact on millions of students! Imagine, what can happen if they get $100 million funding. I bet they can revolutionize K12 education scene!
Another must watch video is Salman Khan’s video at TED (video link). No wonder he got a standing ovation from everyone in the auditorium, including a special applause from Bill Gates!
