Khan Academy
Salman (Sal) Khan,
Founder & Executive Director, Khan Academy
https://www.khanacademy.org/
About the Product
Khan Academy is a non-profit organization that provides high-quality free online education. It consists of a library of thousands of educational resources available to anyone with a computer and access to the internet. The resources include interactive activities, assessments and short YouTube tutorials on topics ranging from Math and Science to Economics and History and even Computer Science. The Academy employs an adaptive assessment environment allowing self-pace learning. To date the Academy has delivered more than 300 million lessons and has over 10 million users per month.
About the Founder
Founder, Sal Khan, started the venture after noticing that his math tutorials on YouTube intended for his cousins were gaining popularity by other internet users. He then decided to quit his job as a manager of a hedge fund and dedicate himself full-time to creating tutorials, making high-quality education accessible to anyone anywhere and provide an alternative to traditional classrooms where students could learn at their own pace.
Sal holds three degrees from MIT (one in Mathematics, and two in Computer Science) and an MBA from Harvard. In addition to his skillset, he has a well-rounded pool of talent in his staff who bring expertise in computer science, finance, education and design with experience working for prominent companies such as Google and McKinsey & Company, government sectors and the non-profit world.
My Reflection
Sal is an innovator. He conceived the original idea of Khan Academy and brought it to fruition by successfully leveraging his talent in delivering simple, yet engaging video tutorials, recruiting the right pool of talent to grow the venture, and gain support and financial backing from major organizations such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Recently, Google awarded two million dollars to the Academy to create new courses and translate them into the world’s main languages.
From my analysis of Khan Academy, I have learned that having the right individuals to support your venture, who are passionate about your idea regardless of the risks involved, is important in order for your venture to succeed. From studying the profiles of Sal’s team, it is apparent that many had left their jobs in leading tech companies and consulting firms to join Khan Academy.
I agree with you that Khan mobilized a great number of people who helped him with his innovative venture. Also, Khan as an entrepreneur remains current with implementing new elements to his MOOC such as free iOS app that enable mobile learning at learners’ convenience. Although Khan’s courses are more traditional compared to Coursera’s, their delivery is less formal according to some. The interface is quite simple and the user gets a credit for watching the lessons. Kahn remains in the race!
Wow, not only is that guy (Sal Khan) a super educated guy, he sounds like a real mover and shaker. I would expect with his credentials, and his documented success, it would be difficult for investors to turn down any of his future ventures.
I saw Khan on a Ted talks and was super impressed on what he has made the Khan Academy into.
Over the course of the MET program I am learned about the Khan Academy several different times and I am still today blown away by the innovation as well as the accessibility the Khan Academy provide in learning instruction. The ability to use to amazing resource as a supplement to everyday instruction strengths the effectiveness of what Khan delivers.
From time to time, for the last 6 years I have been visiting Khan academy to update myself on new content and I rate it as one of the best open educational resources on the web, recommending it everywhere to everyone. Sal is awesome capacity and is constantly improving content delivery and quality, so the Khan Academy stands as an excellent resource from K 1-20.
The accessibility is even more improved with the introduction of mobile support apps. I would like to see comprehensive STEM, as well as Arts and Humanities coverage, so I believe it will get there soon.
I would definitely support Sal and this venture without asking many questions.