Google Inc. co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, claim that their early Montessori education has influenced their current management philosophy (Juliani, 2015). In an attempt to promote innovation and cross-department collaboration, the idea of “20% Time” was introduced. At Google, engineers are permitted to spend 20% of their time working on a project of their choice (Pink, 2015).  Employees are encouraged to explore anything outside of their normal day-to-day responsibilities. The reasoning behind this concept is very simple.  Allow people to work on something that interests them, and productivity will increase. Google’s unusual policy has proven to be extremely effective. Gmail, Google News, Google Sky, Google Talk and AdSense were all created because passionate developers were given the freedom to explore their sense of wonder (Kesler, 2015).

Although Google is the most famous for giving their employees “free time,” the idea was actually implemented in earlier companies such as 3M. Employees at 3M were give 15 percent of their work time to innovate and work on new product ideas that they may not have had time to follow up on previously. One of the most famous products to come from this 15% Time is “Post-It Notes” (Juliani, 2015).

Many educators have started to apply the principles of 20% time in the classroom. Whether it be called a “Passion Project,” “Genius Hour,” or “20% Time,” students are provided a set amount of time each week to work on something that they are passionate about. They spend several weeks researching and creating a product which will allow them to share their findings with the class/school/world. The concept of Genius Hour is spreading quickly and is already being implemented in classrooms worldwide.