It started out with a smart and helpful guy being a good uncle to a niece who needed a little bit of guidance to get the gist of her math homework.
Before long, as the San Francisco Chronicle reports, other family members and friends were beating a path to Salman Khan’s door for coursework help. Using the Internet to better leverage his available time to help provide tutoring assistance to a growing number of eager students, Khan taped his lessons and posted them on YouTube.
And the hits kept coming. Thousands of them per day. Fans found Khan congenial and able to make challenging topics approachable and unintimidating, and before long, Khan could not escape the fact that he had stumbled across something, a bit of a personal mission, and one that clearly was resonating with lots of appreciative people.
That something has since developed into Khan Academy. A nonprofit dedicated to the task of delivering quality education at no charge (though donations are cheerfully accepted), Khan’s online resource includes hundreds of video tutorials in subjects such as mathematics, the sciences, business, economics and test preparation. The more than 800 individual tutorial videos amass more than 30,000 combined views each day.
As astonishing and inspiring as the efforts of this one man happen to be, his own take on his academy are just as amazing. As quoted by the Chronicle, Khan reflects on his creation: “With so little effort on my own part, I can empower an unlimited amount of people for all time. I can’t imagine a better use of my time.”
Deservedly, this remarkable resource and its dedicated creator were among those recognized by the Tech Museum’s 2009 Tech Awards (which we wrote about in November), having earned appreciation as one of the three Microsoft Education Award Laureates at last month’s annual ceremony.
Photo courtesy of chispita_666, via Flickr