Education: The Opportunity:
Education: The Opportunity “ We see a $500 billion [education] sector in the US alone that is waiting desperately to be transformed by big breakthroughs that extend the reach of great teaching. ” Rupert Murdoch, Nov 2010 – purchase of Wireless Generation, $360m “ A human being is not attaining his full heights until he is educated . ” - Horace Mann High leverage: Chance to change the world
The Approach:
The Approach Build a the next generation educational platform
Inspiring Platform 1: Wikipedia:
Inspiring Platform 1: Wikipedia Scale 27 full-time employees, >360m users 1.3m contributors, >80K active contributors, 17.6m articles Harness powerful social dynamic Culture, infrastructure, processes, values, brand, ethos Motives: personal, social, not financial, “greater good” User-regulated quality control (70 edits/article)
Inspiring Platform 2: iStuff, Android:
Inspiring Platform 2: i Stuff , Android Extreme range of users & uses Pre-school to geriatrics, geek to non-tech – something for everyone Open development platform, common delivery Harness creative energy of thousands of top developers Creates virtuous cycle
Inspiring Platform 3: Kindle:
Inspiring Platform 3: Kindle Nice e-reader Interesting hardware (high-contrast, long battery life), but… The real strategy is to own the e-content Hardware agnostic - u nified content, many ways to interact with it
The Platform:
The Platform Learner-centric – what, when, how, where Open, flexible, extensible, component-based Engaging content - interactive Crowdsourced content Talent & good will for good use Feedback, continuous improvement Cloud-based resources Ubiquitous, hardware agnostic Harness mobile computing Become intelligent advisor, facilitator Harness social connections among learners, teachers Candidate business models