Khan Academy founder Salman Khan, whose simple YouTube tutorials to help young cousins with homework exploded into “one-world schoolhouse” with 3,900 lessons viewed more than 230 million times, will speak in Berkeley March 6 about the online learning revolution.
The Dean’s Speaker Series event, which begins at 12:30 p.m. in the Chevron Auditorium at the International House, is free and open to the Haas community. The lecture is co-sponsored by the Haas Education Leadership Club. Visit the Dean’s Speaker Series website to complete the required registration.
Khan was a hedge fund analyst in 2006 when he began uploading math and science tutorials to YouTube. At first, they were meant for young family members, but his low-key approach caught on like wildfire. In 2009, he quit his day job to focus on building Khan Academy, a nonprofit with the mission of “changing education for the better by providing a free world-class education for anyone anywhere.”
In a November 2012 Forbes magazine cover story titled the “$1 Trillion Opportunity,” Khan said he could have started a venture-backed business with a social mission, but he sees himself as part of a disruptive revolution that will forever re-shape how people learn.
Khan has raised more than $16.5 million in funding for the academy, which has a staff of 34. By the end of 2012, the site was getting 6 million unique visitors each month, and Khan’s courses—most of which he has personally created—had been translated into 24 languages. Khan, who holds degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard Business School, was named to Time magazine’s 2012 list of the 100 most influential people in the world.