Speaker 1: Pushkin. I'm Mave Higgins and this is Solvable Interviews with
Speaker 1: the world's most innovative thinkers working to solve the world's
Speaker 1: biggest problems. My name is Salman Khan. I'm the founder
Speaker 1: of the not for profit Khan Academy, and my solvable
Speaker 1: is ensuring that everyone on the planet has access to
Speaker 1: a free, world class education. Our guests this week is
Speaker 1: a teacher who has thousands of students all over the
Speaker 1: world and who says education needs to be radically different
Speaker 1: in order to empower millions of people to thrive. Salman
Speaker 1: Khan's Khan Academy reaches one hundred million people a year
Speaker 1: all over the world, where remote students are able to
Speaker 1: watch online videos that cover a wide variety of subjects
Speaker 1: from mats and English to computer animation and art history.
Speaker 1: They and sal agree that students results are better than
Speaker 1: those of their peers. The can Academy focuses on what
Speaker 1: sal calls mastery education, so you move through the courses
Speaker 1: online at your own pace, only going on to the
Speaker 1: next step when you've got it one hundred percent. Sala's
Speaker 1: talking to Ammad Ali Atbar about new ways to address
Speaker 1: education so that everyone can develop the skills needed to
Speaker 1: navigate a future of AI and automation. Education systems have
Speaker 1: transformed wildly since the earliest universal primary education system was
Speaker 1: established in Prussia in seventeen seventeen, when I was only
Speaker 1: a child. Many countries followed suit in the twentieth century,
Speaker 1: and later India past laws introducing universal, free, and compulsory
Speaker 1: education in two thousand and nine. Some countries still don't
Speaker 1: have laws making education mandatory. It's really extraordinary to look
Speaker 1: at literacy rates over time. The trend is hugely positive.
Speaker 1: Take literacy rates among young people and we say that's
Speaker 1: people aged between fifteen to twenty four, so sorry, all
Speaker 1: of you twenty five year olds year old. Globally, the
Speaker 1: youth literacy rate increased to ninety one percent over two decades,
Speaker 1: with the number of young people who can't read or
Speaker 1: write dramatically decreasing. But of course it's not all good news.
Speaker 1: Regional and gender disparities persist. Literacy is lowest in least
Speaker 1: developed countries and higher among males than females. So a
Speaker 1: lot done and more to do. A good question to
Speaker 1: ask is whether or not our education systems developed in
Speaker 1: response to the Industrial Revolution are still fit for this
Speaker 1: technological revolution. Add to that that even the brightest pupils
Speaker 1: are left with gaps in their knowledge as they've moved
Speaker 1: through the system according to their age, not really according
Speaker 1: to what they've learned. And that's true even in countries
Speaker 1: of the best education system. So what hope is there
Speaker 1: for people where even traditional schooling is still out of reach?
Speaker 1: In a global economy defined by artificial intelligence and robotics,
Speaker 1: people would need much more than literacy and numerousy Can
Speaker 1: we leverage technology to amplify human purpose and potential? Sal
Speaker 1: believes that we can, and his organization, the Khan Academy,
Speaker 1: shows that actually a world class education better than the
Speaker 1: one in class can be made available for free to
Speaker 1: everyone in the world. No really, and they have this
Speaker 1: really great origin story which I love. I think you
Speaker 1: will too. Okay, let's take a listen. I'll give you
Speaker 1: a thought experiment. If we were to go back in
Speaker 1: time five hundred years, a thousand years, pick a place
Speaker 1: on the planet even you know, even then five hundred
Speaker 1: years ago, Western Europe was actually one of the more
Speaker 1: literate parts of the planet. You would have seen about
Speaker 1: twenty percent of men and about ten percent of women
Speaker 1: were literate, and I suspect that if you went to
Speaker 1: someone who was literate and you said, what percentage of
Speaker 1: the population you think is even capable of reading if
Speaker 1: you had a perfect education system, they might have said, well,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe maybe thirty forty percent with a great
Speaker 1: education system. And if you said, well, I think that
Speaker 1: that beggar on the side of the street could learn
Speaker 1: to read and learn to write, and could learn to
Speaker 1: do mathematics as good as anyone in the king's court,
Speaker 1: they would have thought that you were absolutely delusional. But
Speaker 1: you fast forward five hundred years, we know that their
Speaker 1: prediction was the one that was widely pessimistic, that pretty
Speaker 1: close to one hundred percent of the population is capable
Speaker 1: of reading or doing or being numerous, or being able
Speaker 1: to write and communicate. But if I were to ask
Speaker 1: people today a similar thought experiment, what percentage of the
Speaker 1: population is capable of being a cancer researcher. What percentage
Speaker 1: of the population is capable of being an entrepreneur, of
Speaker 1: writing the next great novel, of pushing the frontiers of physics,
Speaker 1: I think a lot of very smart and even well
Speaker 1: intentioned people will say, well, today that's maybe one to
Speaker 1: five percent, maybe with the great education system it is
Speaker 1: ten fifteen percent. But what if that's a similar blinders
Speaker 1: on the blinders of just a system that we've been in,
Speaker 1: this kind of Industrial Revolution system that pushed everyone together
Speaker 1: in this factory model. If someone didn't understand something, that's okay.
Speaker 1: Because in the Industrial Revolution we had a triangular labor
Speaker 1: pyramid and you only needed so many people who could
Speaker 1: do the knowledge skills or be a member of the
Speaker 1: creative class. This would have been a nice to have.
Speaker 1: I think, if we're talking thirty years ago, wouldn't it
Speaker 1: be nice if more people could operate at the top
Speaker 1: of the pyramid in the knowledge economy? But I think
Speaker 1: this is a societal imperative. I think I think the
Speaker 1: very structure of our society is now dependent on us
Speaker 1: as a civilization making a bet in this direction. Artificial intelligence, automation,
Speaker 1: they're going to redefine what humans need to do anymore.
Speaker 1: And there's a very optimistic sense, but there's some real questions.
Speaker 1: What's going to happen to those truck drivers once we
Speaker 1: have self driving cars, what's going to happen to those
Speaker 1: cashier workers once we have automated cashiers? And those are
Speaker 1: just the most obvious places. It's likely to hit every
Speaker 1: part of what we now define as human work and purpose.
Speaker 1: And I think there's some folks, I would call them
Speaker 1: techno optimists who point at the Industrial Revolution and say, well,
Speaker 1: the Industrial Revolution people had those same fears. Weavers were
Speaker 1: afraid of kind of the weaving machines. Horses obviously lost
Speaker 1: their jobs as cars came about. But net net, you
Speaker 1: had job creation. And what I point to those folks,
Speaker 1: and I'm actually surprised how little it is of the
Speaker 1: conversation the Industrial Revolution. Net job creation did not happen
Speaker 1: in a vacuum. It wasn't just say, hey, technology, it's
Speaker 1: a little scary, but it always creates jobs. It coincided
Speaker 1: with what I would argue as the largest societal bet
Speaker 1: that we made in many hundreds of years, maybe ever,
Speaker 1: and that was the notion of freemass public education. I
Speaker 1: believe that's what allowed us to navigate the Industrial Revolution
Speaker 1: in a way that built a middle class, that allowed
Speaker 1: most people to participate. But now we're in a I
Speaker 1: would say even a faster revolution. Some people call it
Speaker 1: the Third Industrial Revolution, but whatever you want, to call it,
Speaker 1: the AI automation Revolution. And I don't think we can
Speaker 1: be complacent there. We need to make a similar type
Speaker 1: of beat on human potential. So in my mind, the
Speaker 1: only option we have is let's use these tools in
Speaker 1: conjunction with amazing educators, amazing systems to create a world
Speaker 1: where the truck driver of today could be the cancer
Speaker 1: researcher of tomorrow. Let me just stop you here for
Speaker 1: a second, because I think it's worth grappling with how
Speaker 1: you came to this conclusion of education and your platform
Speaker 1: is a place in which we can deal with the
Speaker 1: automation problem. Well, from the early stages of kN Academy,
Speaker 1: if you go back ten, twelve, thirteen years ago, back
Speaker 1: then people weren't talking a lot about self driving cars
Speaker 1: or the coming AI revolution, And so when I set
Speaker 1: up kN Academy, it wasn't with that end. It was
Speaker 1: really like, Hey, how can we give more people opportunity?
Speaker 1: How can we give young girls and parts of the
Speaker 1: planet that they don't have access to world class education?
Speaker 1: How can we give an African American student an inner
Speaker 1: city school, a majority of which don't even offer things
Speaker 1: like calculus or physics. How do we make sure that
Speaker 1: they have access to those types of materials? And that
Speaker 1: it's at a world class level even where when they
Speaker 1: do have access. So that's where we started. But then
Speaker 1: over the last I would say about ten years, as
Speaker 1: the public conversation I think rightfully started to say, hey, well,
Speaker 1: what does it mean for society If you know, right
Speaker 1: now we have five or ten million, mostly men, who
Speaker 1: are drivers, whether it's an uber or lift driver, or
Speaker 1: whether it's a truck driver. What's going to happen to
Speaker 1: them when it seems like we're going to have self
Speaker 1: driving cars in the next decade. What's what when you
Speaker 1: have five million people work in retail? What does it
Speaker 1: mean when you have fully automated stores. Kind Academy helps
Speaker 1: millions of people every year learn economics and world history.
Speaker 1: And I remember making a lot of these videos on
Speaker 1: whether it's the Industrial Revolution or these major inflection points
Speaker 1: in history, from agriculture to the advent of writing to
Speaker 1: the printing press, and I'm like, we are at one
Speaker 1: of those inflection points. And every one of those other
Speaker 1: inflection points either helped catalyze human potential, a step change
Speaker 1: in human potential, or that the tools of that inflection
Speaker 1: point were used to address the disruptions of the inflection point,
Speaker 1: and so I said, why how come people are not
Speaker 1: thinking in those terms today? In my mind, if you
Speaker 1: don't view it as an education issue, you're resolving to
Speaker 1: just have your fingers crossed that we don't get into
Speaker 1: kind of some tech feudal system where a small percentage
Speaker 1: of the population who does have the right skills are
Speaker 1: able to benefit from all of the returns from the robots,
Speaker 1: and that everyone else is on some type of social
Speaker 1: safety net. That is a dystopian society. And I think
Speaker 1: if we don't figure out a way to up level
Speaker 1: a lot of people, that's where we're heading. Can you
Speaker 1: just tell us how you started Han Academy. Yeah, if
Speaker 1: you rewind back to two thousand and four, I was
Speaker 1: a year out of business school. My background was originally
Speaker 1: in technology and software and in math, but now I
Speaker 1: had found myself. I was an analyst at a hedge fund,
Speaker 1: and I had just gotten married in the Northeast, and
Speaker 1: I had family visiting me from New Orleans, which is
Speaker 1: where I was born and raised. And it just came
Speaker 1: out a conversation with my aunt that heard Nadia, who
Speaker 1: was twelve years old at the time, was having trouble
Speaker 1: in math and because of that she was being placed
Speaker 1: into a slower math class. So I offered to tutor
Speaker 1: her when she went back to New Orleans. And so
Speaker 1: she goes back to New Orleans every day after school
Speaker 1: for her after work for me, we get on the phone,
Speaker 1: we use instant messenger, whatever we could off the internet,
Speaker 1: and I start tutoring her one thing after another. She
Speaker 1: slowly gets caught up with her class. She understands unit conversion.
Speaker 1: I called up her school and I say, you know,
Speaker 1: I really think Nadia Orman should should really be able
Speaker 1: to take that placement exam from last year. And they
Speaker 1: said who are you and I said, I'm her cousin,
Speaker 1: and they actually led her and that same Nadia that
Speaker 1: was being placed into that remedial math class only after
Speaker 1: about two months of tutoring was able to be put
Speaker 1: into an advanced math class. And so I was hooked.
Speaker 1: I started tutoring her younger brothers, and then over the
Speaker 1: next two years or so, word gets around my family
Speaker 1: that free tutoring is going on, and I find myself
Speaker 1: every day after work with ten fifteen cousins, family friends
Speaker 1: all around the country being their their tutor. And the
Speaker 1: first con Academy a lot of folks associated with videos,
Speaker 1: but it had nothing to do with videos. I saw
Speaker 1: that a lot of my cousins were having trouble, not
Speaker 1: because the subject matter was hard or not because they
Speaker 1: weren't bright. It's because they had gaps. And I wanted
Speaker 1: them to be able to practice and remediate and fill
Speaker 1: in those gaps. And so I started writing software for
Speaker 1: them so that they could get as much practice as
Speaker 1: they need and get feedback on what they got wrong
Speaker 1: or right. I started making tools so that I, is
Speaker 1: their tutor, could see what they were up to, and
Speaker 1: I could assign things. And I just put it on
Speaker 1: a website, and I needed to get a domain name,
Speaker 1: and the only one I could find was con Academy.
Speaker 1: And it was a little bit of a joke, but
Speaker 1: but I liked the way it sounded it, you know,
Speaker 1: it made it sound like it was more than a
Speaker 1: family tutoring project. And in the back of my mind,
Speaker 1: I did I did start to dream that, hey, now
Speaker 1: that I'm writing software, software can scale to a lot
Speaker 1: of folks. And I saw that it was helping my family.
Speaker 1: And I was showing off this software to a friend
Speaker 1: at a dinner party in November two thousand and six,
Speaker 1: and his name's Zulfakar runs on I have to give
Speaker 1: him full credit. And he said, well, this is all cool,
Speaker 1: sal but how are you scaling up your actual lessons?
Speaker 1: And I said, you know, Zuli, it's hard to do
Speaker 1: with fifteen cousins what I was originally just doing what
Speaker 1: Nadia or Nadia and her brothers. And he says, well,
Speaker 1: I have an idea. You could record them as videos
Speaker 1: and upload them onto YouTube for your family. And my
Speaker 1: initial reaction was, no, that's a horrible idea. YouTube is
Speaker 1: YouTube is for cats playing piano, it's not for serious mathematics.
Speaker 1: But I went home that that weekend, I got over
Speaker 1: the idea that it wasn't my idea, and I gave
Speaker 1: it a shot. And you know those videos they were.
Speaker 1: If you look at some of those early videos that
Speaker 1: I uploaded in November of two thousand and six, they
Speaker 1: say things like welcome to Level three equations, because Level
Speaker 1: three Equations was a little software module that I had
Speaker 1: created for my cousins. But they happen to be public,
Speaker 1: happened to be on YouTube. Soon became clear that people
Speaker 1: who are not my cousins were watching, and the viewcount
Speaker 1: started to grow, exponentially and comments started to come in,
Speaker 1: some of them pretty you know, just nice, like thank you,
Speaker 1: this really helped. But a lot of folks saying that
Speaker 1: this was the tutor that their family can't afford, that
Speaker 1: this was the way that the only way they're able
Speaker 1: to keep up with class. People in the military saying
Speaker 1: that they're able to go back to college or study
Speaker 1: while they're being deployed. So it really started to dawn
Speaker 1: on me that wow, even at this early phase between
Speaker 1: the software and now the lessons that were on video,
Speaker 1: this could one day And it was me, you know,
Speaker 1: operating in a walk in closet at the time, so
Speaker 1: it was delusional, but maybe this could one day reach
Speaker 1: millions or tens of millions or billions of people. And
Speaker 1: so that's when it started to get in my mind
Speaker 1: that this could, this could be more than just a
Speaker 1: family project. So I give us some of the numbers there,
Speaker 1: what is the scale of han Academy's work right now? Well,
Speaker 1: as of you know, the last numbers I saw, we
Speaker 1: have about seventy two million registered users. Seventeen million students
Speaker 1: of all ages from around the world come every month
Speaker 1: to use the platform. About two million of those are
Speaker 1: predominantly classroom users who are using US with a teacher
Speaker 1: and are using us for several hours a week, and
Speaker 1: that's associated with efficacy claims where they're able to grow
Speaker 1: twenty thirty percent faster than their peers or they might
Speaker 1: otherwise have. And it's being used in almost every country
Speaker 1: in the world. So in some of those cases, it's
Speaker 1: reaching more than just the user that's sitting there. It's
Speaker 1: going to a group of folks trying to learn together.
Speaker 1: So the impact even it seems to reach beyond even
Speaker 1: those numbers, Is that correct. Yeah, a lot of people
Speaker 1: think of kin academy, or you might do a web
Speaker 1: search looking for a photosynthesis and you stumble on kN
Speaker 1: academy and you either watch a video and then we
Speaker 1: now have practice and you can get feedback and keep
Speaker 1: learning if you like. So there's a lot of what
Speaker 1: we call independent learners, but increasingly, in fact roughly a
Speaker 1: majority of our usage is from what we would call
Speaker 1: teacher directed users. These are where the teacher is making
Speaker 1: con Academy an integral part of the classroom, and the
Speaker 1: teacher is using a much more sophisticate version of the
Speaker 1: tools that I started making for myself as my cousin's tutor,
Speaker 1: where they can keep track of where the student saw,
Speaker 1: where students might need to be unblocked, where they might
Speaker 1: be able to do a focused intervention. Tell us some
Speaker 1: stories of people who have used han Academy and materials
Speaker 1: to move towards educational success. I remember in the early days,
Speaker 1: there was a mother that emailed me and I brought
Speaker 1: my wife over because it was such a moving story
Speaker 1: of her son's. Two sons had a learning disability, and
Speaker 1: according to this mother, kN Academy was the only way
Speaker 1: that her sons could keep up with their class. And
Speaker 1: she said because of that, her and her entire family
Speaker 1: were praying for me and my entire family, and you
Speaker 1: had to imagine, I mean, that would be powerful on
Speaker 1: any level. But you have to remember my day job.
Speaker 1: I was an analyst at a hedge fund. I was
Speaker 1: not used to people praying for me, so that was
Speaker 1: or at least in that way, you know. I used
Speaker 1: to give talks and interviews like this and talk about
Speaker 1: maybe one day it'll be used, you know, in Mongolia,
Speaker 1: just imagining the furthest remotest place on the planet. And
Speaker 1: a few months after that, I got a note from
Speaker 1: Mongolia and as an email with a YouTube link. I
Speaker 1: click on the YouTube link. It was this young girl
Speaker 1: named Zia, she was sixteen at the time, from Mongolia,
Speaker 1: and she talks about how she really enjoys Khan Academy.
Speaker 1: It's really helped her and her friends like it and
Speaker 1: things like that, and I thought it was cool someone
Speaker 1: in Mongolia is using Khan Academy. I immediately assumed that
Speaker 1: she must be middle class or upper middle class. She
Speaker 1: clearly had access to the Internet and a computer. Her
Speaker 1: English was actually quite good. And then I read the
Speaker 1: text of her email more closely, and it turns out
Speaker 1: that there was a group of engineers who worked at
Speaker 1: Cisco Systems who were using their vacation time to go
Speaker 1: to Mongolia and set up computer labs and orphanages, and
Speaker 1: Zia was one of those orphans. And so that kind
Speaker 1: of it just blew my mind. It's like, wow, this
Speaker 1: is like something I would only have expected to read
Speaker 1: in like a science fiction book. And what's even cooler
Speaker 1: is that Zia, a few years after that, after she
Speaker 1: graduated from high school, became one of the top contributors
Speaker 1: to Kin Academy in the Mongolian language. So It's this
Speaker 1: meta story of if you just let people tap into
Speaker 1: their potential a little bit, they themselves can become amplifiers,
Speaker 1: especially for their own people. You know. Another analogous story
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago, it's about, yeah, eighteen months ago. Now,
Speaker 1: I got an email from actually this girl the University
Speaker 1: of Iowa who said, you have got to know about
Speaker 1: this girl in Afghanistan. And I'm like, well, what's going on?
Speaker 1: And she's like and she told me the story of
Speaker 1: this this young woman named Sultana. At the age of twelve,
Speaker 1: the Taliban take over her town in Afghanistan, forbid all
Speaker 1: the young girls from going to school, threatened them with
Speaker 1: horrible things, you know, acid attacks, etcetera, etce. And so
Speaker 1: she doesn't go to school. So she's doing like ten
Speaker 1: hours of chores a day, taking you know, cleaning, cooking, etc. Etc.
Speaker 1: And her brother in law sees that she's really curious
Speaker 1: and really wants to learn, and it's like almost like
Speaker 1: the biggest blow to her that she can't go to school,
Speaker 1: and so he got her a computer with internet connection,
Speaker 1: and so she uses that, starting at age twelve, to
Speaker 1: first try to learn English because most of the Internet
Speaker 1: is still in English, and she actually got ahold of
Speaker 1: a Time magazine in English because she was trying to
Speaker 1: get as much material to read in English, and it
Speaker 1: happened had an article on Kon Academy in it, and
Speaker 1: so she says, this is what I need. So every
Speaker 1: waking hour when she's not doing chores, she was on
Speaker 1: kon Academy and she goes from she was actually at
Speaker 1: what we would consider a late elementary school level, and
Speaker 1: especially in math and science, all the way through middle school,
Speaker 1: high school, even more advanced topics, you know, she says.
Speaker 1: You know, her big aha was the moment that she
Speaker 1: realized that she was two grade levels ahead of her
Speaker 1: older brothers who who are still allowed to go to school.
Speaker 1: And by you know, late high school, she's doing calculus
Speaker 1: and physics and chemistry and biology and she wants to
Speaker 1: become a physicist. She's so passionate about it now and
Speaker 1: she wants to study in the US and do physics research.
Speaker 1: And this is when she meets this young woman from
Speaker 1: Iowa through some type of an online language instruction program
Speaker 1: and she learns about the SAT. Sultana smuggles herself into
Speaker 1: Pakistan to take the SAT because it's not an offered
Speaker 1: enough guys yet. So if you have any family members
Speaker 1: who are grumbling about going on a Saturday morning to
Speaker 1: take the SAT, tell them sultana story. There are people
Speaker 1: who are willing to do. She lied to her parents
Speaker 1: to go to Karachi to take the SAT, and she
Speaker 1: does shockingly well for someone who has self taught in
Speaker 1: English and learned everything she knew kind of on her own.
Speaker 1: And that's the point at which why I was why
Speaker 1: they were able to get my email address, and we're
Speaker 1: all now trying to say, how do we get Sultana
Speaker 1: to come to this country. She got into a few
Speaker 1: universities out here, but if you're a foreign student, it's
Speaker 1: pretty you know, before you even get a student visa,
Speaker 1: you have to show that you have a one hundred
Speaker 1: thousand dollars in the bank, etcetera. She did not have
Speaker 1: one hundred thousand dollars in the bank. No, we're close
Speaker 1: to it, and so we kept trying to call people, etcetera.
Speaker 1: Et Luckily, Nicholas Kristoff of the New York Times caught wind.
Speaker 1: I actually don't know how, and he wrote an op
Speaker 1: ed out her titled Meet Sultana, the Taliban's Worst fear
Speaker 1: and if people do a Google search, they can find it,
Speaker 1: and that talks about Sultana's story. And after that, she
Speaker 1: was able to get a humanitarian visa, and so she's
Speaker 1: now in the country and and and studying, and she's
Speaker 1: actually already collaborating with some Nobel Prize winning physicists. And
Speaker 1: the only reason why you're actually not hearing more about
Speaker 1: Sultana is her family is still in that town and
Speaker 1: that's why I'm not mentioning the town. And it's actually
Speaker 1: a security risk. So she's she's actually still a little
Speaker 1: bit under the radar. We've kind of gotten into this
Speaker 1: with these two stories. But what are some of the
Speaker 1: challenges around the language difference, the existing literacy that some
Speaker 1: of your potential learners, the challenges that they might have.
Speaker 1: How are you grappling with that? Yeah, so our missions
Speaker 1: free world class education for anyone anywhere. So we need
Speaker 1: to be able to reach everyone everywhere world with world
Speaker 1: class education. And so already part of that is kind
Speaker 1: of academy. There's thirty six projects around the world. These
Speaker 1: are volunteers. There's actually been over fourteen thousand volunteers who
Speaker 1: have helped translate redo subtitle videos that's where, you know,
Speaker 1: whether it's India, Mongolia, Brazil, Mexico, Peru, Sweden. I mean
Speaker 1: I could, I could keep listening listening. These areas are
Speaker 1: most focused. Efforts have actually been in Latin America and India,
Speaker 1: both Spanish speaking Latin America and Portuguese speaking, you know,
Speaker 1: in Brazil, that's where we have the most focus efforts.
Speaker 1: But if we're talking generally access, you know, to use
Speaker 1: con Academy, you need to use it properly. You need
Speaker 1: a computer and you need the Internet, and we know
Speaker 1: that not everyone on the planet today has that. Now,
Speaker 1: the trends are very good, if even relative to when
Speaker 1: kN Academy was just getting started. Over the last ten
Speaker 1: twelve years, things have dramatically improved there about a year
Speaker 1: and a half ago. In places like India, broadband rates
Speaker 1: have gone really low. People are able to access system
Speaker 1: on their cell phones, but we do have stop gap measures.
Speaker 1: There's organizations that are created offline versions of con Academy
Speaker 1: called ka Light. There's folks who've taken just the videos,
Speaker 1: even though that's just a piece of what we do,
Speaker 1: and they put it on DVDs. You know, places like India,
Speaker 1: everyone watches Bollywood, so they all have you know, the
Speaker 1: places that might not have electricity, but they have a
Speaker 1: generator and a DVD player and so, um, we're we're
Speaker 1: we're able, We're able to reach that way. But you know,
Speaker 1: we're we're not going to be the ones. We're a
Speaker 1: small organization, a small nonprofit that's philanthropically funded. We're not
Speaker 1: the ones that are going to be able to put
Speaker 1: up the satellites and build out the telecom infrastructure, but
Speaker 1: we can be the ones that make it very clear
Speaker 1: to government officials that it's important they do that. But
Speaker 1: I'm really excited. You know, Elon Musk is putting up
Speaker 1: his constellation of satellites out that should give global Internet
Speaker 1: access to you know, the remotest parts of the most
Speaker 1: remote parts of the planet, and we're gonna be right there. Um.
Speaker 1: And as he does that, Um, there's no reason why
Speaker 1: anyone on the planet shouldn't be able to access Cohn Academy.
Speaker 1: And then the question is are they going to be
Speaker 1: able to access it in a way that's um, you know,
Speaker 1: they can understand it. And so that's where we are
Speaker 1: working with, whether it's volunteers, corporations, ministries of education to
Speaker 1: not only localize the content, but to map it to
Speaker 1: local standards, and localization is an interesting challenge. Sometimes it
Speaker 1: goes quite well. Oftentimes we're redoing, but you know, you
Speaker 1: do realize that, you know, the math oftentimes is much easier.
Speaker 1: Once you go into the humanities, that becomes a much
Speaker 1: more sensitive issue. And that's why we're we're we're leading
Speaker 1: with with with math because that's less sensitive in math
Speaker 1: and science and so. But but I'm excited about it.
Speaker 1: You know, the US, Latin America and to some degree
Speaker 1: India or where we're most developed. But you know, in
Speaker 1: the long run, we've got to be able to reach
Speaker 1: the whole planet. You know, you mentioned people using YouTube
Speaker 1: and Google a lot, but in a lot of countries
Speaker 1: there are periods of time where YouTube will be taken
Speaker 1: off public internet access for for years at a time,
Speaker 1: like in Pakistan. Um. So what are the other ways
Speaker 1: that you have you know, subverted some of some of
Speaker 1: those government censorship possibilities that would prevent people from accessing
Speaker 1: hon Academy materials. Yeah, you know, it's interesting things like YouTube.
Speaker 1: It's not just governments that sometimes sends to them, even
Speaker 1: school districts in the US of course, so we've had
Speaker 1: to do workarounds there so when when people, you know,
Speaker 1: we use people. Some people discover us through YouTube or
Speaker 1: use some of our content through YouTube, but um, the
Speaker 1: main way to use con Academy if you go to
Speaker 1: con academy site, our default hosting for our our videos
Speaker 1: is through YouTube, but if YouTube isn't accessible, we do
Speaker 1: host it other places like Amazon Web Services and places
Speaker 1: like China. We have other folks who've mirror mirrored a
Speaker 1: lot of the content. So we're constantly thinking of ways
Speaker 1: to get in front of students and make it as
Speaker 1: accessible as possible, whether it's the internet access, the technology access,
Speaker 1: you know, where we've put a lot of investment in
Speaker 1: being able to do things on mobile, obviously, the localization,
Speaker 1: not being dependent on a Google or YouTube and being
Speaker 1: able to be you know obviously, con academy dot org
Speaker 1: is where we want people ago if they want to
Speaker 1: go ast us in Spanish ees dot con academy dot org. Interestingly,
Speaker 1: in Mexico, the Carlos Slim Foundation has worked with tell Cell,
Speaker 1: which is Carlo Slim's telecom company, to zero rate kN Academy.
Speaker 1: So if you're a student in in Mexico and you
Speaker 1: want to use ees dot com Academy dot org, which
Speaker 1: is the Spanish version of khn Academy. It does not
Speaker 1: even hit your cell plan, so you just see a
Speaker 1: low cost device phone and you could be anywhere and
Speaker 1: you could be streaming videos et et no cost to you.
Speaker 1: All right, So we just want to end with the
Speaker 1: biggest vision of Khan Academy for the future for you,
Speaker 1: What is your most concrete ambition for the future of
Speaker 1: Khan Academy. You know my ambition for Khan Academy, and
Speaker 1: it was delusional when I was a guy operating in
Speaker 1: a closet talking to a computer a lot, that we
Speaker 1: really can become an institution for the planet that is
Speaker 1: really serving you know, we're we're already serving over one
Speaker 1: hundred million folks every year in some way, shape or form.
Speaker 1: There's no reason why within ten years that can't be
Speaker 1: a billion folks every year or several billions of folks
Speaker 1: every year, and that they could use this at deeper
Speaker 1: and deeper levels, whether they just need a little bit
Speaker 1: of help, have that free tutor that they couldn't otherwise afford,
Speaker 1: whether it's having access to course materials in a personalized
Speaker 1: way that would have. You know, before kN academy have
Speaker 1: been you know, just a dream that would have seemed inaccessible.
Speaker 1: But it's not just the learning. It's not just the access.
Speaker 1: It's not just the being able to do it in
Speaker 1: a way that's personalized for the student. I hope in
Speaker 1: the next five years you're going to be hearing from
Speaker 1: us about ways to connect that learning and that competency
Speaker 1: that you've developed on kN Academy to real economic opportunity,
Speaker 1: so that might be an internship, that might be college credit,
Speaker 1: that might be a job, and that we stay with you.
Speaker 1: A lot of corporations are talking to us globally about hey,
Speaker 1: but you know, education shouldn't end once you've graduated, so
Speaker 1: to speak, whether it's high school or college or graduate school.
Speaker 1: It should continue. And we want to figure out how,
Speaker 1: let's say, our bank tellers can keep reskilling so they
Speaker 1: can come to managers, and they can keep reskilling so
Speaker 1: they become accountants or regional managers or executives, etc. Etc.
Speaker 1: Or or go into other functions. And that's happening in
Speaker 1: almost every industry. The one thing we know about the
Speaker 1: future is we the pace of change is going to
Speaker 1: happen faster and faster and faster in the model of
Speaker 1: just having a sixteen years of education or twelve years
Speaker 1: of education and then just relying on that until you
Speaker 1: get to retirement. That's those days are over. And I
Speaker 1: think we are almost uniquely suited or needed to ensure
Speaker 1: that as many people are going to not only get
Speaker 1: that that baseline academic education, but then they can keep
Speaker 1: reskilling themselves and keep filling in those gaps so they
Speaker 1: can really reach their potential. For you, what are some
Speaker 1: things that we can as parents, as as workers, as
Speaker 1: people interested in furthering education and investing in it. What
Speaker 1: are some practical things that people can do well the
Speaker 1: individual level. I'll start with a parent. I think the
Speaker 1: best thing that you could do for your children and
Speaker 1: likely for yourself is to have the attitude of a
Speaker 1: lifelong learner. You know, I cringe a little bit when
Speaker 1: a parent will tell me in front of their child like, oh, algebra.
Speaker 1: Oh that scares me because it signals the wrong thing
Speaker 1: to their child. And I would and what instead? I
Speaker 1: wish I could hear the parent And I do hear
Speaker 1: this from parents, and I like here or I coached
Speaker 1: them to say this. It's like yeah, you know, the
Speaker 1: first time I learned algebra, I didn't really get it,
Speaker 1: and I wish I did because it helps people build
Speaker 1: the analytical skills of critical thinking skills that you are
Speaker 1: going to need throughout life. And now we're in this
Speaker 1: renaissance where we are able to learn through free tools
Speaker 1: run by nonprofits on the internet. I as a forty
Speaker 1: year old, I'm going to go back and learn this properly.
Speaker 1: And I guarantee you if if they're ten year old
Speaker 1: sees that, they're like, wow, if mom and dad are
Speaker 1: doing it now, I want to do it with them.
Speaker 1: And it's actually a great thing to bond around, to
Speaker 1: go on a shared learning journey with them. So I
Speaker 1: would say that's that's number one as a parent, and
Speaker 1: that's also going to help the parent in their life
Speaker 1: as well. There you know, actually algebra in particular and
Speaker 1: unlocks all sorts of things. I guarantee you there's all
Speaker 1: sorts of thirty year olds, thirty five year olds, four
Speaker 1: year olds, fifty year olds who know in their field
Speaker 1: regardless of what they are. They might be doctors, they
Speaker 1: might be lawyers, but they're like I have a feeling
Speaker 1: that there's some opportunities to do some interesting things with
Speaker 1: technology in my space. But gee, to do that, I'd
Speaker 1: have to learn the program. But to learn a program,
Speaker 1: I have to re engage with mathematics. And I'm afraid
Speaker 1: of mathematics. Well, you shouldn't have to be anymore. There's
Speaker 1: no stigma. You don't have to be embarrassed that you're
Speaker 1: a little shaky on dividing decimals, are a little shaky
Speaker 1: on exponents. Do it at your own time and pace,
Speaker 1: build that muscle. Learn it and you'll find that it's
Speaker 1: really not that daunting, and you'll find that it's it's
Speaker 1: actually quite empowering, and it's going to give you momentum
Speaker 1: to keep doing that as the pace of change and
Speaker 1: the skills you need continue to adapt. We're living in
Speaker 1: a time right now where technology is making us rethink
Speaker 1: the nature of human purpose and potential. This can be
Speaker 1: scary but also thrilling. If we can muster the energy,
Speaker 1: sal thinks we could perhaps see the strangest and most
Speaker 1: beautiful byproduct of technology. Yet, millions of people, unshackled by
Speaker 1: automation from repetitive and mind numbing labor, empowered with the
Speaker 1: skills to participate in what could be the most exciting
Speaker 1: century yet like Think of what we could do if
Speaker 1: our brains were loaded up just right and the robots
Speaker 1: did all our work for us. Solvable is a collaboration
Speaker 1: between Pushkin Industries and the Rockefeller Foundation, with production by
Speaker 1: Laura Hyde, Hester Kant, Laura Sheeter, and Ruth Barnes from
Speaker 1: Chalk and Blade. Pushkin's executive producer is Mia LaBelle, Research
Speaker 1: by Sheer, Vincent engineering by Jason Gambrel and the great
Speaker 1: folks at GSI Studios. Original music composed by Pascal Wise
Speaker 1: and special thanks to Maggie Taylor, Heather Fine, Julia Barton,
Speaker 1: Carly Mgliori, Jacob weiss Berg, and Malcolm Gladwell. You can
Speaker 1: learn more about solving today's biggest problems at Rockefeller Foundation
Speaker 1: dot org slash solvable. I'm Mave Higgins. Now go solve it.