How to Build an Online Video Education Empire

First, obtain a solid education in computer science, math, engineering, finance, business, and banking. Obtain the use of a large closet, for a production studio. For basic production equipment, get a $200 Camtasia Recorder, $80 Wacom Bamboo Tablet and a free copy of SmoothDraw3 on a home PC. DO NOT take education classes, and do not go through the teacher certification process and above all, DO NOT join a teachers' union!

"I'm starting a virtual school for the world, teaching things the way I wanted to be taught," explains Khan, 33, the exuberant founder and sole faculty member of the nonprofit Khan Academy, run out of his small ranch house, which he shares with his wife and infant son.

...every day, his lectures are viewed 70,000 times -- double the entire student body of UC Berkeley. His viewers are diverse, ranging from rural preschoolers to Morgan Stanley analysts to Pakistani engineers. Since its inception in 2006, the Khan Academy website has recorded more than 16 million page views.

At a time when conventional education is under stress, his project has caught the attention of educators and venture capitalists such as John Doerr, who just invested $100,000 to help pay Khan's salary.

Jason Fried, CEO of tech company 37signals, said he invested in Khan's nonprofit because "the next bubble to burst is higher education. It's too expensive. It's too much one-size-fits-all. This is an alternative way to think about teaching -- simple, personal, free and moving at your own pace."

...His approach is learn-as-you-go. Students can start anywhere in the curriculum. Stumped? Simply stop the video, and repeat. He's off camera and conversational. Lessons are bite-size. The modules offer immediate feedback -- what's right, what's wrong. There's conceptual progression.

...Khan's mother is from Calcutta; his father was a pediatrician from Bangladesh. His parents divorced when he was 3, and his father died when he was only 13. By high school, he was growing up in a New Orleans suburb with a hardworking single mother and a fiercely protective elder sister.

Valedictorian of his high school class, with a perfect math SAT score, he always regretted the way educators failed to show the beauty of what they taught. He dreams of a world free of dense textbooks, crowded lecture halls and bored students. Even children in developing nations can learn on a $200 refurbished PC. "There's no higher social return on investment," he said. "We can educate a million kids, for all time. We can build a lecture library that continues to deliver.

"This is the operating system for a whole new school." _Physorg

Salman Khan is driven to build his online educational system. He quit his well-paid financial job to devote full time to Khan Academy. If you hope to achieve comparable or better results, you will need to exhibit similar enthusiastic commitment to your own online education empire.

Current bloated bureaucracies of "education" are not focused on the education of students, and focus more on indoctrination than on education. Clearly a student-centered approach is necessary -- one that provides an education rather than an indoctrination.