“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.” — Albert Einstein

The Education Problem: Raj Reddy (Part 7)

Thursday, March 15, 2007 | 4 comments

Raj continues discussing his new education program, and the key benefits it provides.

SM: So this is going to be a state funded program? RR: The scaling can be anything, I can take a million people. This particular program scales because everybody gets their own computer. It is a wireless network campus, so all I need is trained mentors, I can get them it takes about two or three years. The tuition is 1.2 lacs per year including food and accommodation. That is only ~$2000 dollars.

SM: How many mentors do you need? RR: It is 10:1. If you are only going to do the post graduate program I am talking about I need 500 mentors for the first year, 500 for the second year and 500 for the third year that is 1500 mentors. They have to be trained also. Within 2-3 years we will be able to bootstrap up to that level. That is how long it takes to build the buildings anyways.

SM: That is a very interesting project Raj. RR: I am unlike others who propose some great idea and then go away. I don’t believe in that. Just let me do something.

SM: If it works there you can scale it for the whole country. RR: Not only that, but you can scale it for the whole world. There are equally deprived people in the US. One of the other phrases I use when I explain it to people here is IT enabled affirmative action. It is not just educating rural people; it is the whole of affirmative action.

There are people in Alabama, Mississippi, and West Virginia, who have bad schools and bad teachers and don’t know where to get a job, I can take them and put them through the same program, and my key is money back guarantee education. They take a loan and if they don’t get a good job it is as much my problem as it is their’s.

This segment is part 7 in a 15 part series Segment 8 →
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