By: Finn
Finn lives in California and participates in our custom program with the Silicon Valley Social Venture Fund.
This year, the SV2 Teens are focusing on investments in education for low income youth both locally and internationally. As a part of our mission to expand educational resources, we have the opportunity to visit and invest in three organizations: Khan Academy, BuildOn, and MultiCultural Institute. We’re looking forward to the grant making decision process in April, but the site visits are always a wonderful opportunity to experience impactful organizations throughout the Bay Area. Here is a review of our first site visit:
Wonderful afternoon today spent at Khan Academy! This was a great opportunity for the SV2 Teens to experience one of the world’s leading education nonprofits in their very own headquarters. Between the delicious snacks, enthusiastic staff members, and inspiring web-based programs, this was definitely an awesome experience!
“A free world-class education to anyone, anywhere.” Khan’s mission statement speaks for itself. We loved learning how the company came to life in 2007 after Sal began making online videos to help his nieces with math concepts. Today, as a nonprofit with over 140 staff members, they have reached over 50 million registered users in nearly 200 countries! And they are just getting started; I was fascinated by K.A.’s vision for the future: provide teachers with a free, rich, and interactive learning tool; transition to a more social platform with student to student interaction, and expand higher education programs like electrical engineering or economics into possible vocational training. Finally, the leadership team at K.A. emphasizes that their platform is for everyone to advance their education, and this is becoming a reality as they expand to the population of countries like India, China, Brazil, Mexico, and many more!
Finn, left, meeting with Sal Khan, founder of Khan Academy
Our teens group also had the opportunity to test out and evaluate Khan Academy’s SAT practice programs. In the tech world this is called “eating your own dogfood” or testing out the beta product ourselves! This was a ton of fun as we got to try out the programs for ourselves and work our way through grueling math concepts!
Could not have asked for a better visit at Khan Academy. From a girl in a slum in Mumbai accessing education from a smart phone or a student in the Bay Area getting extra help with Algebra, the possibilities with this online platform are limitless!