Change the world! Give us an idea! We'll fund it, you'll probably never see a dime, but help the world!
Google has a nifty project that calls for ideas.
The thing is, I site on a ton of ideas at any given point of time, that I am in no position (currently) to implement (and hopefully become fabulously wealthy from, in addition to improving the world with).
Most of these ideas won't help 10^100 people (probably because there aren't that many people), but I have one idea that would.
And while I know this is a "Don't Be Evil."-washing moment for Google, I can't help but think I stand to benefit too.
There is far too much risk that someone will steal my idea, including especially Google (especially with that butt-covering TOS for the Project) to expect to directly profit in the traditional sense.
So how to I expect to better myself while helping others? I have a few ideas:
- Advertising of Me - If my name gets out as being the guy who came up with this idea, people will recognize me. (Hint to Google: Link to my blog, you're already taking a cut of the profits from my ads, so any way you look at it, you win.)
- Free Education - If my project gets implemented perfectly, I get a free ride to a degree of my choosing.
And if I'm lucky, I'll somehow get paid for the idea, but I doubt that. If I do though, I'm one step closer to phase two of goal one of the blog: Give stuff to my readers for being so awesome.
Enough pandering I suppose, here is my idea, as I submitted it to Google. Note that unlike suggestion posts I normally do, this one is not free to implement. It is my idea, so get your own.
(I added some comments too, in Italics, that weren't in the submission that I gave to Google.)
Your idea's name (maximum 50 characters):
Schools of Scale
Please select a category that best describes your idea.
What one sentence best describes your idea? (maximum 150 characters)
Free college for everyone regardless of any disadvantage, advantage or situation, subsidized by advertising, mainly provided over the Internet.
Describe your idea in more depth. (maximum 300 words)
Free college for everyone regardless of any disadvantage, advantage or situation, subsidized by advertising, mainly provided over the Internet.
Describe your idea in more depth. (maximum 300 words)
Acceptance is just a click away. An ambitious goal, or a slick reality? Imagine being able to get an education, from any level of education (provided one can read and use a computer) to a much needed college degree and education. Certain colleges give away completely free college to super-achievers, but that is not enough. Colleges such as Stanford (wow, what company do I know that go a start at Stanford...) have started providing access to videos of select courses (http://see.stanford.edu/see/courses.aspx Google did not accept the URL in the post, so it was omitted...), but this is not enough.
All courses and degrees must be free.
Course materials are easy enough to get, as duplicating a curriculum is cheap, even if one was to pay royalties.
The hardest resource to get would be teachers to evaluate work and validate the paper end of the deal.
One cannot provide something forever on charity, and free implies that you aren't charging people to learn. So how does one cover costs?
Why not cover costs with advertising?
With text based, context sensitive ads as a start, (how obvious is it that I'm pandering with the examples?) it would be the goal of the project to be self-sustaining, if not more, while providing free education to all.
Advertisement subsides subsidies (blarg, spelling error was submitted...) all.
Online versions of a curriculum? R&D or royalties, paid by advertising.
Online textbooks? Same.
Teachers to check work and answer questions? Same.
Servers? Same.
In classes requiring a physical presence, such as a medical degree, more planning would have to be done, to obtain a campus and the like, but in that case, physical advertising can be done.
This is the least composed part of the project, as the early stages would certainly only be online. Fortunately, technical fields are easier to do in this setting and provide a swift start.
What problem or issue does your idea address? (maximum 150 words)
Currently, there is a large amount of information available over the Internet, more often then not, for free. College and the degrees associated with it are becoming more and more necessary to get and hold a job in industrialized countries, and the education provided is life changing for those in less developed areas of the planet.
The issue is that education costs money, and for some, whether they hail from a part of the world where a dollar a day to live on is a lot, to others where crushing costs and huge amounts of debt face them if they do go, this is a seeming impossibility, and thus, ends their future here, at this roadblock.
Roadblock no longer. Everyone who wants education, gets it, free. People get smarter, getting a job, or changing your outlook becomes easier, everyone wins.
If your idea were to become a reality, who would benefit the most and how? (maximum 150 words)
Everyone. Knowledge is power.
From children in Africa with a OLPC, to those feeling an economic crunch in the states, more education means more productivity and a better future.
Not just for the students, who gain a better outlook, but for major corporations, especially in the technology industry (which is incidentally the easiest skill set to teach on a computer), and by even further extension, the human species.
What are the initial steps required to get this idea off the ground? (maximum 150 words)
Forming an organization or finding an organization willing to take on this undertaking would be the first and hardest step.
Next would be initial funding in order to start; regardless of whether it is a non-profit, or for profit organization or company, the project would proceeded to gain interest in order to fund itself until the popularity needed to use advertising as a means becomes sustaining.
Third would be curriculum and staff acquisition. Agreements may needed to pay for royalties on curriculum and textbooks if self development of them is deemed too expensive. Teachers would have to be paid.
Fourth, accreditation would be necessary. In the case of resistance from the current educational community, a large organization of businesses would have to agree to honor the degrees.
Last, servers would have to be set up so students could sign up. This would all be followed by actual education.
Describe the optimal outcome should your idea be selected and successfully implemented. How would you measure it? (maximum 150 words)
In the best case, the project would be implemented within a year. I would get a free education as one of the first students of the project, along with around a couple million students (the key is scale)! In following years, others may emulate the project if it is successful, leading to competing Schools of Scale with incentives to join. Traditional colleges will lower prices or increase incentives to learn at their facilities in order to compete, if not join in partnerships with the project and copycats of it. Over time, every person on Earth will not only have the opportunity to get a free education, but everyone will constantly be acquiring new degrees in their spare time, at no added cost except for the commitment of a couple hours a week. Supplemented with research techniques on the way people best learn gathered from the project, global intelligence will skyrocket.
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I did not submit a YouTube video for various reasons (30 seconds is hard to come up with on short notice; 60 seconds would have been more fair).
It is submitted. Check back on the Project 10^100 page come January 27th to vote for my idea. Oh, and spread the word on this page. I need people to vote for my idea, and by extension, know about it before the voting starts.
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