$10 million for Project 10^100 winners

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/10-million-for-project-10100-winners.html

by charlief • 16 years ago

59 19 16 years ago

googleblog.blogspot.com

jonbischke• 16 years ago

$2 million for Khan Academy is one of the best investments for improving education ever made.

orblivion• 16 years ago

I'm surprised this never occurred to me. K-12 education is mostly the same stuff every year, and it's not that sophisticated. You'd pretty much only have to compile it once. I'm surprised nobody in the free software or creative commons movements thought of it.

jfager• 16 years ago

There's a huge interest in education material in the free software and creative commons movements. The idea of putting free education material on the web isn't new at all, and there's tons of material available out there (and has been for quite a while).

Khan Academy stands out because it's just really, really, really (really) good.

ghshephard• 16 years ago

It's a great investment for two (2) reasons. First, I'm sure the money will be useful, but, perhaps more importantly, the fact that KhanAcademy was narrowed down from 150K -> 16 -> 5 ideas brings a well deserved sense of accomplishment to everything that Salman Khan has been doing.

I've got about 200 of his videos on my iPad, and I'm religious about absolutely absorbing and practicing stuff from them every day.

100% of my friends who have _any_ difficulty with Math, instantly are introduced to Khan Academy by me.

Even Bill Gates has been using Khan Academy with his children and envies Sal's teaching skills.

One of the better writeups can be found here: http://money.cnn.com/2010/08/23/technology/sal_khan_academy....

Keyframe• 16 years ago

That shweeb thing must be one of the most stupid things I've seen. On the other hand, giving Khan Academy money alone is worth every penny given to him for the great work he has done.

hugh32• 16 years ago

I hadn't heard of shweeb, but after a look at the website, it does indeed sound like a remarkably unworkable idea. Still, maybe there's some kind of possible idea for human-powered public transportation that doesn't look like a haven for system-destroying minor breakdowns and upskirt photographers.

There's also a lesson in there somewhere about how if you have an idea which seems silly, you should avoid also giving it a silly name.

allenp2• 16 years ago

I think you hit the nail on the head - it really just sounds unworkable. Just getting civic approval seems unsurmountable, the system seems frail (breakdowns, capacity, misuse) and all it is going to take is one person to have a serious medical issue with no chance of early responders being able to address the issue for this to get shutdown.

InfinityX0• 16 years ago

Props to Google for doing this. When we look at scale, though, it's like me giving $1 to a bum in San Francisco. I don't deserve props for that.

charlief• 16 years ago

Google's net income in 2009 was 6,500M 10M/6500M = 0.15% So if you make $100K a year, this is more like giving $150.00

If you gave $150.00 to a homeless person, you deserve props. If you gave $150.00 to Khan Academy, you also deserve props.

kiba• 16 years ago

If you gave $150.00 to a homeless person, you deserve props. If you gave $150.00 to Khan Academy, you also deserve props.

A homeless person might not teach himself to fish using 150 dollars, but Khan Academy will teach lot of people how to fish with 150 dollars.

Elite• 16 years ago

For a while I thought Google would be sweeping this under the rug.

Great call on Khan Academy.

But the $1M spent on schweeb could have done more good elsewhere. Nobody wants to go pedaling upside down on a suspended monorail. The bicycle has solved this problem pretty elegantly.

lincolnq• 16 years ago

Oh really? I do. I ride a bike 3 miles to work every day through Cambridge MA. This Shweeb idea would solve the weather problem, as well as the unshakable "oh god I'm going to die" feeling (since cycling with cars around is pretty damn dangerous), and probably be faster to boot.

Empact2• 16 years ago

Yeah, here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhxVtUFZVzk) they claim 2x the efficiency of bicycling, thanks to aerodynamics. There are some serious logistical challenges - e.g. to address the problem of slow people & free riders you might have to detect and incentivize/reward contributing (human) power to the system.

But the low-weight, self-powered approach means it's probably the lowest-cost system to mount above the current din of street life, which could end up being a big benefit.

I'd file it under strange/interesting, rather than crazy/ridiculous

allenp2• 16 years ago

I thought you were joking. I'm sorry you're not.

http://shweeb.com/

sachinag• 16 years ago

I'm so thrilled that they gave Carl Malamud/Law.gov $1 million. His tireless devotion to shining sunlight on government has dramatically changed the way we interact with our government (i.e. SEC EDGAR, which started off as a skunkworks project he turned over to the SEC under threat).

If you'd like to donate, go to http://public.resource.gov and scroll down to the PayPal Donate button. I just gave $100.

Empact2• 16 years ago

FYI, that's: http://public.resource.org/

abp• 16 years ago

Make government more transparent

They could have sponsored wikileaks.

$10 million for Project 10^100 winners

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