Khan Academy - revolutionalising education...

...and making life-long learning truly possible.

Khan Academy is a private initiative of Salman Khan who used to work in financial sector but discovered that he can actually create some social value instead (this is his own words, not my judgement). :) Now, he and his team have created hundreds of educational videos on topics ranging from algebra and geometry to arts and history. Only the microphone and the virtual chalkboard are used for creating these videos. Each of them is about 10-20 minutes long, being a perfect duration to digest information, stop for a while, think and discuss - and watch the next video on the subsequent topic, if interested.

My wife and me have recently watched series of videos on biology, refreshing our long-forgotten knowledge from the high-school, as well as on money and banking. Khan Academy is an amazing way to spend the free time with your family - be it your partner or your kids.

I definitely agree with Salman Khan - videos are a powerful tool to acquire knowledge. I have, for instance, watched videos on YouTube and similar to learn some specific details of repairing bicycle or cooking. I also used video in my own course for students - and intend to use it even more.

Cognitive model of entrepreneurship and its reflection in three Scandinavian graduate programmes

This is the title of my Master thesis that I submitted few days ago as the finalising part of my studies at the MSc programme in Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the BI Norwegian School of Management.

It is the result of several months of work. Me and my colleague Richard from Hong Kong spent a lot of time and effort doing this research and presenting it as a written report.

The topic focuses on the entrepreneurship education. The intriguing question has been: entrepreneurship, just like the talents of musicians, artists, teachers etc. is often considered to be more art than science. How to teach someone to become an entrepreneur? Is it possible anyway?

Borrowing methods from the field of human geography, we mapped out the very domain of entrepreneurship. Essentially, we constructed the map of entrepreneurship based on the stories of 36 entrepreneurs. Then we did the same for three different graduate programmes focusing on the entrepreneurship as a subject - and compared their cognitive models.

Hopefully, I will make a practical use of this research in the future - this is my intention anyway.

The full as well as summarised text of this work is available on request.


The model of entrepreneurship from the accounts of practitioners (click on it for a larger view)

The model of entrepreneurship in the clusters of meaning (click on it for a larger view)

Impressions from St.Gallen Symposium in Switzerland (vol.2)

The part of the St.Gallen Symposium in Switzerland in the beginning of May was a debate involving some successful intelligent people from different areas - academia, social entrepreneurship, corporate life, government. The topic of the debate was "Choose your Future" - addressing the young people across the world who were participating at the Symposium. To make this interesting debate available outside the scope of participants of the event, it was hosted, recorded and later broadcast by the BBC World Service Radio on 15th of May.

Some young participants were chosen to speak up their views based on their questions to the panellists. I happened to be one of them. I expressed my view that young people who have education and intelligence too often don't think of the responsibility that they bear - instead being egocentric and comfortable with the little bubble of consumerism and other learned desires they treat as important.

The whole programme is available on the BBC website. My contribution to the debate is from around 41:15 till 43:00 and, again, from 45:30 till 46:45.

Feel stupid? Make most of it!

It is great to feel stupid again. Because when I feel like that, I have the urge to do everything possible to eliminate this feeling. Usually the way to do it is through learning.

I am now in the period of my life when this learning is institutionalized. In other words, I spend a lot of time in the learning institution.

This institution is called BI Norwegian School of Management (Handelshøyskolen BI), where I am pursuing two-years degree of Master in Innovation and Entrepreneurship. One of the leading business schools in Scandinavia, one of the few private institutions of higher education in Norway has to manage to attract good students, while they have chance to get their education for free in any of Norwegian public schools. When one competes against others who have certain natural advantage, one has to be better in certain things.

I definitely feel that studying here. The school itself is very innovative and studying-friendly. I have never had that good conditions to study. The university building is one of the most beautiful and impressive I have seen in my life. I have access to all kind of business books and all kind of scientific databases around the world. Connections between university and business sphere are very strong and learning methods are very practical.

Coming back to feeling stupid - I have subjects such as Financial Management and Theories of Business and Economic Development, which are very intensive and require a lot of dedication. I have a bachelor degree in social sciences, therefore, I literally felt stupid in some classes. - I just didn't understand many things as they were said. This has led to many hours of reading, exercising, writing and thinking afterwards on my own and talking to my class-mates with previous financial education. Sometimes I have the feeling that I would be a great accountant, should I study like that for some time more :)

My first three weeks of studies have taught me enormously much about financial and business world. Interesting conclusion I have come to is that, in my opinion, it is a good idea to receive a business education after a social one (or maybe vice versa). Because, in fact, these two are like two different worlds.

Social paradigm of the world is all about humans, their behaviour, their interaction, institutions they create, societies and communities they participate in, policies and structures they think of to make the world easier to grasp.

Financial/business paradigm of the world (in its pure setting) is all about profits, earnings, rational investment, innovations to create more value.

And it is interesting to see that there are two distinct types of people who think in one or another paradigm. It is also interesting to ask yourself which of them is governing societies and the world as such. If you don't have money, you cannot build society or any kind of relationship, can you? Can anyone say for sure what kind of impact on societies have had people like Warren Buffett, one of the world's greatest investors?

Anyway, I am glad BI gives an opportunity to open up another paradigm of understanding the world.

Another interesting discovery is that it is really great to be a Master student after having lived and worked in different countries for three years without being enrolled in university. I feel I understand much better what I want and what I need from my studies. I can focus my attention on what truly interests me, not on what is "good to learn". I can judge the things being learnt in my classes from perspective of my past real-life experiences.

The soft-skills and the world-view which I have acquired thanks to AIESEC, are of a great importance. To work on presentation in a group, to drive fast conclusions, to hold a presentation in class, to have a broad perspective on learning material, to set clear objectives for your studies - I feel my AIESEC experience has helped me enormously to make all of that better and easier than if I would not have had AIESEC career behind me. Global perspective of thinking is another valuable asset I have acquired thanks to leading AIESEC chapters in Estonia and Kazakhstan, interacting with hundreds of young leaders from all around the globe.

I suppose I will fully grasp the importance of my AIESEC experience in years from now, after some more discoveries of how cool it is sometimes to feel yourself stupid ;)