Sal Khan

Salman Khan was born in 1976 in New Orleans, Louisiana, to Jamal Khan, a pediatrician from Barisal, Bangladesh, and Mahooda Khan, born in Calcutta, India. He attended public schools in New Orleans before earning three degrees from MIT in 1998: bachelor's in mathematics, bachelor's in electrical engineering and computer science, and a master's in electrical engineering. Khan later obtained an MBA from Harvard Business School and started his professional career in technology, eventually becoming a hedge fund analyst in Boston, which later moved to Palo Alto, California. In August 2004, while at the hedge fund, Khan began tutoring his cousin Nadia remotely via phone and Yahoo Doodle due to her struggles with unit conversions and math placement. This expanded to over a dozen family members and friends by 2006, prompting him to create practice software and post hand-scribbled video tutorials on YouTube to scale his efforts. The videos gained traction, surpassing a million views, and addressed 'Swiss-cheese' knowledge gaps without the social pressures of live tutoring. Khan incorporated Khan Academy as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit in 2008, quitting his hedge fund job in fall 2009 to pursue it full-time, initially living off savings until receiving a donation from Ann Doerr. Major funding followed in 2010 from Google ($2 million) and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation ($1.5 million). He recruited Shantanu Sinha as President & COO and built a team, moving into an office and expanding content. Khan Academy now offers 7,000+ videos, 70,000+ practice problems in 46 languages, serving 190+ countries with 110 million registered users and 20-30 million monthly active learners. Khan authored 'The One World Schoolhouse: Education Reimagined' in 2012, outlining education's evolution and his vision for personalized, mastery-based learning unbound by time or space. In 2014, he founded Khan Lab School to test these ideas, emphasizing student agency, resilience, peer learning, and real-world application over traditional grades or busywork. His work continues to influence global education, blending online tools with classroom innovation amid challenges like the pandemic.