Learn Anything White Paper

I've thought about this concept before and I would tackle it as so:

For every subject you need to list:

  - the pre-prequisites

  - the subsequent subjects one can learn on top of this one

You then have a map of learning.

That's phase 1. the next phase is for each subject to list

  - where to learn it (books, articles, online courses)

  - where to practice it so that once you've learned it you can get better at it and commit it to memory (applies more to some subjects than others. You cannot practice History, but you can practice literacy, numeracy, human languages and programming for example)

  - where to get tested on it so that you can objectively test your level and get certification

The internet has opened up learning of everything. The problem is knowing what to learn, where to start, and how to structure your learning. The above solution would fill the gaps in my opinion.

In fact there is one more layer you can add to all of the above, Gamification. Build a Strava for learning where you can get points for learning, practicing and getting certified in various subjects, and share your progress with friends and family who can motivate you to push on.

I can imagine the above framework being implemented from primary school to basically enable self-learning as a primary form of learning. Teachers would play a supporting role. Students would have much more freedom to align their learning with their interest and would be able to learn exponentially faster and more effectively.

I'm in South Africa, and I've thought of this as a solution to our public education system which is producing a generation of semi-literate unemployable. If someone believes in the model as I stated it and has the means and capacity to launch a startup in this vein I hope you will loop me in.

Donation to wikipedia is still something i do regularly. I believe in wikipedia and in the people running it.

We already have pre-requisites for some topics. Like for example in machine learning. But we do hope to add pre-requisites to all topics as that is really important indeed.

Coinhive does look interesting. Thank you for the suggestion.