He teaches 30 subjects to 2 lakh students,virtually

All these videos have been single-handedly produced by Khan,mainly only with the help of a computer,a pen-tablet mouse,a screen video recorder and Microsoft Paint. About 500 more videos in five-six other subjects are in the pipeline,he says.

These online tutorials,cutting across curricula followed by schools and countries in multiple continents,can be accessed by anyone with a computer and an Internet connection. Around 20,000 Indians regularly log on to http://www.khanacademy.org,forming the second largest community of students in the academy after about 120,000 from the US.

Khan,who was born to an Indian mother and a Bangladeshi father,may not have trained to become a teacher,but the number of degrees he holds indicates his predisposition towards academics. He has masters degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science,a BS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and a BS in Mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. To top it all,he has an MBA from the Harvard Business School.

He,however,says it was the frustration with “educational bureaucracy” that led him to set up this most exhaustive compendium of tutorials ever produced by an individual on a single platform. “I felt like fascinating and intuitive concepts were almost intentionally being butchered into pages and pages of sleep-inducing text and monotonic,scripted lectures,” he says.

It all began in 2004,when Khan tried to help a New Orleans-based cousin,Nadia,with unit conversions through phone and Yahoo Doodle. Nadia’s improved performance in school led to a flurry of requests from other relatives and friends asking Khan to help their children as well. It was then that the idea of making videos and uploading them on YouTube for mass access struck and,the rest is history.

Khan’s website is a maze of links and may overwhelm a first-time visitor. The best way to get started,according to him,is to “find a video you consider easy,but not too easy,and then keep watching from there in order. The other option is to work on our web application that generates problems for students,” he says.

Before setting up the academy,Khan,the father of an 18-month-old,had a promising and well-paying career in a hedge fund. But he has no plans to go back to his old job now. Instead,he wants to run a global multi-language,multi-disciplinary,free-for-all open school.

Khan’s new vocation has,so far,mainly been funded from savings from his old job. But as the popularity of his work spreads,financial aid has started trickling in. Well-known Silicon Valley venture capitalist John Doerr and his wife Ann Doerr are among a handful of big donors who have donated $100,000 so far and Gates,who Khan met recently,is likely to come on board soon.

On Friday,internet giant Google announced a $2 million award for the academy to create more courses and translate the existing videos into other widely-spoken languages. The money has come at the right for Khan,who plans to expand his one-man enterprise. “We will have a team of five-six people shortly to help build the site into a true virtual school.” He,however,says he will “continue to make videos”.

Adding new subjects is on the anvil,too. “I am doing Organic Chemistry right now…will do more History and test prep after that,” he says.