| (Am original author) YES, I totally agree! :) — At Vittana (the org I founded), we joke there are only three ways to _really_ change the world. * religions: whether you believe in God or the Flying Spaghetti Monster, you gotta agree that religion has affected world history * governments: law & order, basic needs, wars -- name it, it's probably there * markets: biotech, microchip, Internet, space -- need I say more? In fact, I'd argue that if you look at the past 50 years, even in the United States but certainly elsewhere (e.g. the Asian Tigers), and all of the incredible things we've seen -- the biotech, microchip, Internet, space revolutions -- you could trace it all back to education. And in particular (at least in the United States), I'd wager you could probably trace it all back to the GI Bill: that, for the first time, an entire generation could finish college if they wanted. You see similar investments in education elsewhere. When that happens (assuming non-dysfunctional governments like in Egypt, etc.), you see a generation of people both creating and filling in opportunity for themselves through industry. That's what excites us. At Vittana, we focus on providing education micro-loans to fight youth poverty. It's very much about a hand up, not a hand out: not a donation and not aid, but a business partnership among equals. Take Ana Lizbeth, for instance, one of my favorite students: she wanted to be a programmer but needed $713 to graduate -- because of a Vittana Loan, that became possible. http://blog.vittana.org/ana-lizbeth-a-mothers-dream-and-dete... We're not starting the cult or island nation of Vittana anytime soon -- I'm certainly not ;) -- so that leaves us with free markets. Our hope is that by going first, we can show others that education micro-loans are _possible_ to do and spark others to do it too. Big fixes don't really work, but sometimes crazy, risky small ideas turn into big movements. That's our hope at least. :) And thank you for the welcome! I've actually been with HN almost since the beginning (2,046 days — just happened to see earlier) but haven't been active/been busy building Vittana. I just logged in today when I saw a whole bunch of referrers coming in from HN. |