In my quest to write about American Muslims who are either entrepreneurs, social workers, educationists or activists, I am always on the lookout for an inspiring story. The work done by Salman Khan, founder of Khan Academy also falls in this category and Muslim Youth should learn from the work he has done. We all know the power of the internet; Social Media sites like Youtube, Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin are some of the sites which have ridden the popularity curve. These sites can be used for your advantages or could be used to just waste your valuable time. Salman Khan has used the power of YouTube to provide education to anyone, anywhere free. He has created and posted 1000's of videos on YouTube which cover basic arithmetic, biology, chemistry, banking, finance, algebra, calculus, and physics. The quality of these videos and the instruction style used by Salman Khan is comparable to any good school classroom style of teaching.

His 1100 videos has already gotten 8 Million views from suburbs of America and London to villages of Uganda and Eritrea. Every month 70,000 students watch 35,000 videos every day which translates to 2 Million minutes of instructions delivered every week. Salman Khan has used the power of the internet and the free services of YouTube to provide education to the children who cannot afford to get one to one learning instruction. The Khan Academy and Salman Khan have received a 2009 Tech Award in Education. The Tech Awards is an international awards program that honors innovators from around the world who are applying technology to benefit humanity.

Salman Khan has a very impressive background. He received his MBA from Harvard Business School. He also holds a Masters 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. He could be working for any Hedge Fund and making millions, but his passion to provide free education to the world is quite inspiring. Every Muslim household in America and the world should be proud of his work and should do everything to support his effort. We should produce many Salman Khans so that we can eradicate world illiteracy.

To learn more about Khan Academy please visit www.KhanAcademy.org

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