Education without loan. One approach is documented here: https://loan-free-ed.neocities.org
151 karma · joined January 8, 2020
I have written about it here: https://loan-free-ed.neocities.org
If anyone is interested to know more then the project idea and rationale is available here: https://loan-free-ed.neocities.org
Apple moved to Swift, but what has Google moved to?
More info is available here: https://loan-free-ed.neocities.org
Anyone interested in teaming up to make this a reality?
Basic idea is to use a federated blockchain platform to form a graph of students, teachers, employers and relevant government agencies. When a student gets a job and starts earning income, a percentage of the salary paid via the employer is sent to the education institution and teachers related to that student. More details are here: https://loan-free-ed.neocities.org
> 2 is wiktionary, I think?
Not exactly Wiktionary. Wiktionary is a static type of dictionary. What I envision is a more dynamic multi-lingual dictionary where there is link for a word from one language to other languages. That way users will be able to explore other languages and learn.
0. Making education funding sustainable without putting student into debt. Businesses will directly fund education as they are one of the major beneficiaries.
1. Creating online, live and interactive multi-lingual dictionaries to help reduce language barrier.
Edit0: Also, I just realised, many poor people do not have means to exchange dollar into their local currency. So sending them 1 dollar through post is going to be a waste.
Edit1: Most countries will not allow this due to hawala which creates black money.
Some people have ideas to fix something within the society that they think can be better. Engineers also have some such ideas. I would like to get together engineers so that we can work together on some meaningful project with an aim to solve some social problems.
> The world has a ton of nonprofits
Can be a social enterprise?
> Most humans aren't very effective.
If that is the argument for any new idea/venture, then nothing will ever get done.
And it is not just for Maths. Every subject taught has this problem.
Another problem similar to this issue is very well articulated by Salman Khan of Khan Academy here: https://www.ted.com/talks/sal_khan_let_s_teach_for_mastery_n...
It is outrageous that we make young students debt-laden even before they have any income source. This is not only unethical, it also sets a wrong example for the younger generation.
It is at present just at conceptual level, but I am talking to the stakeholders.
Why is this cool? Well, if this works, then not only will it make education easily accessible to everyone but it will also fundamentally change how education benefits society.
Feedback and collaborators welcome :)
It is an idea to provide loan-free education.
If I am not mistaken Hyperledger Iroha[0] has(had?) that as one of its goals.
There is a link to the corresponding Discord server too in the menubar. Here is the invite: https://discord.gg/RAdT4cJUHC
> I joined your subReddit anyway.
Thank you! And it is not just my subreddit. It is ours. I made it for everyone of us. Open to have more moderators for the subreddit.
Sorry for not including it in my post.
That is the reason why blockchain was choosen.
> My point is, private blockchain doesn't seem to be having any additional advantage at the cost of efficiency and speed of traditional database.
It is not about cost or speed. It is about securing the data in such a way that no single entity controls it. Because the data will be of students, it is better to have multiple trust-worthy entities having an oversight rather than a single entity.
Because it is federated, and no single entity should own and control the data.
> What kind of blockchain will it use?
I am thinking of Hyperledger Iroha. Any other suggestion, most welcome.
> Public or private?
Federated
> What will be the consensus mechanism (PoW or PoS)?
It will use blockchain technology underneath.
Until students try, they will not know. One way out of this is to give students an escape hatch so that they can easily switch from college to trade school if they so desire without impacting their academics.
Well, I am not rationalising it. This argument was made against my project idea[0] to provide loan-free education so that everyone gets access to it without the burden of debt.
Thank you!
> but I can't help imagining a future where every child, from the moment they are born, has a biometric ID connecting them to a consortium of companies which provide their education, health care, housing, energy, internet connectivity, transport, media access, and so on.
My idea will not have that side-effect because not only is the project non-profit and open source, but it is also decentralised. And if we keep thinkng of a dystopian future then we won't be able to do anything positive unless we become some sort of social revolutionaries. I don't have those skills. But I can think of small ideas to make a positive impact that benefits everyone though. The idea I listed in my original post above is very simple, it helps teachers, lecturers, or anyone who contibutes to a persons monetary decent life via education get appropriately paid for their efforts, and everyone(i.e. businesses) who benefits from an educated person should contribute towards that.
It is a simple idea but notoriously diffcult to deploy because there is a possibility of this getting caught up in a political slugfest.