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Education without loan. One approach is documented here: https://loan-free-ed.neocities.org

Disconnect between education and employment.

I have written about it here: https://loan-free-ed.neocities.org

I don't have any project up and running, but I had tried in the past(and still looking) to get like minded people to work on an open source project to make education equity-based rather than loan-based. It has a genuine use for federated/permission-oriented distributed ledger. Iroha under the hyperledger umbrella was a good choice for the project.

If anyone is interested to know more then the project idea and rationale is available here: https://loan-free-ed.neocities.org

This project idea falls under the category of "moonshot project". And it is an open source and not for profit idea. I don't think anyone will invest in the usual sense.

> ...Apple and Google have “moved” on.

Apple moved to Swift, but what has Google moved to?

A universal platform to facilitate loan-free education. This will not only make education accessible but also help social mobility.

More info is available here: https://loan-free-ed.neocities.org

Anyone interested in teaming up to make this a reality?

I am interested, but initially could I participate just as an observer?

> 1 is an awesome idea and I'd love to hear more.

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.

I have two ideas. But, as I said in my post, I am open to ideas from others. Here are my two ideas:

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.

You also need to account for exchange rate and processing fees. Some recipients may not receive 1 dollar.

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.

> What exactly are you pitching?

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.

This!

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...

Education funding should be based on equity, and not on debt. And it should be funded by the society as a whole and not by some private for-profit entities.

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.

Possibility of Microsoft buying Facebook is not unthinkable. Microsoft is already an investor in Facebook. Both HoloLens and Oculus are already moving in the same direction with enterprise play.

I am working on https://loan-free-ed.neocities.org

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 :)

Here is one: https://loan-free-ed.neocities.org

It is an idea to provide loan-free education.

> Blockchains are designed to be a network of peers, but not designed such that it’s really possible for your mobile device...

If I am not mistaken Hyperledger Iroha[0] has(had?) that as one of its goals.

[0] https://github.com/hyperledger/iroha

> I think Discord would be better.

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.

Thank you for the link! :)

Sorry for not including it in my post.

> You may not have a single entity controlling it but you still have a group of entities who already trust each other and have agreed to create a shared database.

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.

> Why does it need a blockchain?

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)?

YAC(https://arxiv.org/pdf/1809.00554.pdf)

I am ideating (and looking for feedback) on a project to provide education without student-debt. The project description is here: https://loan-free-ed.neocities.org

It will use blockchain technology underneath.

Working on: https://loan-free-ed.neocities.org

How does one know if a student will succeed in college? Past performance is no guarantee for future success or failure. I know ample examples where students were really bad academically until grade 12, and then flourished in the college/university environment and vice versa.

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.

> the way you're rationalising it seems off.

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.

[0] https://loan-free-ed.neocities.org