alt school

My nieces go to alt school. What intrigued me was the fact that they seemed to enjoy going to school, which wasn't exactly the case earlier. I was intrigued to find out more.

On checking the website, it's base line was "School, reimagined".
https://www.altschool.com/


I'll let the founder of alt school, Max Ventilla describe his vision.

Not surprisingly, like most Bay Area start ups, founded by successful Bay Area executives, alt school too is well funded. Last year they raised $100 million. Its backed by amongst other heavy weights, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg.

http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/04/altschool-raises-100m-from-founders-fund-zuckerberg-to-scale-a-massive-network-of-schools-around-personalized-learning/

They started with 1 school in San Francisco and are now expanding. This year they've come to New York.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/06/nyregion/in-the-spirit-of-mark-zuckerberg-an-experimental-school-in-brooklyn.html?_r=0

I love the idea and do believe it'll work extremely well for the few able to afford the education and the even fewer who manage to get in. It does not however seem to move the needle as regards to the macro education picture globally or even in the US.

US Elections -- How do they work?

The US election season that started in early 2015 has now gained momentum with the elections for the Republican and Democratic parties underway. And the interest even in other countries such as India is picking up.
Surprisingly, most people had a similar question. How exactly do the US elections work ? And even more surprisingly very few had any idea. My attempts to explain were to put it mildly, hugely unsuccessful.

And so I did, what I do when I'm stuck. Find someone who could do it better. I first explored websites and wikis and pdf's and ... They were extensive but drab and boring. And I didn't think too many people would take the trouble to read so much matter. I thought maybe videos could do a better job. And there were several. After gong through over 2 dozen videos, I managed to narrow down to 2 which between them would give a good idea of the US Government and election systems, including of course the Presidential elections.

The irony is that both of these videos are by UK organizations. The UK Parliament and The Telegraph.


UK Parliament
This is the official YouTube channel for the UK Parliament

The Telegraph
The Telegraph is the most popular UK newspaper on YouTube.

Alternative Energy

A couple of days ago, a friend Jasjit who I was meeting after a long time, talked about Solar Energy and his new found bullishness on the subject. He made several comments, which I found extremely interesting and intriguing. He made it sound like the energy consumption patterns in the world would change in the next 15 years, to eliminate traditional energy sources such as coal and oil.

He was a convert after seeing a talk by Tony Seba. I hadn't heard about Tony Seba, but looked him up and found an excellent 1 hour presentation.

And after watching it, I too had a major change of opinion, or rather began to have an opinion. No matter what your position on the subject, this presentation is a must watch.

Lend a helping hand

"
Connecting people to create change
India's largest funding platform for social and personal causes.
"

A few days ago, a colleague, who wishes to remain anonymous, told me about a non-profit called Milaap. And what made it amazing that you were not donating, you were lending.

I've always thought that if we could help people to help themselves, it would go a much longer way than the traditional donating model, which to some extent makes people dependent.

Milaap did exactly this. Their model allows for you to pick the specific cause you want to lend to. 100% of the amount lent reached the borrower. The borrower repays with a marginal interest rate of 5 - 12%, which is used to cover cost of the field partner as well as Milaap.

You can then either re-lend the money or withdraw. My colleague has manage to lend 2x of his original investment in under 2 years. I don't know of any other venture that gives you a 100% return in 2 years.

Check it out. And if you like it, go ahead and lend a helping hand.
https://milaap.org/