Following a rousing introduction from Sir Ken Robinson, education innovator Sugata Mitra accepted the first-ever $1 million TED Prize at TED2013. As soon as the TED Prize winner’s identity was revealed, the Twittersphere buzzed about Sugata’s vision for the future of learning.

People around the world answered Sugata’s invitation to help reinvent the way kids learn, by spreading the word about self-organized learning and committing to contribute resources for his School in the Cloud. Based on the conversation online, the TED community is ready and willing to reimagine education.

Sugata’s name is now trending on Twitter. The prospect of igniting the fire of curiosity in kids through collaboration and encouragement is so inspiring; even some critics are rooting for this project’s success.

Here are some highlights:

Something valuable for everyone in school or who has children in school. My hero Sugata Mitra shares the wisdom… fb.me/1AbwNx7Kz—
Ramon J. Thomas (@RamonThomas) October 31, 2012

Building a school in the cloud! Breaking the barriers!! blog.tedprize.com/congratulation…—
Subramanyan RG (@subramanyanrg) February 27, 2013

Congratulations to Sugata Mitra for winning TED Prize '13 -Blowing away conventional thoughts on Education! Brilliant! What an honour too!—
Joy Dev Chatterjee (@Joydc11) February 27, 2013

#TEDSOLE I commit to help with identity, marketing, branding, engagement strategy, teaching & North Texas collaboration @TEDPrize #TED2013—
Sarah Boswell (@SarahBoswell) February 27, 2013

hey #TED2013, the educational hookup I offered was to @toddsutler and his @OdysseyInitiate 50-state tour of best teaching practices—
Baratunde (@baratunde) February 27, 2013

@tedprize I'd be humbled take part. I commit to help w/ interaction design, usability, accessibility, marketing & more. #emailingnow—
Ryan Plesko (@plesko) February 27, 2013

"education should be about developing the ability to learn anything on one’s own." Let's do this everywhere! wp.me/p10512-ilS—
Deanna Martinez (@DeaBeEm) February 27, 2013

Sugata Mitra winning the 2013 TED Prize should be the most important story in every newspaper in the world. This can change learning forever—
Nikhil Goyal (@nikhilgoya_l) February 27, 2013

Teachers take note!! RT @TEDNews: winner of the 2013 @TEDPrize: Sugata Mitra and the school in the cloud! ted.com/prize #TED2013—
Matt W Kane (@Mattwkane) February 27, 2013

"If there's a child in trouble, we beam a gran." ~ Sugata Mitra #TED2013 #Education #LoveYou #education <3—
Amazing Women Rock (@AmazingWomen) February 27, 2013

love this "rid us of a system that is fast becoming obsolete": NRI ed pioneer Sugata Mitra wins $1 million TED Prize fb.me/KOI2Iuh2—
jalak jobanputra (@jalak) February 27, 2013

"Child Driven Education" – Sugata Mitra's winning TED presentation on giving kids access to education even far away ted.com/talks/lang/en/…—
  (@japanmama) February 27, 2013

Huge win for Sugata Mitra but remain skeptical on use of technology in primary education. Happy to be proven wrong. bit.ly/ZHHfDR—
Gautam John (@gkjohn) February 27, 2013

Are you inspired by Sugata’s wish? Join the conversation on Twitter by tweeting at @TEDPrize and using the #TEDSOLE hashtag.

Many of you have already watched Sugata Mitra’s TED Prize talk, posted on TED.com earlier today, calling for the building of the School in the Cloud. Others of you may have read our written recap of his talk. And now we get the talk, rendered by an artist, cartoon-style. This visualization of Mitra’s talk was created by Gavin Blake of Fever Picture, a collection of scribes and graphic facilitators who translate conferences into the universal language of image. Stay tuned for more Fever Picture graphic representations of talks.

Where does education go from here?

Sugata Mitra: Build a School in the CloudOn Tuesday, Sugata Mitra accepted the 2013 TED Prize and offered a bold wish for the world: that we encourage children to explore questions about our world in self-organized learning environments. He proposed the founding of a School in the Cloud based in India, and encouraged TED community members, wherever they may be, to foster education by encouraging a sense of wonder in kids.

This week’s TED Weekends, posted a few days earlier than usual, features essays from great thinkers on the ideas advanced in Mitra’s talk. Here, a selection of these essays, for your reading pleasure. 

Sugata Mitra: We Need Schools … Not Factories

From Plato to Aurobindo, from Vygotsky to Montessori, centuries of educational thinking have vigorously debated a central pedagogical question: How do we spark creativity, curiosity, and wonder in children? But those who philosophized pre-Google were prevented from wondering just how the Internet might influence the contemporary answer to this age-old question.

Today, we can and must; a generation that has not known a world without vast global and online connectivity demands it of us. Read the full essay  »

Courtney E. Martin: The Most Powerful Technology of All … Questions

Many will see Sugata Mitra’s wish — to build a “School in the Clouds” — as a TED-style, uber futuristic, and potentially impractical, solution for a very real problem across the globe. But the innovation at the very heart of his wish, truth be told, is not about computers or Skype or even Google. The most critical technology is a really good question.

I think a lot about the power of questions, because I’m a journalist. Well, that, and a nosy person. I’m the kind of person that you sit down next to at a dinner party and ten minutes later you realize that I’ve pulled your life story right out of you. In many ways, it’s not a conscious process, even for me. One minute I’m learning someone’s name and the next I’m asking them, “And then what happened?!” Read the full essay »

Jackie Bezos: A Cloud of Human Potential

In every town in every nation, young people are moments away from inheriting complex problems. At the same time, disparities in educational opportunity and achievement are widening and threatening to undermine the vast potential of our youngest generations. As a global community, it is unconscionable that we leave so much promise unrealized among our youth.

In places where the greatest inequity exists, Dr. Sugata Mitra’s “School in the Cloud” holds enormous promise for leveling the playing field. But his methodology, which taps into a child’s innate sense of wonder and curiosity through Self-organized Learning Environments (or SOLES), is relevant for communities and classrooms everywhere. In essence, it’s about putting the power to learn, create and collaborate into the hands of our children. Read the full essay »

Vanessa Lafaye: If We Turn the Internet Into the World’s Memory, What Becomes of Our Own?

It is interesting to note that Mitra’s TEDTalk is titled, “The Future of Learning” rather than “Education.” This distinction seems like the heart of the issue, not only for SOLE (self-organized learning environment), but more widely. It’s the difference between absorbing information, and developing faculties for creative thought and analytical problem-solving.

He traces today’s education system back to the Victorian-era hunger for literate bureaucrats, needed to keep the wheels of the British Empire running smoothly. As it happens, my employer Wiley was established even before this time. Also as it happens, publishing is undergoing a dramatic reinvention today, in search of new models in response to the urgent imperative to prepare our young for the creative economy of tomorrow. This got me thinking about evolution, of knowledge and ourselves. Read the full essay »

Sugata Mitra’s bold efforts towards advancing learning earned him the first-ever $1 million dollar TED Prize. Sugata Mitra: Build a School in the CloudAt TED2013, Sugata asked the global TED community to make his dream come true by helping him build a “School in the Cloud,” where kids can tap into their innate sense of wonder and work together.

Since Sugata is passionate about reinventing the way kids learn, he’s curated a list of 5 great TED Talks that align with his vision for the future of learning. From Sir Ken Robinson’s talk about creativity in schools to Arvind Gupta’s reflection on turning garbage into educational toys, Sugata’s diverse inspirations fan the flames of curiosity and explore the significance of learning beyond the classroom.

Watch Mitra’s playlist of talks here »

At TED2013, Sugata Mitra accepted the TED Prize for 2013 with a striking talk. Sugata Mitra: Build a School in the CloudHis wish: for children to learn about any variety of subjects through self-organized learning. While this bold project will take form with a “School in the Cloud” in India, Mitra encourages members of our community to help with a global paradigm change by creating their own self-organized learning environments and fostering a sense of wonder in children.

A special edition of TED Weekends presents essays inspired by Mitra’s talk. On Wednesday, we shared five of these great essays. Below, find three more.

Tom Healy: Seeing Fire in the Clouds

Last night, as I listened to Dr. Sugata Mitra, TED’s 2013 Wish Prize winner, discuss the experiments in education that led to the invention of the SOLE, his self-organizing learning environment, I thought about the impossible.

Dr. Mitra has talked in the past about how difficult it is to get good teachers to go, paradoxically, where they are needed the most: low-income and/or rural areas where, simply, people are too poor and the areas are too dangerous, too out of the way to attract the necessary educators. It’s not only difficult, it’s usually impossible. Dr. Mitra is fond of quoting the science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke: “If children have interest, then education happens.” There’s no fiction in that. Just truth and common sense — that Dr. Mitra has backed with serious science. Read the full essay »

John McWhorter: Back to the Future

Sugata Mitra’s inspiration offers promise in returning learning to what humans are programmed for.

And that is not what we today think of as “school.” The books-and-blackboards model of education will always be most productively engaged by students of two sorts.

One is the middle-class child from a quiet, book-lined home, in which concentration in solitude is drunk in from toddlerhood.

The other is the child of driven immigrant families, uniquely dedicated to their children’s making the most of the new circumstances. Read the full essay »

Jessie Woolley-Wilson: Student-centered, Student-driven

In order to unlock the human potential of a child, we must first unlock their learning potential. For those of us in the Next Generation Learning community who hope to create a paradigm of learning that is at once student centered and student driven, very engaging and highly effective, Sugata Mitra’s Self Organized Learning Environment (SOLE) is a provocative vision for the future. As an education innovator, optimist, and dreamer, I am captivated by the young children featured in Mitra’s “Hole in the Wall” videos who seem genuinely delighted and undaunted by the perplexing challenges they are asked to solve on their own. I admire the daring experimentation of Mitra’s model and his wish to build a school in the cloud — one that has the potential to serve millions of undeserved children around the globe.

This is a wish about access. This is a wish about high expectations. This is a wish about hope — about seeing around impediments to the infinite possibilities. Read the full essay »

Last week, education researcher Sugata Mitra won the first-ever $1 million TED Prize to build his School in the Cloud. Sugata Mitra: Build a School in the CloudPrior to his TED Prize win, Mitra was known for his “Hole in the Wall” experiment. In 1999, Mitra and his colleagues dug a hole in a wall near an urban slum in New Delhi, installed an Internet-connected PC and left it there — while a hidden camera filmed the area. Through the video feed, they observed children from the slum playing around with the computer, teaching themselves how to use it and sharing with others their amazing discoveries.

At TED2013, Mitra invited the world to embrace child-driven learning by setting up Self-Organized Learning Environments (SOLEs) and helping him design a learning lab in India, where children can “embark on intellectual adventures.”

We gave Mitra a call and asked him to reflect on his TED Prize win, dive deeper into his thoughts about learning and share the personal experiences that inspired his passion for igniting curiosity in children across the globe.

Here’s our conversation:

What does winning the TED Prize mean to you?

To me, it is a great symbol of recognition — that my work of the last few decades does have acceptability and is of real interest to the world. I was nervous that my work would get put aside as “out of the box,” a phrase I dislike immensely, and forgotten. I am more confident now, thanks to TED.

How did your upbringing shape your interest in self-directed learning?

I did not know anything about self-directed learning until 1999 when I stumbled upon it because of the Hole in the Wall experiment. I grew up more or less by myself in a big bungalow in Delhi with a large garden that had lots of trees and all sorts of birds, animals and insects. We used to learn together, if that makes any sense.

If you were part of a SOLE as a child, what big question do you imagine you might have asked first?

I think I have always been in a SOLE. I grew up quite alone and used to experiment constantly with my surroundings — trees and animals and birds and myself. There were no computers, so I used to ask questions to nature, and often, she would answer.

What is the first thing you remember learning on your own? Did you enjoy the process?

When I was 4 or so, we used to live in my mother’s house in Calcutta. The morning newspaper was rolled up and tossed into our first-floor balcony by the newspaper man. I was always up very early and used to pick it up and take it to my grandfather. I did not know he was dying from cancer. One day when I went to his room with the paper, it was empty and there were people crying. I went back to the balcony and put the paper back where it had fallen and stood for some time wondering if I should pick it up and try again. I learned you can’t turn back time. I did not enjoy the process, I am afraid.

Some people have misunderstood your strategy as anti-teacher, when in fact you are arguing that teachers have a crucial role to play — just a different one — in this technological age. Who was your favorite teacher and why?

My favorite teacher was Father Lewicki at St. Xavier’s High School. When I was 16, I told him I don’t see why I should believe in God. He said I should read Teilhard de Chardin and decide for myself.

Will child-driven education work differently depending on a child’s culture, gender and access to resources?

Easy access to an unsupervised, publicly visible computer with broadband is critical. But children are impacted differently depending on their reading comprehension, particularly in English. Culture does not matter so much when you are dealing with 8-12-year-olds. Neither does gender.

How has parenting informed your perspective on self-directed learning?

My father did his Ph.D. under Benjamin Bloom in Chicago, in the days of objective-driven and “programmed” learning. He then became one of the first psychoanalysts in India. I think he taught me a lot of things by not telling me to do things — by not teaching and only listening.

I learnt how to listen and that people will tell you everything if you listen and say “hmmm” once in a while. My mother, who was once a student of Rabindranath Tagore, taught me how to do lots of things just by thinking about them.

Your Hole in the Wall experiment inspired Vikas Swarup’s novel Q & A, the book that Slumdog Millionaire is based on. How do you think your TED Prize wish will impact popular culture?

In an age where “knowing” may be obsolete, Homo sapiens will have to reinvent ourselves. The wish, I hope, will be a tiny step in that direction. If children have wings, they will learn how to fly.

Did your experience as a parent impact your views about self-directed learning?

The Hole in the Wall experiment was based on what I had learned from my son when he was 6. It was 1987 and I had bought my first PC, spending nearly a year’s salary at the time. When it arrived, I said to my son, “Don’t even think about it.”

About three days later, I was looking for a file on the DOS system. Every time I typed DIR, all the file names would scroll up too fast for me to read them. As I was trying the third time, a little voice from behind said. “If you type DIR/W/P, it will show up like a page.” I was a bit shocked. “How did you know that?” I asked. “Well, that’s what you did yesterday!” he said. From then on, I let him use the computer.

In a couple of weeks, I was asking my son how to do things that I did not know my computer could do. I wrote a paper suggesting that children can learn to use computers by themselves just by watching each other. It was very badly received. Twelve years later, in 1999, my friend and employer Rajendra Pawar let me do the Hole in the Wall. He had no clue what I was trying to find out. The rest is history.

Learn more about Sugata Mitra’s TED Prize wish »

After more than 13 years of research convinced him that children have the ability to learn almost anything on their own, 2013 TED Prize winner Sugata Mitra aspires to shape the future of learning by building a School in the Cloud, helping kids “tap into their innate sense of wonder.”

In the spirit of Mitra’s invitation to the world to “ask kids big questions, and find big answers,” we asked four brilliant young people to tell us: What do you think is the future of learning?

Here, their answers.

Adora Svitak, 15-year-old writer, teacher and activist

“One of the most powerful shifts in the future of education will come from not only the tools at our disposal, but from an underutilized resource: the students whose voices have for too long been silent. We’re increasingly pushing for seats at the decision-making tables, empowering ourselves by shaping our own learning, and taking on activist roles both online and off. To me, this signals one of the most hopeful signs of the future of education — the shift from a top-down, learning-everything-from-the-authority-figure approach to an approach characterized by peer-to-peer learning, empowerment  and grassroots change.”

Watch Adora’s talk to discover “What adults can learn from kids” »

Kid President, 10-year-old inspiration machine

“My older brother and I believe kids and grown ups can change the world. We’re on a mission with our web series, Kid President, to do just that. If every classroom in the world could be full of grownups and kids working together, we’d live in a happier world. Kids want to know about the world and about how they can make an impact. Kids also have ideas. It’d be awesome if teachers and students could work together and put these ideas into action. There should be lessons in things like compassion and creativity. If those two things were taught more in schools we’d see some really cool things happen.”

Watch Kid President’s inspiring “pep talk” for the world »

Ying Ying Shang, 16-year-old blogger, teen advisor to the UN Foundation, and SPARK Movement activist

“For most of my life, the media has been a constant presence, whether it’s in the form of a TV droning in the background or the billboards that whiz by on the highway or the never-ending barrage of sounds and images on social media. That’s why I know the importance of learning media literacy early. It’s so important that the power of the media be recognized, both in its capacity for sexualization and distortion of reality, as well as its capacity to be harnessed for good.

Also, it seems inevitable that future educators will turn to online learning tools, replacing blackboards with smartboards and note packets with YouTube videos. In the wake of this shift, analysis and critical thinking skills should be taught more than ever in classrooms.”

Read Ying Ying’s blogs about creating healthy media and ending the sexualization of women and girls »

Thomas Suarez,13-year-old app developer and founder of Carrot Corp, Inc.

“The future of education should include programming as a major subject. The class will allow students to collaborate on code, teach each other, and communicate outside of the classroom using services such as Google+. This way, students will think more during other classes, be much more likely to get a job and, most important, have fun.”

Watch Thomas’s talk and learn about how he taught himself to build iPhone apps »

Join the conversation! What do you think is the future of learning? Tell us in the comment section below.

Sugata Mitra carved a hole in a wall in a New Delhi slum—about 3 feet high—and placed a computer in it. When kids asked what it was, he said, “I don’t know,” and walked away. Photo: courtesy of Sugata Mitra.

After his 6-year-old son taught himself to use a computer, 2013 TED Prize winner Sugata Mitra wanted to test the idea that kids can learn on their own, by discovery rather than formal training. So Mitra and his colleagues dug a hole in the wall near a slum in New Delhi, set up an Internet-connected computer there, and abandoned it in 1999. They also set up a hidden camera.

Sugata Mitra: Build a School in the CloudBefore long, children from the community figured out how to search for information online. They began learning English and other subjects, and started teaching each other. Consequently, Mitra’s “Hole in the Wall” experiment catalyzed his pursuit to advance child-driven learning for thousands of kids around the world.

In his talk from TED2013, Mitra describes repeating the “Hole in the Wall” experiment 300 miles away. He installed a mysterious computer on the side of a road where such machinery was even less familiar than in New Delhi.

12-year-old Arun Chavan was one of the kids who found himself drawn to that computer in Shirgaon, a coastal village in India. Over the next few months, he taught himself to use it. And now, more than a decade later, he lives in the United States and studies at Yale University.

We connected with Chavan to discover how the “Hole in the Wall” impacted his life. Here’s what he’s up to today:

How old are you?

I am 23 now.

And you’re at Yale. What inspires you about your field of study?

I am doing a PhD in Evolutionary Biology. I’m just amazed by the stunning diversity of organisms around us. The excitement of digging into the past to discover how it arose is what keeps me going.

What were your first thoughts when the street-side computer appeared in your community? 

I was a kid then, studying in the sixth grade. I had never handled a computer before. I thought it was great to have those computers lying around to play with. I don’t remember being afraid to use them. I think we figured out soon enough that restarting the computer fixes almost every problem!

What was your favorite thing about participating in the “Hole in Wall” program?

I would say mainly three things: First, that there was nobody telling us what to do and not to do. Second, that it wasn’t the same as having a computer to yourself. We learned things as a group. We learned everything empirically, and taught each other what we found. And third, that the computers in the “Hole in the Wall” were connected to the Internet. It was amazing to be able to Google anything, or to chat with my sister who was studying in a different city.

How did your family feel about your participation?  Did it affect their lives in any way?

My parents were as excited as I was. A few years later when we got ourselves a computer, the only thing I taught my father to do was to switch it on. In his 40s, he taught himself how to use it, and now he regularly blogs to share his paintings and writings.

Are you still in contact with the kids you studied with using the “Hole in the Wall” computer? 

Unfortunately, I am not in contact with many of my friends from that time. Some of us went to different cities to attend college after high school. Most of those who stayed back attended vocational training programs and are working now.

Now that you’re a PhD student, are you teaching? If so, did your experience with the “Hole in the Wall” impact the way you instruct and connect with students?

Only recently have I started teaching. In the discussion sessions I lead, I tend not to intervene unless it is necessary, and I try to let the students understand things from their own discussion and ideas. I don’t know if I borrowed this approach from “Hole in the Wall,” but I find it similar.

What is the most important thing you learned from the “Hole in the Wall” experience?

Sugata Mitra’s “Hole if the Wall” idea is quite radical, I think. But it’s too important to be ignored. I like how he dares to imagine (and also hopes for) a completely different future of education than most of us do.

Along with the “Hole in the Wall,” many other things — interactions with certain people, books, and parents — have impacted my way of thinking. It’s really hard to tease apart what I have learned from the “Hole in the Wall.” I think that you can learn anything if you really want to — this could possibly be a “Hole in the Wall” effect.

What does curiosity mean to you?

A driving force to explore something new, I guess! Curiosity is also exciting for me.

If you could give a TED Talk, what would it be about?

My father writes and directs plays. As a kid, I acted in many of them. These plays have significantly influenced my thinking and have greatly contributed to who I am. If I had to give a TED talk, it would probably be about that experience.

Arun Chavan is now studying for a PhD at Yale. Photo: courtesy of Arun Chavan.

To learn more about the Hole in the Wall, read Sugata Mitra’s TED Book, Beyond the Hole in the Wall: Discover the Power of Self-Organized Learning. And for more on how to inspire self-organized learning wherever you may be, download this toolkit »

British director Jerry Rothwell has received the first annual Sundance Institute | TED Prize Filmmaker Award, and with it $125K to make a documentary about Sugata Mitra. Photo: Courtesy of Mitra

Sugata Mitra’s TED Prize story may soon be coming to a theater near you. Today during the TEDGlobal 2013 session “Exquisite, Enigmatic Us,” curator Chris Anderson named British director Jerry Rothwell as the winner of the first annual Sundance Institute | TED Prize Filmmaker Award. Rothwell earned a $125,000 grant to follow Sugata Mitra over the next 18 months as he builds his School in the Cloud and to craft a documentary about Mitra’s $1 million wish.

TED and the Sundance Institute launched this collaboration at TED2013 to increase public consciousness about the TED Prize winner’s wish and work. In addition to telling the winner’s story, the award was established to build resources for creative non-fiction storytelling.

“We are thrilled to award Jerry Rothwell the first ever Sundance Institute | TED Prize Filmmaker Award, and are eager to see the vision he brings to document Sugata Mitra’s TED Prize wish,” said Lara Stein, director of the TED Prize. “The Sundance Institute | TED Prize award unites artists, innovators, and thought leaders with a vision for spurring global change. Sugata’s wish to build a School in the Cloud will have an important impact, and Jerry Rothwell’s work will ensure his story is told beautifully, originally and authentically.”

Following a global call for submissions and a competitive selection process, Rothwell and his producers Al Morrow and Dan Demissie’s proposal was chosen by Sundance Institute and TED in partnership with advisory committee members. Their projected film, Like Whirlwinds, will explore the development of the School in the Cloud from the perspectives of underprivileged children in India with limited access to education, a retired teacher in the UK who serves as a virtual mentor for kids in India’s slums, and working class youth in England.

The film will also look at how technology interplays with children’s inherent curiosity and dares to pose a question Mitra himself asks: is the traditional way of “knowing” obsolete in the Google age?

Slated for release in 2015, Like Whirlwinds will follow Rothwell’s latest film, Town of Runners, and previous award-winning features including Donor Unknown, Heavy Load, and Deep Water.

Inspired? Become a part of the story. Help Sugata Mitra design the future of learning by participating in his wish.

By Courtney E. Martin

What do sperm donation, marathon runners, disabled rockstars, and yacht racing have in common? They’ve all been subjects of the careful eye and artistic vision of British director Jerry Rothwell, the winner of the first annual Sundance Institute | TED Prize Filmmaker Award, who has received $125,000 to spend the next 18 months documenting TED Prize winner Sugata Mitra as he builds a School in the Cloud.

Rothwell is a documentary filmmaker whose work includes the award-winning feature docs Donor Unknown, about a sperm donor and his many offspring; Heavy Load, about a group of people with learning disabilities who form a punk band; and Deep Water (co-directed with Louise Osmond), about Donald Crowhurst’s ill-fated voyage in the 1968 round-the-world yacht race. His latest film is Town of Runners, about young runners from Bekoji, an Ethiopian highland town that has produced some of the world’s greatest distance athletes.

Rothwell is a pioneer in participatory production, working with people to tell their own stories on film. He played a lead role in developing Hi8us Projects’ improvised dramas with young people for Channel 4, in establishing First Light, the UK Film Council’s scheme for young filmmakers, and in setting up digital storytelling exchanges among marginalized communities across Europe.

We caught up with Rothwell to ask a few questions about his vision for the project ahead.

What attracted you to the project?

From the beginning of my filmmaking career, I did a lot of work with communities and in schools with kids on making films about themselves. That kind of educational methodology has always really interested me. As I’ve moved into more traditional forms of filmmaking, I’ve tried to keep that participatory element in what I do. For that reason, I found Sugata’s TED talk very inspirational.

What was your own experience of education?

When Sugata talks about Britain’s “empire education,” that’s me. I didn’t get on badly in that system, but I am really aware — from my own work in schools — how the institutional structure of the school system fails some kids. My view is that the English education system, in particular, fails boys between the ages of about 8-13. It tries to work with them in a way that they are not very adapted to working.

It seems like there is a big trend in documentary films being intentionally tied to action campaigns (like Girls Rising, Waiting for Superman etc.). What are your thoughts about the role of films in this regard?

In general, my feeling is that films that directly campaign don’t make the best films. The best films are complex, nuanced, and engage the viewer in a thought process rather than hitting them with a message. At the same time, films are a powerful catalyst for action.

It’s a mistake to force the film to carry the message; instead you want to develop empathy in the viewer through a human story. If people are engaged in that process for an hour, or even 25 minutes, they will desire to do something, especially if it’s emotionally engaging. The task of making a film is about, first and foremost, making the film, but also to account for the power of filmmaking to galvanize people around a certain issue.

Filmmaker Jerry Rothwell (center) with (from left) TED Prize Director Lara Stein, producer Daniel Demissie, TED Prize winner Sugata Mitra and TED Curator Chris Anderson.

Will Sugata’s theories influence, not just the subject matter, but the actual making of the film in any way?

There is potential to make the film a counterpart of the methods that Sugata uses — take that notion that children may be able to self-organize and see if they can self-shoot and tell the story through the Schools in the Cloud.

Do you see any thematic threads from your past work to this project?

A lot of work that I’ve done in the past focuses on the subject matter in a unique way. Whether I’m looking at sperm donation or runners in Ethiopia, the common theme is about how you build empathy between audiences and people they may never encounter, how you get them to walk in the shoes of someone else for 90 minutes and come out with a totally different idea about what they knew.

What do you anticipate will be your biggest challenges?

I wonder, is a year enough time to show the real potential of the method and the project? It’s also hard to make films remotely. I’m going to try to work with Indian filmmakers and local kids. I also don’t want to make a film that’s promotional. I want to make a film that is true to the experience.

You’ve just met Sugata here at TEDGlobal. What is your first impression of him as a subject?

He’s all you’d hope for as a filmmaker. He’s funny. He’s very engaging. He’s humble, despite the enormous amount of attention that is thrust upon him, which would turn anyone’s head. He’s very grounded and able to keep things in perspective. Every talk we have gives a slightly different dimension and makes me realize a new possibility for the project.

How can the TED community, and those reading this, support you in this effort?

I would love help from the tech community here to think about how we embed ways of shooting in the communities. Any ideas they have about how to break the conventional ways of documentary using remote technologies would be great. We want to keep it personal and keep it owned by the kids.

Courtney E. Martin is the author multiple books, including Do It Anyway. She is also a member of the TED Prize team and co-lead of The City 2.0, the 2012 TED Prize focused on the future of cities.

Peter Yang photographs 12-year-old Paloma Noyola Bueno for <em>Wired</em>’s profile about how her life was impacted by TED Prize winner Sugata Mitra.

Over the past week, we’ve noticed a lot of TED-related news items in the ether. Here, some highlights:

A fascinating new article in Wired takes a look at 12-year-old Paloma Noyola Bueno, a schoolgirl in Mexico whose classroom got an intense shake-up from teacher Sergio Juárez Correa, with incredible results. So what inspired Correa to rethink how a classroom should run? Apparently, TED Prize winner Sugata Mitra (watch his talk on the School in the Cloud) and his bold idea that, given an encouraging atmosphere, kids are able to teach themselves incredibly advanced concepts.

Musician Andrew Bird (watch his TED Talk) hosted “The Quietest Show on Earth” last week at Joshua Tree National Park to support the National Parks Association. The show went on, even despite the US government shutdown.

As of today, the International Herald Tribune has become the International New York Times. And new members of the editorial board include TED speakers Mustafa Akyol and Young-ha Kim.

The Fifth Estate, a new film about Julian Assange (watch his talk) and WikiLeaks, and co-produced by Participant Media (watch founder Jeff Skoll’s talk) will be released this Friday,

Phil Hansen is hard at work on another crowd-sourced art piece. This time he is asking: How has philanthropy changed your community? Hansen is collecting answers now and painting them into a piece called the Art of Philanthropy, to be unveiled on October 30 to celebrate the Rockefeller Foundation’s 100th anniversary. In the past 24 hours, Hansen has gotten contributions from people in 30 countries, including an anecdote from Elton John.

The language-learning website Duolingo lets people learn a new language while helping to translate the web. (Watch Luis von Ahn’s TED Talk about it.) According to Technology Review, the site will soon be rolling out a language incubator that offers up languages like Dothraki and Elvish as options. Speaking of Dothraki, make sure to read this interview with David Peterson about how he created the language.

The New York Times takes a look at what makes content go viral on Upworthy.com, a site for sharing forward-looking videos and graphics. The site was co-founded by Eli Pariser (watch his talk on online “filter bubbles”), and its rules for writing great headlines are unmissable.

Candy Chang is about to launch a book based on her Before I Die I Want To … project. (Watch her talk about it.) See images from the book, or pre-order it.

The website Hello, tailor has uncovered a TEDxPacificPalisades talk from Kristin Burke, the costume designer hard at work on the new Sleepy Hollow TV series. In the write-up, the author defends the choose to have lead character Ichabod Crane, a time-traveler in the series, wear the same costume episode-after-episode.

How do you pick the 10 thinkers in the world whose ideas are making the biggest ripples? It’s a task sort of akin to asking: which are the 10 most beautiful flowers in a meadow? Luckily, we don’t have to answer this intimidating question. Because CNN is all over it.

Today, CNN Tech published “The CNN 10: Thinkers,” a look at the 10 science and technology “visionaries whose ideas are shaping our future.” And since seven of the people on the list have given TED Talks, boiling down their very big ideas into 18 riveting minutes, we thought we’d share those talks below.

Regina Dugan: From mach-20 glider to humming bird drone Regina Dugan: From mach-20 glider to hummingbird drone Today, Regina Dugan is the head of special projects at Google-owned Motorola Mobility working on cool initiatives, like an electronic tattoo that can be used to identify a user instead of a password. But when she spoke at TED2012, this mechanical engineer was the director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), in charge of innovation for the U.S. armed forces. In this talk, she describes some of the agency’s incredible projects, including a prosthetic arm that is governed by thought.

Sugata Mitra: Build a School in the CloudSugata Mitra: Build a School in the Cloud Sugata Mitra, who won this year’s TED Prize, is famous for his Hole in the Wall experiment, whereby he left a computer in an unassuming alley of a slum in India and watched in amazement as kids taught themselves how to use it. The experiment led him to think: are we approaching education from the right direction? In this blistering talk from TED2013, Mitra shares his vision for kids organizing in groups for the ultimate learning experience, at a School in the Cloud.

Elon Musk: The mind behind Tesla, SpaceX, SolarCity ...Elon Musk: The mind behind Tesla, SpaceX, SolarCity Elon Musk founded PayPal, which changed the game of shopping online. But he didn’t stop there—he went on to found SpaceX, which aims to revolutionize space travel, and Tesla, which aims to popularize a fully electric car. At TED2013, Musk has a discussion with TED curator Chris Anderson about these enterprises and his newest, SolarCity. It’s a look at a man capable of seriously out-of-the-box systems thinking.

Jennifer Pahlka: Coding a better governmentJennifer Pahlka: Coding a better government Jennifer Pahlka is deputy chief technology officer at the White House, aiming to make the U.S. government’s use of tech bigger and better. For this undertaking, she is currently on leave from the organization she founded, Code for America. At TED2012, she talked about this organization, which makes coders into activists by having them develop smart and efficient apps to solve the problems they see in their neighborhoods.

Shyam Sankar: The rise of human-computer cooperationShyam Sankar: The rise of human-computer cooperation Computers are incredible at parsing data. Meanwhile, people are great at identifying patterns and intuiting meaning. What can happen when both work together? At TEDGlobal 2012, Shyam Sankar shares the work being done by Palantir Technologies, which has created databases to find missing children, to detect banking fraud, and to uncover who hacked the Dalai Lama’s email. (Read more about that on the TED Blog.)

Mary Lou Jepsen: Reading minds with a brain scanner At TED2013, Mary Lou Jepsen predicted that in 5 to 15 years, we’ll be able to communicate with our thoughts. (Her talk from TED2013 hasn’t been published yet, but you can read about it on the TED Blog.) As in, the resolution of brain scan systems will increase at such a rapid pace that we’ll be able to send the things we’re thinking directly into the digital media world. The possible applications are amazing, says Jepsen, who works at Google X (the company’s secret test lab), for those suffering from diseases like Alzheimers … and for people who are perfectly healthy.

Bre Pettis: The making of the MakerBot Bre Pettis is the co-founder and CEO of MakerBot, the company producing the first affordable 3D printer. He is also a TED Fellow, and at TED2012 shared how the company was poised to bring a revolution in craftsmanship. (Pettis’ talk is also unpublished, but you can read more about it on the TED Blog.) Calling it “17th century technology made with 21st century tools,” Pettis shared how the MakerBot community allows tinkerers, designers and artists to collaborate online, leading to an explosion in printed creativity.

The three other thinkers included on CNN’s list: epidemiologist Caroline Buckee (who is tracking the spread of malaria via cell phone data), electronics designer Tony Fadell (the “father of the iPod), and computer scientist Andrew Ng. (He co-founded Coursera and while he hasn’t given a talk, his Coursera partner Daphne Koller spoke at TEDGlobal 2012 about the fascinating research the group is doing while providing online college classes.)

“The CNN 10: Thinkers” is a part of CNN Tech’s look at the state of innovation in 2013. The series began with a look at “The CNN 10: Startups” in June. In November, the site will publish “The CNN 10: Gadgets.” And in December, the series will end with “The CNN 10: Ideas.” And we’ll be curious to see what they choose for that.

Sugata Mitra realized that a group of kids, left alone with a computer, can teach themselves an incredible amount of information. His theories are inspiring teachers in classrooms around the globe. Photo: Sugata Mitra

In a classroom in Ontario, a class of 9th graders learned the book Siddhartha, not by listening to lectures from their teacher, but by asking questions like, “How do you know when you’ve reached enlightenment?” Meanwhile, a group of 3rd through 5th graders in rural Georgia was posed a question in Spanish, even though they speak English: “Why doesn’t everyone in the world speak the same language?” And hundreds of miles away in New Hampshire, a group of 7th graders pondered, “Will the human race ever go extinct?” with only one rule: you may not look up the answer in a book.

All of these students had one thing in common: Sugata Mitra: Build a School in the Cloudtheir teachers watched the talk from this year’s TED Prize winner Sugata Mitra, challenging them to reinvent the way kids learn. Mitra pioneered the “Hole in the Wall” experiments in the 1990s, which showed that — given nothing but a computer — kids were able to teach themselves impressively complicated subjects like DNA replication. Mitra wonders: could this model inform education? He asked teachers to pose big questions and let students research them on their own, cheering them as they go. He calls these sessions “Self-Organized Learning Environments,” or SOLEs.

Since his talk, educators from South Africa to Mexico (read Wired’s cover-story on the effects there) have heeded Mitra’s call. In March, TED and The Huffington Post invited teachers, parents and community members to participate in the SOLE Challenge, experimenting with Mitra’s method and sharing their experiences in blog posts. The challenge resulted in three winning submissions: from Jamie Cohen, the teacher who inspired his English class at an independent Jewish school in Ontario to ask questions about Siddhartha, Jaki Day, the teacher in Georgia whose students in her gifted program thought deeply about language, and Andrew Fersh, who encouraged his students to think about the future of humanity.

As a reward for their commitment to child-directed learning, these three prizewinners will travel to New Orleans for TEDYouth 2013, a day-long event for middle and high school students taking place this Saturday. (Watch the webcast, from 11am to 6pm EST.) Aptly themed “The Spark,” TEDYouth shares the spirit of Mitra’s wish by creating space for innovation, collaboration and deep-dives into big questions.

The TED Blog interviewed these SOLE Challenge winners to hear what they’ve learned in the process.

What made you want to put Sugata Mitra’s ideas on education into action?

Jamie Cohen: I was halfway through a jog in a ravine near my house just outside of Toronto, listening to Sugata Mitra’s TED speech. I literally stopped in my tracks. My mind started racing at how I could integrate this amazing teaching approach into my own class.

Jaki Day: I have been a teacher of gifted students for nine years. I’m currently teaching grades 3-5 in a pullout enrichment program where the students come to my class one day a week. It is always a challenge for me to create experiences that will inspire, challenge and stretch the boundaries of their every day learning experiences. When I was first introduced to the SOLE project, I was intrigued by the hands-off approach. One of the greatest disservices and injustices we do to our gifted students, in my opinion, is to order their whole day and fill it up with more and more work that has not been chosen by them.

Andrew Fersch: Attempting to figure out the ‘best’ way for a group of students to learn is one of the biggest challenges that I’ve faced as a teacher. Because, regardless of how much emphasis is placed on standardizing testing and teaching, children are actually human beings, and their interests, skills and learning styles vary as greatly as they do with adults. The SOLE Challenge offered me an opportunity to continue the experimenting that I’ve already begun in my classrooms over the years but with a different set of guidelines. It afforded me an opportunity to provide a unique experience to a group of young people which garnered a great deal of genuine excitement about learning – something that is meaningful to all dedicated teachers.

What was the biggest surprise to you in trying out the SOLE approach?

Jaki Day: The biggest surprise for me was how the students self-regulated their groups. I was pleased with how well the students worked together without adult intervention. I was also pleased with the depth of information they were able to acquire and understand. It was a very exciting time. When I asked them what they thought of learning this way, they were unanimous in their enthusiasm. As a matter of fact I stayed after school the next week for three days to allow those who were able to come to the computer lab and SOLE SEARCH a big question of their own.

Jamie Cohen: One student in my class who has been assessed as having challenges in “focus,” “auditory and visual attention” and “reading and listening compression and written expression” rated in the top 10% of my assessment [of the SOLE]. I was surprised that SOLEs are effective in impacting vulnerable students and helping creative students who may not fit within a traditional academic framework realize their potential in both innovation and critical thinking.

Andrew Fersch: I’ve allowed students to work extensively on ‘Choice Projects’ (a topic of their choosing tied to standards that they individually needed practice or instruction in), but I have never before done it without any real end goal or expectation in mind other than for the students to try to answer the question to the best of their ability and share that information with the rest of us. I was surprised that letting go was major challenge for me – even when I’ve assigned choice projects and had students work diligently on them for months, I’ve always been available as a back-up resource, readily available to help wherever I’m needed. This experience taught me that young people want to be challenged – they want to be pushed, they want people to expect a great deal from them, and they want to meet those expectations.

How did your school’s administration and or your community respond to your SOLE exploration?

Andrew Fersch: One sort of funny part about this whole experience was how much people supported it, but if I were to propose that we entirely rearrange how things look in school, I’m sure that support would wane. It’s one thing to try it as an experiment, but I think people would be afraid of taking the next step and really giving it a shot. The administration was incredibly supportive, the School Board loved the idea, the students were excited, as were their families. It was a very positive experience for everyone involved.

Jamie Cohen: A religious studies teacher who speaks English as a second language asked me for advice on how to teach history next year in English. I showed him this lesson and how he can digitally annotate a historical text guided by big questions in the SOLE component of the unit. His teaching style is teacher-centered, lecture-test, but he is open to the idea and wants to try it in September.

Jaki Day: I have received nothing but positive responses from my administration and community. The parents are as enthusiastic as their students with this idea.  My administration has given me opportunities to share this experience with other teachers and parents in hopes of encouraging other teachers to replicate the experiences with their students. I think the idea is catching on. Hopefully you will soon see more Georgia teachers blogging about their SOLE searching.

Inspired by the SOLE Challenge winners? Help transform learning for children in your community. Learn how to conduct a SOLE by downloading the SOLE toolkit and reading SOLE stories from around the world.

A group of students explores a question at the Killingworth School in the Cloud, as a volunteer member of the “Granny Cloud” gives them guidance from the screen.

By Sarah Schoengold

Sugata Mitra has opened the doors of the world’s first School in the Cloud.

Located inside George Stephenson High School in Killingworth, England, this one-room learning lab is a space where students can embark on their own learning adventures, exploring whatever questions most intrigue them. Students even designed the interior of the space — which has colorful beanbags scattered throughout and (very appropriately) fluffy clouds painted on the walls.

Sugata Mitra: Build a School in the CloudOn the glass doors of the lab is the acronym “SOLE,” which stands for “Self-Organized Learning Environment.” It’s a concept drawn from Mitra’s TED Prize wish, in which he offered up a new vision of education that pairs the vast resources of the Internet with children’s innate sense of curiosity. SOLEs are a minimally invasive education technique that lets kids puzzle through big questions on their own, teaching each other in the process. This method can have stunning results. (Read a Wired story on that.)

Since Mitra’s TED Talk was posted online, more than 40,000 people have downloaded the SOLE Toolkit to bring the method into their homes and classrooms. But Mitra’s plans are even more ambitious — with his $1 million TED Prize seed money, he is opening up a series of seven learning labs, two in the United Kingdom and five in India. The Killingworth lab is the first.

The Killingworth School in the Cloud opened its doors on November 22, with a group of students investigating the question: “Who invented algebra?” As the students gathered around computers and began their research, they were guided by an online mediator from the “Granny Cloud,” which Skypes retired teachers into the lab not so much to instruct the students but to offer them encouragement. Appearing on a large screen on the wall, this “Granny Cloud” volunteer appeared almost life-sized.

A look at the interior of the first School in the Cloud, which was designed by students.

Amy Dickenson’s year 7 class took part in the learning lab’s first session, and was thrilled to see her students unpacking big questions. She says, “I believe strongly that this way of teaching — engaging students and inspiring wonder, and at the same time creating independence and self-motivation — has to be the way forward for education today.”

The Killingworth School in the Cloud is run by a committee of 12-year-old students, who manage a schedule to let different classes and groups use the lab in time slots before, during and after school. The lab is, of course filled with computers and touchscreen devices, as these are the tools students use to do their detective work. This lab is the first live demo of the School in the Cloud web platform, which not only connects labs to the “Granny Cloud” but also serves as a community foundation for SOLE practitioners and contains an evolving library of guides and resources. Microsoft and Skype are the core technology partners for this digital platform; Made By Many is the co designer and development partner; and IDEO assisted with design research.

Five more School in the Cloud learning labs of varying resources and bandwidth are scheduled to launch throughout India in 2014, and the second UK lab will go live in the spring. All seven Schools in the Cloud will be directed by the School in the Cloud web platform and its community of Grannies. Beta testing for the School in the Cloud platform will begin publicly in March at the annual TED Conference in Vancouver.

To read more about the School in the Cloud, visit the SOLE Stories Tumblr »

The learning lab has both computer stations and an area for group discussion.

An indefinable quality lies at the heart of any successful idea or project … a spark of intuition, genius or insight that acts as the driver of all later action. Our speakers in this session all possess such a spark, from the educator who’s made it his mission to help high-achieving minority students to a young inventor who figured out a novel and effective way to protect his family’s animals from attacks by lions.

Here are the speakers from this session. Click on their name for a recap of their talk:

Freeman Hrabowski creates opportunities for students of all backgrounds to pursue advanced degrees.

Real life begins at 30? Well, no, says Meg Jay. Her research in her new book shows us why 30 is not the new 20.

TED’s own Lisa Bu has built a career helping people find great stories. Now she tells her own story.

Young inventor Richard Turere invented “lion lights,” an elegant way to protect his family’s cattle from lion attacks.

Announcing the TED Prize Winner, Sugata Mitra, and his bold wish, funded by $1 million from the TED community.

The Sleepy Man Banjo Boys is made up of 10-year-old banjo sensation Jonny Mizzone and his brothers Robbie, 14, on fiddle, and Tommy, 15, on guitar.

It’s a question on so many minds: what will the future of education look like?

Ken Robinson: How schools kill creativity It’s something Sir Ken Robinson has asked for decades. And tonight in Session 3 of TED2013, Robinson got the opportunity to announce the winner of the 2013 TED Prize, someone who has a bold answer.

“So many kids are disengaged from education and there’s a tendency to confuse testing with learning,” says Robinson in his introduction. “What drives learning is curiosity, questioning … What fires people up to learn is having their mind opened up by possibilities.”

And with that, he revealed the winner of the $1 million TED Prize: education innovator Sugata Mitra, who has given two TED Talks over the years and released a TED ebook called Beyond The Hole in The Wall.

Mitra wants children around the globe, in addition to traditional schooling, to get a chance to participate in self-organized learning. Translation: to spend time in learning environments where they are given the space to explore on their own, make discoveries and share them with their peers. In his talk from the TED stage, Mitra offered a bold wish: to help design the future of learning by supporting children in tapping into their innate sense of wonder. To this end, Mitra asked the TED community to help him create the School in the Cloud, a learning lab in India where children can embark on intellectual adventures, connecting with information and mentors online. He also asked the community, wherever they may be, to create child-driven learning environments for the kids in their own lives.

In his talk, Mitra points out that schooling as it exists now was created 300 years ago in the British Empire.

Sugata Mitra: The child-driven education “The Victorians created a global computer made up of people. It’s called the bureaucratic administrative machine,” says Mitra, in the bold opening of his talk. “In order to keep that running, you need lots and lots of people. They must be identical to each other … So they created a system, called school, to make parts [for this human computer]. They must have good handwriting, they must be able to read, and they must be able to add, subtract and do division.”

But these skills aren’t as necessary with the advent of computers.“It’s quite fashionable to say education system is broken,” says Mitra. “It’s not, It’s wonderfully constructed — it’s just that we don’t need it anymore. It’s outdated.”

We can’t imagine the technology of the future, and thus we can’t know what jobs we’ll need the skills for. So Mitra suggests that education should be about developing the ability to learn anything on one’s own.

Mitra has a history of research to back up this wish. In 1999, he began what he calls his “hole in the wall” experiment. He carved a hole in a wall in a Delhi slum — about three feet high — and placed a computer in it. Kids had gathered around within a matter of hours and asked Mitra questions about what this thing was. He responded “I don’t know,” and walked away.

Soon the kids were surfing the internet — and teaching each other how to do it more effectively.

Mitra repeated the experiment 300 miles away, where computers even less familiar. He installed a mysterious computer on the side of a road. A few months later, he returned and found kids playing games on it. Remembers Mitra, “They said, ‘We want a faster processor and a better mouse.’”

Another thing these kids said that was music to his ears: “You’ve given us a machine that works only in English, so we had to teach ourselves English.”

Mitra says, “It was the first time I heard the words ‘teach ourselves’ said so casually.”

Mitra kept testing, seeing if rural students could learn different pronunciation simply by talking into a speech-to-text engine until it understood them. They did it. And then he went even more absurd. He asked:  Can Tamil-speaking 12-year-olds learn the biotech of DNA replication by themselves on a streetside computer in English?

Sugata Mitra: Kids can teach themselvesSlowly but surely, over months, the kids began to learn the material — showing understanding of concepts far advanced for their age. In three months, with a test, they went from 0% comprehension to 30%. But Mitra wanted to see if he could go further. He brought in a 22-year-old woman with no knowledge of the subject to tutor the kids, using “the method of the grandmother.” Instead of traditional instructing, she simply gave encouragement. The kids’ test comprehension scores jumped.

“We live in a world where, when we want to know something, we can learn it in two minutes,” says Mitra. “Could it be, the devastating question, that we’re heading towards a future where knowing is obsolete?”

Mitra isn’t ready to say that, but he is willing to challenge traditional modes of education based on teaching, testing and regurgitation. As Mitra explains, punishments and exams are seen as threats by kids. He says that these are tools no longer needed outside of the age of empire. Mitra urges us all to shift the incentive for education from threat to pleasure.

Mitra shared another one of his experiments — the “granny cloud,” a community of retired teachers who Skyped into learning centers and encouraged children with questions and assignments. He calls this type of environment a SOLE — a self-organized learning environment. It’s based on a curriculum of questions that set curiosity free, varying forms of peer assessment and certification without examination.

“If we let the educational process be a self-organizing organism, learning emerges,” says Mitra. “It’s not about making learning happen, it’s about letting education happen.”

Mitra’s $1 million TED Prize is not a gift– it’s seed money to fund a global  initiative toward this vision. The money will help Mitra break ground on the School in the Cloud in India this very year. This school will serve as both an education and research center to further explore approaches to self-directed learning. It will be managed by cloud technology, but with an adult supervisor always on hand. The plans for the school will be open-sourced.

But Mitra is asking for your help, too.

He has released a toolkit for parents, educators and teachers who want to create SOLEs. The online resource will help them support kids (8-12 years old) as they tap into their innate sense of wonder. The key: asking big questions. For example, “If a meteroite was coming toward the earth, how would you figure out if it was going to hit?” Mitra has been amazed with how kids come up with new approaches to questions like this.

Closing his talk, Mitra shared an anecdote. “A little girl was following me around. I said, ‘I want to give a computer to everyone,’” recalls Mitra. “She reached out her hand and she said to me, ‘Get on with it.’”

Following a rousing introduction from Sir Ken Robinson, education innovator Sugata Mitra accepted the first-ever $1 million TED Prize at TED2013. As soon as the TED Prize winner’s identity was revealed, the Twittersphere buzzed about Sugata’s vision for the future of learning.

People around the world answered Sugata’s invitation to help reinvent the way kids learn, by spreading the word about self-organized learning and committing to contribute resources for his School in the Cloud. Based on the conversation online, the TED community is ready and willing to reimagine education.

Sugata’s name is now trending on Twitter. The prospect of igniting the fire of curiosity in kids through collaboration and encouragement is so inspiring; even some critics are rooting for this project’s success.

Here are some highlights:

Something valuable for everyone in school or who has children in school. My hero Sugata Mitra shares the wisdom… fb.me/1AbwNx7Kz—
Ramon J. Thomas (@RamonThomas) October 31, 2012

Building a school in the cloud! Breaking the barriers!! blog.tedprize.com/congratulation…—
Subramanyan RG (@subramanyanrg) February 27, 2013

Congratulations to Sugata Mitra for winning TED Prize '13 -Blowing away conventional thoughts on Education! Brilliant! What an honour too!—
Joy Dev Chatterjee (@Joydc11) February 27, 2013

#TEDSOLE I commit to help with identity, marketing, branding, engagement strategy, teaching & North Texas collaboration @TEDPrize #TED2013—
Sarah Boswell (@SarahBoswell) February 27, 2013

hey #TED2013, the educational hookup I offered was to @toddsutler and his @OdysseyInitiate 50-state tour of best teaching practices—
Baratunde (@baratunde) February 27, 2013

@tedprize I'd be humbled take part. I commit to help w/ interaction design, usability, accessibility, marketing & more. #emailingnow—
Ryan Plesko (@plesko) February 27, 2013

"education should be about developing the ability to learn anything on one’s own." Let's do this everywhere! wp.me/p10512-ilS—
Deanna Martinez (@DeaBeEm) February 27, 2013

Sugata Mitra winning the 2013 TED Prize should be the most important story in every newspaper in the world. This can change learning forever—
Nikhil Goyal (@nikhilgoya_l) February 27, 2013

Teachers take note!! RT @TEDNews: winner of the 2013 @TEDPrize: Sugata Mitra and the school in the cloud! ted.com/prize #TED2013—
Matt W Kane (@Mattwkane) February 27, 2013

"If there's a child in trouble, we beam a gran." ~ Sugata Mitra #TED2013 #Education #LoveYou #education <3—
Amazing Women Rock (@AmazingWomen) February 27, 2013

love this "rid us of a system that is fast becoming obsolete": NRI ed pioneer Sugata Mitra wins $1 million TED Prize fb.me/KOI2Iuh2—
jalak jobanputra (@jalak) February 27, 2013

"Child Driven Education" – Sugata Mitra's winning TED presentation on giving kids access to education even far away ted.com/talks/lang/en/…—
  (@japanmama) February 27, 2013

Huge win for Sugata Mitra but remain skeptical on use of technology in primary education. Happy to be proven wrong. bit.ly/ZHHfDR—
Gautam John (@gkjohn) February 27, 2013

Are you inspired by Sugata’s wish? Join the conversation on Twitter by tweeting at @TEDPrize and using the #TEDSOLE hashtag.

Many of you have already watched Sugata Mitra’s TED Prize talk, posted on TED.com earlier today, calling for the building of the School in the Cloud. Others of you may have read our written recap of his talk. And now we get the talk, rendered by an artist, cartoon-style. This visualization of Mitra’s talk was created by Gavin Blake of Fever Picture, a collection of scribes and graphic facilitators who translate conferences into the universal language of image. Stay tuned for more Fever Picture graphic representations of talks.

Where does education go from here?

Sugata Mitra: Build a School in the CloudOn Tuesday, Sugata Mitra accepted the 2013 TED Prize and offered a bold wish for the world: that we encourage children to explore questions about our world in self-organized learning environments. He proposed the founding of a School in the Cloud based in India, and encouraged TED community members, wherever they may be, to foster education by encouraging a sense of wonder in kids.

This week’s TED Weekends, posted a few days earlier than usual, features essays from great thinkers on the ideas advanced in Mitra’s talk. Here, a selection of these essays, for your reading pleasure. 

Sugata Mitra: We Need Schools … Not Factories

From Plato to Aurobindo, from Vygotsky to Montessori, centuries of educational thinking have vigorously debated a central pedagogical question: How do we spark creativity, curiosity, and wonder in children? But those who philosophized pre-Google were prevented from wondering just how the Internet might influence the contemporary answer to this age-old question.

Today, we can and must; a generation that has not known a world without vast global and online connectivity demands it of us. Read the full essay  »

Courtney E. Martin: The Most Powerful Technology of All … Questions

Many will see Sugata Mitra’s wish — to build a “School in the Clouds” — as a TED-style, uber futuristic, and potentially impractical, solution for a very real problem across the globe. But the innovation at the very heart of his wish, truth be told, is not about computers or Skype or even Google. The most critical technology is a really good question.

I think a lot about the power of questions, because I’m a journalist. Well, that, and a nosy person. I’m the kind of person that you sit down next to at a dinner party and ten minutes later you realize that I’ve pulled your life story right out of you. In many ways, it’s not a conscious process, even for me. One minute I’m learning someone’s name and the next I’m asking them, “And then what happened?!” Read the full essay »

Jackie Bezos: A Cloud of Human Potential

In every town in every nation, young people are moments away from inheriting complex problems. At the same time, disparities in educational opportunity and achievement are widening and threatening to undermine the vast potential of our youngest generations. As a global community, it is unconscionable that we leave so much promise unrealized among our youth.

In places where the greatest inequity exists, Dr. Sugata Mitra’s “School in the Cloud” holds enormous promise for leveling the playing field. But his methodology, which taps into a child’s innate sense of wonder and curiosity through Self-organized Learning Environments (or SOLES), is relevant for communities and classrooms everywhere. In essence, it’s about putting the power to learn, create and collaborate into the hands of our children. Read the full essay »

Vanessa Lafaye: If We Turn the Internet Into the World’s Memory, What Becomes of Our Own?

It is interesting to note that Mitra’s TEDTalk is titled, “The Future of Learning” rather than “Education.” This distinction seems like the heart of the issue, not only for SOLE (self-organized learning environment), but more widely. It’s the difference between absorbing information, and developing faculties for creative thought and analytical problem-solving.

He traces today’s education system back to the Victorian-era hunger for literate bureaucrats, needed to keep the wheels of the British Empire running smoothly. As it happens, my employer Wiley was established even before this time. Also as it happens, publishing is undergoing a dramatic reinvention today, in search of new models in response to the urgent imperative to prepare our young for the creative economy of tomorrow. This got me thinking about evolution, of knowledge and ourselves. Read the full essay »

Sugata Mitra’s bold efforts towards advancing learning earned him the first-ever $1 million dollar TED Prize. Sugata Mitra: Build a School in the CloudAt TED2013, Sugata asked the global TED community to make his dream come true by helping him build a “School in the Cloud,” where kids can tap into their innate sense of wonder and work together.

Since Sugata is passionate about reinventing the way kids learn, he’s curated a list of 5 great TED Talks that align with his vision for the future of learning. From Sir Ken Robinson’s talk about creativity in schools to Arvind Gupta’s reflection on turning garbage into educational toys, Sugata’s diverse inspirations fan the flames of curiosity and explore the significance of learning beyond the classroom.

Watch Mitra’s playlist of talks here »