Salman Amin Khan (born October 11, 1976) is an American educator and the founder of

Khan Academy Khan Academy is an American non-profit educational organization created in 2006 by Sal Khan. Its goal is to create a set of online tools that help educate students. The organization produces short video lessons. Its website also includes suppl ...

, a free online non-profit educational platform with which he has produced over 6,500 video lessons teaching a wide spectrum of academic subjects, originally focusing on mathematics and science. He is also the founder of Khan Lab School, a private in-person school in

Mountain View, California Mountain View is a city in Santa Clara County, California, United States, part of the San Francisco Bay Area. Named for its views of the Santa Cruz Mountains, the population was 82,376 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Mountain V ...

. , the Khan Academy channel on YouTube has 8.74 million subscribers, and its videos have been viewed more than two billion times. In 2012, Khan was named in the annual publication of ''Time'' 100. In the same year, he was featured on the cover of ''

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine founded by B. C. Forbes in 1917. It has been owned by the Hong Kong–based investment group Integrated Whale Media Investments since 2014. Its chairman and editor-in-chief is Steve Forbes. The co ...

'', with the tagline "The $1 Trillion Opportunity."

Early life and family

Khan was born in

Metairie, Louisiana Metairie ( ) is an Unincorporated area, unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, United States, and is part of the New Orleans metropolitan area. With a population of 143,507 in 2020, Metairie is ...

, on October 11, 1976, into a

Bengali Muslim Bengali Muslims (; ) 'Mussalman'' also used in this work./ref> are adherents of Islam who ethnically, linguistically and genealogically identify as Bengalis. Comprising over 70% of the global Bengali population, they are the second-largest ...

family. His father Fakhrul Amin Khan (d. 1990) was a physician, originally hailing from the village of Rahmatpur in Babuganj Upazila,

Bangladesh Bangladesh, officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, eighth-most populous country in the world and among the List of countries and dependencies by ...

while his mother Masuda Khan is from

Murshidabad Murshidabad (), is a town in the Indian States and territories of India, state of West Bengal. This town is the headquarters of Lalbag subdivision of Murshidabad district. It is located on the eastern bank of the Hooghly river, Bhagirathi Riv ...

West Bengal West Bengal (; Bengali language, Bengali: , , abbr. WB) is a States and union territories of India, state in the East India, eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabi ...

. He grew up in a state of financial difficulty, recalling that his mother made $16,000 in 1993—he knew this because he had to do her taxes to get financial aid. They are descendants of Rahmat Khan, a 16th-century chieftain of Pathan origin, who was killed in battle with Kandarpanarayan Rai, the erstwhile

Raja Raja (; from , IAST ') is a noble or royal Sanskrit title historically used by some Indian subcontinent, Indian rulers and monarchs and highest-ranking nobles. The title was historically used in the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia. T ...

Chandradwip Chandradwip was a historic principality and later a zamindari located in southern Bengal, largely corresponding to the present-day Barisal Division in Bangladesh. The principality first rose to prominence under the rule of Raja Danujamardana Deva ...

. Khan's grandfather Abdul Wahab Khan was a prominent Bengali politician who served as Pakistan's second official Speaker of the National Assembly.

Education

Khan attended Grace King High School, where, as he recalls, "a few classmates were fresh out of jail and others were bound for top universities." He was a

cartoonist A cartoonist is a visual artist who specializes in both drawing and writing cartoons (individual images) or comics (sequential images). Cartoonists differ from comics writers or comics illustrators/artists in that they produce both the litera ...

for the high school's newspaper. Khan took upper-level mathematics courses at the

University of New Orleans The University of New Orleans (UNO) is a Public university, public research university in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. First opened in 1958 as Louisiana State University in New Orleans, it is the largest public university and one of t ...

while he was in high school and graduated as

valedictorian Valedictorian is an academic title for the class rank, highest-performing student of a graduation, graduating class of an academic institution in the United States. The valedictorian is generally determined by an academic institution's grade poin ...

in 1994. He attended the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

(MIT), graduating in 1998 with

Bachelor's A bachelor's degree (from Medieval Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six years ( ...

and

Master of Engineering A Master of Engineering (abbreviated MEng, ME, M.E. or M.Eng.) is a Professional degree, professional master's degree in the field of engineering. International variations Australia In Australia, the Master of Engineering degree is a research ...

degrees in the

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems that use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

and

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...

program, and another bachelor's degree in

mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

. In his final year, Khan was the president of the "Senior Gift Committee", a philanthropy program of the graduating class. Khan also holds a

Master of Business Administration A Master of Business Administration (MBA) is a professional degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration; elective courses may allow further study in a particular ...

from

Harvard Business School Harvard Business School (HBS) is the graduate school, graduate business school of Harvard University, a Private university, private Ivy League research university. Located in Allston, Massachusetts, HBS owns Harvard Business Publishing, which p ...

Career

In 2002, Khan was a summertime

intern An internship is a period of work experience offered by an organization for a limited period of time. Once confined to medical graduates, internship is used to practice for a wide range of placements in businesses, non-profit organizations and g ...

at PARC. From 2003 to late 2009, he worked as a

hedge fund A hedge fund is a Pooling (resource management), pooled investment fund that holds Market liquidity, liquid assets and that makes use of complex trader (finance), trading and risk management techniques to aim to improve investment performance and ...

analyst at Connective Capital Management.

Khan Academy

In 2004, Khan began tutoring his cousin, Nadia, in

over the internet using

Yahoo! Yahoo (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web portal that provides the search engine Yahoo Search and related services including My Yahoo, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo News, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Sports, y!entertainment, yahoo!life, and its a ...

's Doodle notepad. When other relatives and friends sought his tutoring, he moved his tutorials to

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

, where he created an account on November 16, 2006. The popularity of his educational videos on the video-sharing website prompted Khan to quit his job as a

financial analyst A financial analyst is a professional undertaking financial analysis for external or internal clients as a core feature of the job. He moved his focus to developing his

channel, Khan Academy, full-time with the aid of close friend Josh Gefner. Khan subsequently received sponsorship from Ann Doerr, the wife of

John Doerr L. John Doerr (born June 29, 1951) is an American investor and venture capitalist at Kleiner Perkins in Menlo Park, California. In February 2009, Doerr was appointed a member of the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board to provide the ...

. In 2023, Khan Academy has more than 155 million registered users, with students spending billions of hours of learning on the platform. Khan outlined his mission as to "accelerate learning for students of all ages. With this in mind, we want to share our content with whoever may find it useful." Khan plans to extend the "free school" to cover topics such as

English literature English literature is literature written in the English language from the English-speaking world. The English language has developed over more than 1,400 years. The earliest forms of English, a set of Anglo-Frisian languages, Anglo-Frisian d ...

. Khan published a book about Khan Academy and education goals titled ''The One World Schoolhouse: Education Reimagined.'' Khan Academy, initially a tool for students, added the Coach feature in 2012, promoting the connection of teachers with students through videos and monitor tools. In 2012, Khan received the American Academy of Achievement’s Gold Medal. In 2014, Khan received the 19th Annual

Heinz Award The Heinz Awards are individual achievement honors given annually by the Heinz Foundations, Heinz Family Foundation. The Heinz Awards each year recognize outstanding individuals for their innovative contributions in three areas: the Arts, the Eco ...

in the Human Condition category. In 2015, Khan announced that Khan Academy was partnering with the

College Board The College Board, styled as CollegeBoard, is an American not-for-profit organization that was formed in December 1899 as the College Entrance Examination Board (CEEB) to expand access to higher education. While the College Board is not an asso ...

to create free practice resources for the

SAT The SAT ( ) is a standardized test widely used for college admissions in the United States. Since its debut in 1926, its name and Test score, scoring have changed several times. For much of its history, it was called the Scholastic Aptitude Test ...

test. Khan believes that supplementing traditional classroom education with the technology being developed by his Academy can improve the effectiveness of teachers by freeing them from traditional lectures and giving them more time for instruction specific to individual students' needs.

Stanford Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth governor of and th ...

AI researcher

Andrew Ng Andrew Yan-Tak Ng (; born April 18, 1976) is a British-American computer scientist and Internet Entrepreneur, technology entrepreneur focusing on machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI). Ng was a cofounder and head of Google Brain and ...

has named Khan as an inspiration for the founding of

Coursera Coursera Inc. () is an American global massive open online course provider. It was founded in 2012 by Stanford University computer science professors Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller. Coursera works with universities and other organizations to offe ...

, one of the first

massive open online course A massive open online course (MOOC ) or an open online course is an online course aimed at unlimited participation and open access via the World Wide Web, Web. In addition to traditional course materials, such as filmed lectures, readings, and p ...

(MOOC) platforms.

Khan Lab School

Khan's pedagogical idea is that students learn better when they can manage the process of acquiring knowledge independently and at their own pace. They should then work in teams to apply the knowledge they have learned. This concept is known as flipped classroom. His approach to learning incorporates elements of

Benjamin Bloom Benjamin Samuel Bloom (February 21, 1913 – September 13, 1999) was an American educational psychology, educational psychologist and Didactic method, didactician who made contributions to the classification of educational objectives and to ...

mastery learning Mastery learning is an instructional strategy and educational philosophy that emphasizes the importance of students achieving a high level of competence (e.g., 90% accuracy) in prerequisite knowledge before moving on to new material. This approac ...

. This

personalized learning Personalized learning (also named individualized instruction, personal learning place or direct instruction) refers to efforts to tailor education to meet the different needs of students. Overview Use of the term "personalized learning" dates ba ...

method is tested at his Khan Lab School, founded in 2014.

Schoolhouse.world

In early 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, Khan launched Schoolhouse, a free non-profit initiative to provide small-group tutoring for students worldwide through Zoom meetings. Schoolhouse certifications, developed in partnership with the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...

, test students’ mastery of subjects and certify their knowledge.

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of modern technology and sc ...

Caltech The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech) is a private university, private research university in Pasadena, California, United States. The university is responsible for many modern scientific advancements and is among a small g ...

, and

Case Western Reserve University Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) is a Private university, private research university in Cleveland, Ohio, United States. It was established in 1967 by a merger between Western Reserve University and the Case Institute of Technology. Case ...

have since signed on.

Awards

In 2016, Khan received the fourth-highest civilian award of the

Republic of India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area; the most populous country since 2023; and, since its independence in 1947, the world's most populous democracy. Bounded by ...

, the

Padma Shri The Padma Shri (IAST: ''padma śrī'', lit. 'Lotus Honour'), also spelled Padma Shree, is the fourth-highest Indian honours system, civilian award of the Republic of India, after the Bharat Ratna, the Padma Vibhushan and the Padma Bhushan. In ...

, from the

President of India The president of India (ISO 15919, ISO: ) is the head of state of the Republic of India. The president is the nominal head of the executive, the first citizen of the country, and the commander-in-chief, supreme commander of the Indian Armed ...

. On May 27, 2021, Khan received an honorary

Doctor of Law A Doctor of Laws (LL.D.) is a doctoral degree in legal studies. The abbreviation LL.D. stands for ''Legum Doctor'', with the double “L” in the abbreviation referring to the early practice in the University of Cambridge to teach both canon law ...

s degree from

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

Recognition

In 2010 the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation became one of the academy's biggest supporters. In 2012 Khan was named one of TIME's 100 most influential people in the world (

Time 100 ''Time'' 100 is a list of the top 100 most influential people, assembled by the American news magazine ''Time''. First published in 1999 as the result of a debate among American academics, politicians, and journalists, the list is now a highly ...

). Bill Gates has said; "I've used Khan Academy with my kids, and I'm amazed at the breadth of Sal's subject expertise and his ability to make complicated topics understandable."

Personal life

Khan is married to physician Umaima Marvi. The couple live with their children in

. Khan's first child, a son, suffered from childhood epilepsy, which he later outgrew, but the experience had lasting effects for the family to realize what was important in life. Khan has said about his beliefs:

"If you believe in trying to make the best of the finite number of years we have on this planet (while not making it any worse for anyone else), think that pride and self-righteousness are the cause of most conflict and negativity, and are humbled by the vastness and mystery of the Universe, then I'm the same religion as you."

Khan played the guitar during his childhood.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Khan, Salman 1976 births American chief executives of education-related organizations Mathematics popularizers American financial analysts American hedge fund managers American nonprofit businesspeople American people of Bangladeshi descent Bangladeshi people of Afghan descent American technology chief executives American technology company founders Businesspeople from New Orleans Businesspeople from the San Francisco Bay Area Grace King High School alumni Harvard Business School alumni Living people MIT School of Engineering alumni People from Mountain View, California People from Metairie, Louisiana Asia Game Changer Award winners Educators from Louisiana 21st-century American businesspeople 20th-century Bengalis 21st-century Bengalis YouTubers from Louisiana YouTubers from California Recipients of the Padma Shri in literature and education American mathematics educators