Supercool School

The Principal of HAITIREACT - the Haiti Recovery Accelerator

Imagine to accelerate Haiti's recovery process from 30 to 10 years. This is what HAITIREACT is striving for.

We are very proud to support Haiti recovery process by donating our technology. Thanks to all the people who committed to support the Haiti Recovery Accelerator and most off all thanks to Daniel Donet who is the coordinating force behind this ambitious project.

The following is an interview dedicated to Daniel Donet the Principal for the Haiti Recovery Accelerator. Stay tuned for the launch of the platform in the coming days.

 

 

1. Daniel what inspired you to start the Haiti Recovery Accelerator?

After the natural disaster in Haiti I wanted to help, but my obligations didn’t let me move from The United Kingdom. Sending money wasn’t enough, so I started thinking what else could I do. During that time the news were speaking about how much time will take to recover Haiti. Experts were speaking about 30 years. For me, it was clear that the knowledge and people spread around the world are the key to make an early recovery possible.

2. What impact are you striving for with the Haiti Recovery Accelerator?

The aim of Haiti Recovery Accelerator is to reduce the 30 years that the experts say that Haiti will need to recover. We want to make possible a recovery in less than 10 years. To do so, we will connect the people and knowledge spread around the world with the needs of the people and organizations that are in Haiti.

3. How can this platform help Haiti?

The platform is the space where people and knowledge will meet. We are looking to have interviews, classes, meetings and services focused in the acceleration of the Haiti's recovery. The imagination of the people will be the limit of what solutions and support we could provide to the people and organizations at Haiti.

4. Where can people help you?

The most important is that everybody can help, because everybody has skills and knowledge that would improve the work that organizations and individuals are doing in Haiti. Here some examples:

- If you like history, sociology, geography, economics, politics... you could have an online meeting or conference to help volunteers and organizations to understand the country and its society.

- If you are good with people, you could help to dynamism the community and motivate other people to join.

-If you have expertise in a specific field, you could use Haiti Recovery Accelerator website to advice organizations that are or will be soon in Haiti.

Those are only some examples. The possibilities are limitless, because in Haiti Recovery Accelerator everybody from anywhere can have a role in the acceleration of the Haiti recovery.

Do you want to help as well?

- Connect with Daniel directly at danieldonet at gmail.com or add him on facebook 

- Add yourself to this list

- Tell your friends about it

Supercool School Sessions At The Connecting Online CO2010 Conference

We're happy to announce that we are going to participate at this years CO10 Online Conference :)

You can see the two session that Supercool School is going to be holding below. Hope to see you at the event :)

REGISTER HERE FOR THE WHOLE EVENT AND ALL SPEAKERS

 

Title of the presentation
What we learned creating over 50 online schools in 5 weeks!

Description of the presentation
I will share some behind-the-scenes stories about the launch of Supercool School and what we learned from all the new online schools that were created on our platform, the online classes held and the things we completely screwed up. Should be fun ;)

Live Online Session: Friday February 5, 2010 3 PM (EST) - CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

 

Title of the Presentation
Why learning online is better than offline!

Description of the Presentation
I have been teaching business related classes in different environments offline and online for about 3 years.
It is an amazing consequence and a hard statement that I was thinking about for some time - but today I am sure: learning online is qualitative better than offline. If you are interested to find out why - come and join my presentation.

Live Online Session: Sunday February 7, 2010 7 PM (EST) - CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

 

HAITI before the Earthquake - "The Road to Fondwa" Haiti Documentary

Our good friend Justin Brandon has been deeply involved with Haiti and was one of the people behind the documentary "Road to Fondwa". He and his team decided to made the full film available online to help raise funding and support for the relief efforts. 

Please visit http://www.fondwa.org to give support! 

http://www.fondwa.org

We didn't have the money - so we had to think

When Ernest Rutherford, known today as the father of nuclear physics, split the atom in 1917, an American journalist asked him how he -- someone from a South Pacific backwater -- did what so many Europeans and Americans could not. 

He famously replied: "We didn't have the money, so we had to think."

Could Tablet Computers Revolutionize Education?

Our friend Nathaniel from Change.org wrote a post today about the potential impact of tablet computers on education. Read the full article here.

What are your thoughts? Do you believe that tablets will really get into our schools and universities or are they a powerful platform for learning apps like Supercool School?

Below a short video of how the textbook industry is imagining the impact of tablets on education:

Interview with a Supercool Principal - Marc Dangeard Talks About The Entrepreneurship Commons Academy

Do you have a community offline? Is the core purpose of your community information exchange, networking and informal learning? Then you belong to one of the big groups who created next generation online schools using Supercool School. 

Marc Dangeard is leading a group of entrepreneurs in the Silicon Valley and in Paris called Entrepreneur Commons. With Supercool School he wants to strengthen and financially sustains the online community.

 

 

1. You started the Entrepreneurship Commons Academy. It sounds very exciting. Can you tell us more about it?

Entrepreneur Commons is a not-for-profit network of entrepreneurs providing mentoring through self help meetings, currently happening once a month in San Francisco, Menlo Park (Silicon Valley) and Paris. We are also starting one in New York soon, currently working on this. In addition to mentoring, we are also raising a fund to provide seed funding to startups. We are planning to offer unsecured loans of up to $100K to members of the network, with a peer-selection process: entrepreneurs within the network will decide who can get a loan.

2. Why did you decide to start your Supercool School?

The Entrepreneur Commons Academy is an additional service that we are very excited to offer to our members, as a way to capture the knowledge within the network and spread across the various chapters. It is also a great opportunity for each entrepreneur to build its own network within the network.

And it is a great opportunity for the experts around the network to monetize their expertise online. The web so far has been mostly about free knowledge, and while this is a good thing, it is not sustainable over the long term. Blogs do not allow to monetize expertise because ad revenues only go to a few top blogs. And many experts are reluctant to spend time sharing their knowledge for free on a blog, while they would be happy to use the web if they are given a way to monetize their expertise. I think the Entrepreneur Commons Academy will be a key element of the entrepreneurial ecosystem we are building.

3. How will you operate the School?

The school is for members only. Membership are very low, the cost is not prohibitive but rather it is a way to make sure members are interested in joining our group because they really care about how we work together.

The school will offer regular live events that will be recorded. Participants will be able to interact with the teacher, which will allow them to learn more and better, and then members of the school who did not attend the live event will also be able to access the knowledge through the recordings.

The goal here is to make it attractive for everybody: teachers as well as students.

4. What do you expect from your School?

The Entrepreneur Commons Academy is a good addition to the Entrepreneur Commons network because it allows us to include people who are in areas where there is no chapter to help them. Through the school they should be able to interact with others and get included in discussions, and therefore funding opportunities.

5. Anything else you would like to share with us?

I think that the Supercoolschool model is an excellent one, thank you for making this platform available to anybody who wants to starts its own school. I believe that it is a perfect example of the promise of the web delivered: peer to peer education, and a new way to allow monetization of expertise. Because while knowledge should be accessible, the system also needs to be sustainable over the long time.

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We are interested in hearing your opinion on this use case of Supercool School and on other use cases that you find promising. Feel free to comment on this post or to participate in the"Schools for the World" voting.

cheers, Bjoern

Short Interview On The BART With Aaltoes Entrepreneurship Society

Below you can find a short interview that our friends from Aaltoes made with me while on our way to Startup School in Berkley :)

Interview with Steli Efti from Super Cool School from Aaltoes on Vimeo.

Think Big.

 

“Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone will be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistency. Remember that our sons and grandsons are going to do things that would stagger us. Let your watchword be order and your beacon beauty. Think big.” 

—DANIEL BURNHAM, CHICAGO ARCHITECT. (1864-1912)

Supercool School Interview With Edukwest

A couple of days ago we had the pleasure to talk to Edublogger Kirsten Winkler from Edukwest about the future of education and Supercool School. Check out it!

Merry X-Mas To All Our Supercool Friends :)

The Supercool Team celebrated Christmas at a Samoan Gospel Church dancing & singing and then went to the city to invite some homeless people to dinner! We hope you enjoy the holidays and wish everyone a Merry Xmas and a happy New Year!