Salman "Sal"Amin Khan (born October 11, 1976) is an American educator and the founder ofKhan Academy, 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.[1] He is also the founder ofKhan Lab School, a private in-person school inMountain View, California.[2]
As of January 2025[update], the Khan Academy channel on YouTube has 8.74 million subscribers, and its videos have been viewed more than two billion times.[3] In 2012, Khan was named in the annual publication ofTime 100.[4] In the same year, he was featured on the cover ofForbes, with the tagline "The $1 Trillion Opportunity."[5]
Khan was born inMetairie, Louisiana, on October 11, 1976, into aBengali Muslim family.[6] His father Fakhrul Amin Khan (d. 1990) was a physician,[7][8] originally hailing from the village of Rahmatpur inBabuganj Upazila,Bangladesh. His mother Masuda Khan is fromMurshidabad inWest Bengal,India.[6][9] 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.[10] They are descendants of Rahmat Khan, a 16th-century chieftain ofPathan origin, who was killed in battle with Kandarpanarayan Rai, the erstwhileRaja ofChandradwip.[11] Khan's grandfatherAbdul Wahab Khan was a prominent Bengali politician who served as Pakistan's second officialSpeaker of the National Assembly.
Khan attendedGrace King High School, where, as he recalls, "a few classmates were fresh out of jail and others were bound for top universities."[12] He was acartoonist for the high school's newspaper.[13] Khan took upper-level mathematics courses at theUniversity of New Orleans while he was in high school and graduated asvaledictorian in 1994.[14][15]
In 2004, Khan began tutoring his cousin, Nadia, inmathematics over the internet usingYahoo!'s Doodle notepad.[22] When other relatives and friends sought his tutoring, he moved his tutorials toYouTube, where he created an account on November 16, 2006.[23]
The popularity of his educational videos on the video-sharing website prompted Khan to quit his job as afinancial analyst in late 2009.[24] He moved his focus to developing hisYouTube channel, Khan Academy, full-time with the aid of close friend Josh Gefner.[20] Khan subsequently received sponsorship from Ann Doerr, the wife ofJohn Doerr.[25]
His videos received worldwide interest from both students and non-students, with more than 458 million views in the first number[quantify] of years.[24] In 2023, Khan Academy has more than 155 million registered users, with students spending billions of hours of learning on the platform.[26]
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 asEnglish literature.[27]
Khan published a book about Khan Academy and education goals titledThe One World Schoolhouse: Education Reimagined.[28]
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.[24] In 2012, Khan received theAmerican Academy of Achievement’s Gold Medal.[29][30] In 2014, Khan received the 19th AnnualHeinz Award in the Human Condition category.[31]
In 2015, Khan announced that Khan Academy was partnering with theCollege Board to create free practice resources for theSAT test.[32]
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.[33]
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 asflipped classroom.[35] His approach to learning incorporates elements ofBenjamin Bloom'smastery learning.[36] Thispersonalized learning method is tested at his Khan Lab School, founded in 2014.[37]
In early 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, Khan launched Schoolhouse, a free non-profit initiative to provide small-group tutoring for students worldwide throughZoom meetings.[38]
In 2010 the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation became one of the academy's biggest supporters.[43] In 2012 Khan was named one of TIME's 100 most influential people in the world (Time 100).[44] 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."[45]
Khan is married to physician Umaima Marvi. The couple live with their children inMountain View, California.[46][47][48] 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.[49]
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."[50]
