A Massive Untapped Value: Knowledge of, and Access to Educational Pathways

The sharing economy has opened the world’s eyes to immense untapped value. Uber lets you capture some of the value of your car and driving ability. AirBNB lets you capture some of the value of your home. Platforms that provide a way to open, access, and exchange latent value — that is, value that is already present, but as yet untapped — are changing the world. But I don’t need to tell you that.

Among the most valuable resources humans hold as individuals and as a species is knowledge of educational pathways, or in other words, what must be mastered in order to become a philosopher, chef, computer scientist, etc.

While the internet has allowed us to better organize, search for, and find discrete information (i.e., answers to questions like: Who was Plato? How do you make a soufflé? What is javascript?), we’re still largely dependent on educational institutions like trade schools, colleges, and universities to provide and verify these pathways (i.e., answers to questions like: How do I become a philosopher? Chef? Computer scientist? Etc.). But we no longer need to be beholden to these institutions. After all, an educational pathway is formed when an expert organizes and orders what discrete information must be mastered. This requires expertise, not an institution.

While mastering what you need to master can take a lot of effort and time, the pathway is simple:

start here — — learn this — — then this — — do this — — you finished

While this enormous value of countless pathways has been present for decades if not centuries — in individuals, colleges, communities, online references, etc. — it has not been readily available to everyone. We’re missing a platform where people know they can reliably go to follow, or contribute to these pathways.

My project, Teachur, is building such a platform that lets anyone with expertise capture the value of their knowledge by contributing to learning paths. And also lets anyone find and follow these and directly pay the pathway creator(s).

What do you think? What pathway(s) could you contribute to? What pathway(s) would you want to follow? Let me know in the comments, or reach me on Twitter, My site, LinkedIn, or reach me at: ben@teachur.co.