In the fall of 2011, around 160,000 students in 190 countries enrolled in a Stanford-sponsored online course about artificial intelligence. About 23,000 completed the course and got certificates, including 248 who got a perfect score. The university offered the same course the old-fashioned way to students sitting in Stanford classrooms. None of the those students got a perfect score.
The lesson: There’s a lot of motivated talent out there beyond the ivy-covered walls of traditional academia. They don’t attend a traditional college because they can’t afford it, or they have family responsibilities or jobs. But they do have access to the Internet, along with a thirst for knowledge.
