👋 Hello from Fargo!

After a busy July complete with two ER visits (everyone fine minus a broken toe and broken arm), I am excited to share big ideas I have been exploring the past weeks.

Today, let's dive into decentralized education with an entrepreneur and inventor I really admire named Bodo Hoenen. I had the chance to interview him on the Ed3 podcast.

👩‍🏫 Learners as Teachers

Educators often talk about pathways - an attempt to map all the concepts a student should learn, all the experiences teachers hope they will have.

Bodo Hoenen reimagines this concept in a way that fits our data-filled world. You can listen to him discuss it in the link below.

Learners as Teachers - A Decentralized Education Protocol with Bodo Hoenen — www.ed3.gg

Bodo Hoenen is building the Proof of Learning Protocol, technology that helps students discover ideas, validate learning and unlock opportunity.

🗺 Student-Centered Education Maps

Hoenen is build the Proof of Learning Protocol (PoLP), a technology that helps students discover ideas, validate learning, and unlock opportunity.

Students identify what they want to do and the PoLP unlocks a unique path to help them learn what is needed based on their intrinsic motivation. Other technologies can build on top of his protocol to create even greater impact.

🤯 What most blows my mind is he is able to generate these pathways with YouTube videos and content shared publicly online. In this way, PoLP is perfect for emerging fields because it incorporates information as it is generated.

New topics like web3, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and more don't often make it into traditional curriculum. The content moves too quickly and the concepts cross traditional disciplines. A decentralized, learner-centered approach could help solve this problem while increasing access to emerging fields so everyone can build the future.

💪 Decentralized Education in Action

How does Bodo know the PoLP works?

He used this model to unlock grassroots, peer-to-peer learning in East Africa where the learners were also the teachers. With this model, students who had an interest in nursing or anime, but didn't have the teachers or resources to pursue those interests, suddenly had a path. They learned about these dynamic fields because they were motivated to do so. Along they way, they learned core skills like literacy and math.

Following this experience, he used his technology in an unexpected way.

His daughter suddenly became paralyzed. Despite the doctor's warning that she would not regain movement, Bodo and his daughter Lorelei were undeterred. After seeing a brain-controlled exoskeleton demonstrated at the World Cup, they decided to learn how to build it for Lorelei, with the hopes of increasing mobility. The PoLP illuminated a path to get there, enabling them to build the device, ultimately helping his daughter restore 40% of the strength in her arms.

🪜 Opportunity Through Grassroots Learning

Bodo's story is as inspiring as it is forward-thinking, as revolutionary as it is heartwarming.

A model like PoLP enables students to learn what they are most passionate about and receive credit for the skills they gather along the way. The best part is teaching others is a key way to measure and document learning. This decentralized model creates regenerative education, where skills quickly spread through a community.

You do not want to miss learning about his decentralized approach to education. His vision of learners as teachers might just help us scale education and give students everywhere access to the latest concepts and technologies long before they would learn about it in a traditional classroom.

🙌 Enjoy!

-Scott

Learners as Teachers - A Decentralized Education Protocol with Bodo Hoenen — www.ed3.gg

Bodo Hoenen is building the Proof of Learning Protocol, technology that helps students discover ideas, validate learning and unlock opportunity.