==I quit Englightenment, a school project competing for the Global Young Aurora prize supporting student initiatives that solve humanitarian crisis.== ==The idea was to bring our "advanced" education model to rural children in Yunnan China, "helping students find their direction." I left because when I asked the team what the children actually needed, no one could answer.== It reminded me of another school project of mine in which every student was required to identify a problem in local community and pitch a solution. While the problem proposed by others is trash sorting, my problem statement is: most student-led projects fail. ==And the Enlightenment team end up winning the grand prize with a $10,000 grant.== --- Education is something every one loves to talk about. Personally, I cannot enjoy learning more -- ==I am a Personal Knowledge Mangement (PKM) nerd, and I opensourced all my notes of more than half a million words online.== Lockdown during Covid was ironically a heaven for me, as I have large amounts of time to learn on my own, playing with note-taking apps like Obsidian and Notion. Beyond a power user, I developed plugins for Obsidian and self-trained to become a certified Notion Consultant that helps others set up Notion workspaces. Meanwhile, school felt more like boxes to tick so that I can focus on learning things that matter. It's not just me; many friends of mine -- brilliant, creative, curious -- also struggled within the walls of schools. Some explored other alternative education pathways and found what they want, but some are still struggling today as I'm writing this. > The hidden assumption is that school is the only place to receive education. I urge to disagree -- Education should be self-directed, and every one is capable of educating themselves. --- I want to help those who don't have adaqueate access to education; I also want to help those who are in school yet failed to find their education there. And I want to tackle both problems at the same time -- using technology as a force to ==decentralize== education and empower self-directed learning. --- I engaged with alternative schools across China, US, and Netherlands, talking with both head of schools and students, trying to figure out what supports learners really needed. These connections soon pushed me to found an online Mastodon community built on the philosophy of "Learning in Public". The biggest insight is that the freedom that comes with self-directed learning can be overwhelming -- people worry about missing out and lacking a consistent structure for learning. That's often what's so intimidating about deviating off the mainstream path. Consequently, this became the main drive of me to found OpenLearn and building its first product, Larc Mini -- a note-taking & thinking workspace that integrates agentic AI to actively guides students through the process of learning, providing structure while leaving students the freedom to define their goals. ==I already shared an alpha version within my school community, having received lots of highly valuable feedbacks.== I envision a world where every child has the best education at their fingertips -- not through formal instituions or missionary projects that parachute in with a bunch of internation school students from far far away. I hope it is clear to every child that education lives nowhere but in themselves. ==Beyond building a personal learning tool, I hold the belief that humanity's greatest crsises—paralyzed institutions, misinformation, the failure to turn knowledge into collective actions—are fundamentally crises of knowledge infrastructure.== ==Education is just the beginning -- The real work is rebuilding how humanity explores, organizes, shares, and acts on knowledge itself. Because by advancing knowledge, we advance everything else.== --- If you are curious, I don't regret missing that $10,000 grant. Because I believe in the Power Law -- Most projects fail. Only less than 1% truly changes the world. --- “我”的缺失 我是谁？ rejection VS building listing -- focus on a few arguments / 案例 有愤恨，不知道为什么 returning to the project and making further contributions clear structure 但是空洞 unclear strucutre full of 太多思想 --- Beyond building a personal learning tool, I hold the belief that humanity's greatest crsises—paralyzed institutions, misinformation, the failure to turn knowledge into collective actions—are fundamentally crises of knowledge infrastructure. Education is just the beginning -- The real work is rebuilding how humanity explores, organizes, shares, and acts on knowledge itself. Because by advancing knowledge, we advance everything else. Education is at the same time the source of all of our society's problem and the solution. --- Their fear is that is that the freedom that comes with self-directed learning can be overwhelming -- some worry about missing out and lacking a consistent structure, and some doubt if they are qualified to educate themselves or their children.