Our guest for this episode, Lotfullah Andishmand, grew up in a village in rural Afghanistan where there was no internet access or electric lights. (He describes having had to navigate by moonlight to get to his uncle’s house for tutoring in chemistry.) In search of educational opportunity, he eventually moved to Kabul, where he discovered MIT OpenCourseWare’s lecture videos while studying electrical engineering at the university. Even there, though, the internet infrastructure was shaky enough that Lotfullah often resorted to downloading the course materials so he could study them at leisure when broadband wasn’t available. Now he’s living in India, pursuing an education in data science and artificial intelligence, but he hasn’t forgotten the difficulties he faced as a student in his own country. Recognizing that most of the available online educational resources are in English, a language few Afghans are fluent in, Lotfullah has used his computer skills to create an online learning platform offering educational materials in Persian. Someday, he hopes the platform will expand to include full online courses with direct interaction between instructors and students.

The Open Learners podcast is produced by Alexis Haut and hosted by Emmanuel Kasigazi and Michael Jordan Pilgreen.

Relevant Resources:

The OCW Educator portal

MIT Emerging Talent program

MIT MicroMasters Program in Statistics and Data Science

6.0001 Introduction to Computer Science and Programming in Python on MIT OpenCourseWare

Hooshmand Lab online learning website (in Persian)

Music in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions

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To share your own open learning story with Michael and Emmanuel, send them an email at open_learners_pod@mit.edu.

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If you have a suggestion for a new episode or have used OCW to change your life or those of others, tell us your story. We’d love to hear from you!

Lotfullah from Afghanistan: An Open Learner's Story

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Lotfullah from Afghanistan: An Open Learner's Story