Sal Khan

Introduction

Salman "Sal" Khan was born on October 11, 1976, in Metairie, Louisiana (USA). He’s an American of Bangladeshi-Indian origin, and he’s most famous as the founder of Khan Academy, the free online learning platform used by millions of students around the world.

He studied at MIT where he earned degrees in math, electrical engineering, and computer science, and then got an MBA from Harvard—pretty impressive, right? But instead of becoming a high-powered CEO in Silicon Valley, he chose something bigger: changing the way the world learns.

Main Achievements

What did Sal Khan actually do for AI and education?

Imagine you’re trying to learn math, but your teacher only explains it one way—and you just don’t get it. Sal Khan saw that problem and said: “Why not let people learn at their own pace, with a teacher they can pause and replay?”

That’s what Khan Academy does. It’s like having a super-patient tutor who’s always available. And while it started with math lessons, it grew into a full library of videos on science, coding, history, and even SAT prep.

Sal didn’t just make videos. He used basic AI and data to personalize learning. Khan Academy tracks what you're good at, what you struggle with, and helps you master topics step by step, just like a video game leveling system.

In recent years, Sal’s team started using AI tools like GPT to build even smarter tutors, including a virtual assistant called Khanmigo that helps students with questions in real-time.

So if education was a locked door for many kids, Sal Khan basically built the universal key.

A Funny or Surprising Fact

Did you know Sal Khan never planned to be a global educator? In 2004, he was just helping his cousin Nadia with her math homework using Yahoo Doodle and YouTube. The videos were so helpful that other people started watching them… and then schools started using them… and then Bill Gates gave him a huge donation.

So yeah, he accidentally founded a global school from his closet.

Oh, and for a while, people thought "Khan Academy" was a team of professors. Nope—it was just Sal, a pen tablet, and his voice.