Text Messages and the Future of Digital Education
In early 2018, Babson College and USC worked together to create the first text message course for students trapped in the Yemeni conflict. The resulting initiative, Arist, is now building the first text message university, designed to serve the 2 billion students worldwide without regular internet access.
In this talk, Michael Ioffe, the 19-year-old founder of Arist (and the social entrepreneur behind TILE.org, the world's largest conversation series, and Energy.org, a student-led environmental advocacy organization), explains why text messages are the next frontier in digital education, and how SMS can be a more scientific, relevant, and novel approach to learning for students of all kinds.