Make Learning Your Top 2019 New Year’s Resolution

Six years ago I wrote a similarly titled blog post on TNW after getting inspired by the rise of Moocs and the vast amount and quality of information available on the Internet for free, or almost for free.

Looking back at history, abundant, free education is not something we can take for granted. Very simplistically and abbreviated: Before print was invented, in the Christian world the priestS were the literate minority, and to learn about the world you had to go through your local church. Later on, as books started spreading, people were literate, but the knowledge was concentrated in libraries or Universities. The industrial revolution required trained employees, and education became an industry, to produce the workers needed.

And think about how much the cost of education has increased from then on… But now, we can get it for free, or nearly free. And by “WE”, I mean the 2.8 billion or so people that have access to a smartphones and close to 4 billion people who are connected to the Internet (according to this report by we are social and Hootsuite) Sure, we still require connectivity, but that’s something that is improving year over year.

But we don’t always seem to remember this fact when we have 10-30 minutes to kill. Instead, we might get sucked in to social media, play a game… pass the time. Watch this video to realise what a waste of time it actually is:

On this note, the Economist supplement published an interesting piece on millennials and in particular “influencers” and with it the pros and cons they attribute to social media (not online yet it seems).

Below is a short list of FREE resources to learn stuff online or get inspired. Have an addition to make? Please submit your entry on this form and I’ll update the list between now and January 1st.

1. MOOCs – Enrol in a course at one of the top universities. Only pay if you want a certificate.
   1. Coursera
   2. Edx
   3. Alison
   4. Open courses by Harvard, Stanford and MIT
   5. More on this excellent list
2. Online courses that don’t require homework/group work –
   • Udemy has a lot of great courses. Examples:
     • Product Management 101
     • Instagram masterclass
     • Blockchain A-Z
3. Coding – next week is the “week of code” – There are many ‘online coding schools’ – here are a few:
   1. Hour of Code – free introductory resource for school
   2. CodeCademy – you can get quite far in the basics with this
   3. General Assembly – Dash – very similar to CodeCademy
   4. SoloLearn – good for beginners
4. Lean back experience – learn something one video after the other, curated by humans
   • Neverthink – Israeli founder based in Finland, check out his app too
5. A bit of everything
   • Youtube announced it will be investing $20 million in Youtube Education, educational videos. Sounds like little? Well, increasing educational video content is one of the CEO’s top 5 priorities for creators in 2018.
6. Don’t have time to read books?
   1. Here are some book summaries (more than 450 titles)
   2. Read lists of recommended reading (it will make you WANT to read)
   3. Listen to books on Audible
7. Listen to Podcasts – I compiled this list of my favourite podcasts in July 2017. There’s been some movement since then (though the great ones stand the test of time). I’d probably add the following:
   1. The Investors Field Guide – invest like the best, by Patrick O’shaughnessy
   2. The Knowledge Project – in their own words ” multi-disciplinary education that you can use to make better decisions and live a more meaningful and productive life.”
   3. A16Z Podcast – always interesting
   4. Origins – LP perspectives
   5. Danny in the Valley – British journalist in the valley
   6. Kindredcast – on dealmakers in tech and media, by Liontree
8. Watch a documentary – if you have Netflix or Prime Video, search by genre and you won’t be dissapointed.
9. Learn about the latest products that have just launched
   • Product Hunt
10. Get inspired by people’s inventions
    • IndieGogo and Kickstarter
11. TED – make sure you get a few of these talks in the mix
12. Follow your topic by subscribing to interesting newsletters. There are so many… here are a few about AI including AWS, Google AI, MIT
13. Sign up for Google Alerts to monitor interesting new content
14. Take it back to the basics with Khan Academy
15. Get  your dose of Culture with the Google Cultural Institute

Hope this list gives a flavour of the amazing opportunities we got to make learning a 2019 new year’s resolution. It’s like going to the gym (most of us only do it only in January and July), but in all seriousness, consuming this content gets easier once you get started.

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Eze Vidra

Co Founder and Managing Partner at Remagine Ventures

Eze is managing partner of Remagine Ventures, a seed fund investing in ambitious founders at the intersection of tech, entertainment, gaming and commerce with a spotlight on Israel.

I'm a former general partner at google ventures, head of Google for Entrepreneurs in Europe and founding head of Campus London, Google's first physical hub for startups.

I'm also the founder of Techbikers, a non-profit bringing together the startup ecosystem on cycling challenges in support of Room to Read. Since inception in 2012 we've built 11 schools and 50 libraries in the developing world.

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