“Online learning is going to change the world. We are going to be able to engage students in ways that can significantly improve their learning and also expand the reach of quality education to a large population,” says Anant Agarwal, President of edX,  an organization established by MIT and Harvard University that will develop an open-source technology platform to deliver online courses.

Anant Agarwal is a professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT and served as the Director of CSAIL. He leads the Carbon group which focuses on research involving operating systems and architectures for many cores and clouds. He is also a founder of Tilera Corporation which created the Tile multicore processor. Agarwal holds a Ph.D. from Stanford and a bachelor's from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. He led the development of Raw - an early tiled multicore processor, Sparcle - an early  multithreaded microprocessor, and Alewife - a scalable multiprocessor. He also led the VirtualWires project at MIT and was the founder of Virtual Machine Works, which took the VirtualWires technology to market.  He is an author of the textbook "Foundations of Analog and Digital Electronic Circuits."

Recently he has focused his attention on revolutionizing the world of education through the creation of a unique open source platform for online learning that has been piloted at MIT. The first course offered by Agarwal had 120,000 students from all over the world. He talked to Lokvani about his research and edX.

Could you describe your area of research?

My area of research is in the field of Computer Architecture.  My research is focused on addressing the issues around Multiprocessor scalability.   We developed   a scalable multi-processor system called the Alewife Machine that is built out of large numbers of single chip processors.  Later we worked on using mesh technology to connect multiple cores within a single chip.   We launched Tilera in 2004 to market processors with multicore designs.

What are the primary areas of applications for this technology?

The  goal is to provide a high-performance CPU, with good power efficiency, and with greater flexibility than special-purpose processors such as DSPs.
 
Their primary markets for Tilera includes,
* Cloud Computing applications such as web indexing, search engine and cache acceleration servers,
* Networking equipment including intelligent routers, firewalls, network test equipment, and forensic / data-mining applications   
* Multimedia applications such as videoconferencing, broadcast video servers, and edge QAM systems
* Wireless infrastructure such as 4G Node B Base Station, RNC, and Media Gateways

Tilera’s  64-core general purpose CPU consumes approximately 20  watts at full load, which  is very efficient.

What opportunities are there for potential startups in this space? What challenges does research need to address?

There are plenty of opportunities to create new appliances that can make use of the multicore technology in the video, security, networking, cloud computing and other areas.

Meshing 1000s of cores is a challenge and research in that area needs to continue.

What motivated you to work on edX?  

While technology has impacted every imaginable field it has unfortunately not made a dent in the field of education. Teaching and learning have continued to remain unaffected by technology. Technology has the ability to impact the quality and reach of education.

We have created an open-source online learning platform that features teaching designed specifically for the Web. Features include: self-paced learning, automatically graded problems, online discussion groups, wiki-based collaborative learning, assessment of learning as a student progresses through a course, and online laboratories. The platform also serves as a laboratory from which data will be gathered to better understand how students learn.  

We offered 6.002x, a course that I teach at MIT,  using this platform and the response was tremendous. Over 120,000 people subscribed to the course. We simulated the lab work using computer technology.   Students at MIT took the course for credit and many felt the technology helped them learn better than they could have in a traditional setup. For the MIT students, we augmented the online course with in-class help sessions with the instructors.

Do you think edX will have a large-scale impact on education?

Online learning will change education completely. Using technology we can significantly transform the way we engage with students. Online laboratories allow students to try different  experiments  quickly.  Similarly, online problem sets provide instant feedback on whether a student got the problem right.  Of course it also allows students from around the world to access MIT or Harvard courses thus increasing the reach of quality education. Online discussion forums with thousands of students from around the world further resulted in instant responses to questions asked by the students.

Are there opportunities for startups in this space?

Yes.  In fact I am advising a few students and entrepreneurs who are working on some ideas.  The edX open source platform is like the highway infrastructure.  There are many commercial opportunities for “on and off-ramps”,  “food stalls” and so much more on this highway.

We have great need for content creators. People may also start tutorial centers centered on edX in cities around the world to help learners with the content and provide value-added services in multiple ways. There is plenty of opportunity for software creation around this platform as well.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.











 

|