8 ms·

The Boy Genius of Ulan Bator

180 points by RockyMcNuts 13y ago

aheilbut 13y ago
It's not really the MOOC that enabled this; it's that principal who deserves the kudos.
- jgamman 13y ago
  both are needed for this kind of outcome. also, kudos it sounds to Mongolia education and development departments (?) - leapfrogging into the 21st century by investing in modern infrastructure - trust me, in many parts of rural NZ 3 MB download is a fantasy!
  - lignuist 13y ago
    Just returned from Mongolia a few days ago... In most rural areas in Mongolia 3MB downstream is not existent too. Actually I would say it is only available in the capital Ulaan Baatar. 3G and Wimax is available with a little luck in the populated areas of the country, but the connections are not very reliable. I experienced outages on a daily basis. Personally I would say that educational resources in different forms are available to those who are willing to search for it AND know the english language (which is only the case for a very small fraction of the Mongolian population). I'm not so sure if the (extremely corrupt) Mongolian government is investing wisely in modern infrastructures (streets in Mongolia are usually dangerously terrible)... it's more that the population is very interested in shiny smartphones and having a working network is a prerequisite to make them work. In such a huge country, a wireless network is probably the fastest way, to get people connected. But if the outcome of this is that a few brilliant people are taking their chances to get into higher education, then the government probably made correct decisions by accident.
    - retroafroman 13y ago
      When I was working there 5ish years ago the government claimed the whole country had fiber connections, but in reality they had just terminated the fiber connection at each village post office and left actually connecting the last mile up to private companies or cities. Which meant it wasn't available outside the densely populated center of the capital.
- ChuckMcM 13y ago
  As with anything, a bunch of things have to be either happening together, or close enough to make something work. Mongolia needed mobile Internet, MIT needed to put out course ware, someone needed to make the kids aware of it, and tools (phones) and such needed to be available to take advantage of it. Now instead of a 'Yeah right, like that could happen' kind of thing it is becoming 'I know a kid from here that did that' kind of thing and that will inspire a couple more, Etc. Assuming it doesn't get shut down, and/or overloaded, if kids who took advantage of this are successful and bring that success back to their peers then it begins a logarithmic climb out of obscurity.
- RockyMcNuts 13y ago
  Yeah, but the MOOC is an incredible resource and the perfect score is great validation...harder to do it and prove it without the MOOC.
- augbog 13y ago
  Completely agree. I definitely feel MOOC's provided this opportunity but it's useless without awareness and access. The principal allowed that.
- retroafroman 13y ago
  Enkhmunkh, the principal, was also the main driver behind bringing the OLPC project to a few of the schools in Mongolia. He also pretty much singlehandedly did the localization for the largest project on it, eToys. He's definitely contributed heavily to bringing higher IT education to Mongolia.
antimatter15 13y ago
On the subject of MIT and MOOCs, it's pretty interesting that he's taking solid-state chemistry (3.091), because this semester MIT is experimenting with substituting problem sets and exams with proctored mini-assessments done through MITx in addition to traditional (in-person) lecture and recitations[1]. I haven't met Battushig, but I'm another MIT freshman in the same chemistry class. After just the first full week of school, it's probably wise to reserve judgement with regard to the 3.091 experiment- but it's been plagued with a few problems (largely expected). For instance, MIT's administration isn't ready to approve a fully-online credited class (and apparently hundreds of upperclassmen were enrolled in the class in spite of schedule conflicts and no intention to attend), so they're starting to take attendance. The testing location is embedded within a kind of labyrinthine series of halls, and there's frequently long lines because everyone tries to take the assessments at the same time (they don't have enough Chromebooks to pass out, nor enough seats available). Anyway, I think the space of MOOCs is exciting, and so is the possibility of meshing it with the traditional college experience. [1]: http://web.mit.edu/3.091/www/3091.htm http://web.mit.edu/3.091/www/3091.htm
- grinich 13y ago
  Sounds worse than TEAL. :(
kostyk 13y ago
MOOC is the future.
solmri 13y ago
Same story is of my senior Amol Bhave. He attended the Circuits and Electronics course from MITx, but when he found that they are not going to offer Signals and Systems course (the next in the series), he himself built a platform with course material from OCW. And, he got in MIT Class of 2017. [1] http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c5a4b932-924c-11e2-851f-00144feabdc0.html http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c5a4b932-924c-11e2-851f-00144feabd...
arthurcolle 13y ago
Perpetual overuse of the word 'genius' is enough to make one vomit.
josh33 13y ago
I lived in Mongolia for two years as a missionary and taught ESL at schools every day. The schools systems there are what you would expect from a 3rd world country but it never ceased to amaze me how many bright, gifted Mongolians that had innate desire to learn and improve their situation, even with very troubling situations at home.
- haldujai 13y ago
  'even with' might actually be 'because of' the troubling situations. There is nothing like hardship to motivate someone to improve their station in life.
  - corporalagumbo 13y ago
    Don't dismiss the power of a generally constructive, optimistic culture.
    - lignuist 13y ago
      While I agree with your argument in general, you obviously haven't been to Mongolia lately. The average Mongolian is dumping his plastic waste into the nature, trying to get a car and TV set as large as possible and is extremely envious if his neighbour is accomplishing this goals earlier than himself. Really, I wasn't able to find a place in Mongolia, where I couldn't spot a plastic bottle on the ground and that's not what I would describe as constructive culture. However, Mongolians can be really warm people, but the society is totally broken at the moment. This country is currently transitioning from socialism to turbo-capitalism. http://english.news.mn/content/96843.shtml http://english.news.mn/content/96843.shtml
    - brador 13y ago
      And supportive parents.
  - gexla 13y ago
    This might be true of someone who has fallen from high places and then experienced hardship, but it's not true for people in poverty. The power of poverty to keep someone in that situation is great. In most cases, more powerful than the ability for someone to rise above it. Depending on how bad your situation is, there's just so many ways that poverty affects you and also the logistical challenges of doing anything but barely surviving are great.
gexla 13y ago
Silly title of course. I don't want to criticize the kid, I just hate the sort of bullshit articles which have been screwing up my view of the world for my entire life in an attempt to sell eyeballs.I'm happy for the kid getting exposure which may end up with giving him an opportunity that few people in this world get (even in the U.S.) That's the craziness of luck. I will just go ahead and say that I would place myself more on the idiot end of the spectrum rather than genius end. Yet, if a 15 year old kid were to show off the same things I know, that kid would be praised as a genius. What I know isn't rocket science, it's just a huge number of small, very easy things learned from many hours of determination to learn something. Unfortunately, I never had this determination for anything in school. I had a stumble on the opening path to where I'm at today almost by accident. Perhaps that's the difference between what this article is referring to as genius and whatever this article might think of kids who aren't genius. Maybe the author could give us a term for it. Hacker news discussions have talked about the 10X programmer and how that programmer perhaps should be paid 10x more than everyone else. But I agree with the counter arguments that programmers who aren't contributing are overpaid rather than the 10x programmer being underpaid. I think we could apply this to schools as well. These kids aren't genius, but rather, it's school's which are failing to help kids find their own path to something they can be passionate for. The things this kid is doing may sound like some big step for someone who is non technical, but it's amazing what anyone can achieve with a bit of time and drive (and not having to deal with the issues of poverty.)
- corporalagumbo 13y ago
  I see where you're coming from. Most young people around the world don't really engage with creative learning, the fog of social games obscures the power and possibilities of education I guess. Your best shot is if you have an amazing teacher, but most teachers are products of the same system, and working with limited resources to boot. The brilliant are much more likely to wind up as professors, which I suppose could be why most people who have these later epiphanies tend to have them around college. That said, this article is really a testament to the incredible potential of online education. A link was forged between a global centre of thought and a young boy in a far-flung, isolated and poor country. That's pretty awesome when you think about it, and hopefully something that will happen more and more as things get better! Anyway, I hope you don't let stuff like this get you down. It's never too late in life to find your path.
Toenex 13y ago
Can anyone tell me what the correlation is between being proclaimed a child 'Genius' and you're impact on society when you reach maturity? There must have been studies looking to see if these kids actually go on the significantly progress their field. My concern is that we might do these kids a disservice by accelerating their education in such a narrow way.
- ihnorton 13y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Study_of_Mathematically_Precocious_Youth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Study_of_Mathematically_Precoci...
mathattack 13y ago
I find this interesting because this view of online education is the opposite of cheap education for the masses. It shows online education as a means to find the prodigies around the world.
philangist 13y ago
I'm really glad for the kid, but was anybody else concerned by the fact that he doesn't listen to music? Or that he dismissed the Harry Potter books because they had no objective gain for him? Whatever happened to having fun for the sake of fun..? But I guess when you're a boy genius you have a different definition of fun.
- seclorum 13y ago
  I was impressed by his lack of interest in Harry Potter, as I consider it a pox on modern culture, but saddened by his lack of interest in music. To each, their own .. but I hope he discovers something frivolous and trivial, whether its music or trashy fiction, at some point in his life to enjoy. Genius without frivolity is often a fast road to torture and anguish, a fact that wouldn't be true if it weren't for the fact of the existence of both music, and trashy fiction, in perpetuity ..
seclorum 13y ago
He needs to get help starting a hackerspace. http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/ http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/ There is no better way to treat Genius than to let it propagate, and no better way to propagate knowledge, socially, than a hacker space. Sure, he could try to go to school - and he should - but getting others involved in his hacker projects is a lot more achievable.

180 points by RockyMcNuts 13y ago

aheilbut 13y ago

It's not really the MOOC that enabled this; it's that principal who deserves the kudos.

jgamman 13y ago
both are needed for this kind of outcome. also, kudos it sounds to Mongolia education and development departments (?) - leapfrogging into the 21st century by investing in modern infrastructure - trust me, in many parts of rural NZ 3 MB download is a fantasy!
- lignuist 13y ago
  Just returned from Mongolia a few days ago... In most rural areas in Mongolia 3MB downstream is not existent too. Actually I would say it is only available in the capital Ulaan Baatar. 3G and Wimax is available with a little luck in the populated areas of the country, but the connections are not very reliable. I experienced outages on a daily basis. Personally I would say that educational resources in different forms are available to those who are willing to search for it AND know the english language (which is only the case for a very small fraction of the Mongolian population). I'm not so sure if the (extremely corrupt) Mongolian government is investing wisely in modern infrastructures (streets in Mongolia are usually dangerously terrible)... it's more that the population is very interested in shiny smartphones and having a working network is a prerequisite to make them work. In such a huge country, a wireless network is probably the fastest way, to get people connected. But if the outcome of this is that a few brilliant people are taking their chances to get into higher education, then the government probably made correct decisions by accident.
  - retroafroman 13y ago
    When I was working there 5ish years ago the government claimed the whole country had fiber connections, but in reality they had just terminated the fiber connection at each village post office and left actually connecting the last mile up to private companies or cities. Which meant it wasn't available outside the densely populated center of the capital.
ChuckMcM 13y ago
As with anything, a bunch of things have to be either happening together, or close enough to make something work. Mongolia needed mobile Internet, MIT needed to put out course ware, someone needed to make the kids aware of it, and tools (phones) and such needed to be available to take advantage of it. Now instead of a 'Yeah right, like that could happen' kind of thing it is becoming 'I know a kid from here that did that' kind of thing and that will inspire a couple more, Etc. Assuming it doesn't get shut down, and/or overloaded, if kids who took advantage of this are successful and bring that success back to their peers then it begins a logarithmic climb out of obscurity.
RockyMcNuts 13y ago
Yeah, but the MOOC is an incredible resource and the perfect score is great validation...harder to do it and prove it without the MOOC.
augbog 13y ago
Completely agree. I definitely feel MOOC's provided this opportunity but it's useless without awareness and access. The principal allowed that.
retroafroman 13y ago
Enkhmunkh, the principal, was also the main driver behind bringing the OLPC project to a few of the schools in Mongolia. He also pretty much singlehandedly did the localization for the largest project on it, eToys. He's definitely contributed heavily to bringing higher IT education to Mongolia.

antimatter15 13y ago

On the subject of MIT and MOOCs, it's pretty interesting that he's taking solid-state chemistry (3.091), because this semester MIT is experimenting with substituting problem sets and exams with proctored mini-assessments done through MITx in addition to traditional (in-person) lecture and recitations[1]. I haven't met Battushig, but I'm another MIT freshman in the same chemistry class. After just the first full week of school, it's probably wise to reserve judgement with regard to the 3.091 experiment- but it's been plagued with a few problems (largely expected). For instance, MIT's administration isn't ready to approve a fully-online credited class (and apparently hundreds of upperclassmen were enrolled in the class in spite of schedule conflicts and no intention to attend), so they're starting to take attendance. The testing location is embedded within a kind of labyrinthine series of halls, and there's frequently long lines because everyone tries to take the assessments at the same time (they don't have enough Chromebooks to pass out, nor enough seats available). Anyway, I think the space of MOOCs is exciting, and so is the possibility of meshing it with the traditional college experience. [1]: http://web.mit.edu/3.091/www/3091.htm http://web.mit.edu/3.091/www/3091.htm

grinich 13y ago
Sounds worse than TEAL. :(

kostyk 13y ago

MOOC is the future.

solmri 13y ago

Same story is of my senior Amol Bhave. He attended the Circuits and Electronics course from MITx, but when he found that they are not going to offer Signals and Systems course (the next in the series), he himself built a platform with course material from OCW. And, he got in MIT Class of 2017. [1] http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c5a4b932-924c-11e2-851f-00144feabdc0.html http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c5a4b932-924c-11e2-851f-00144feabd...

arthurcolle 13y ago

Perpetual overuse of the word 'genius' is enough to make one vomit.

josh33 13y ago

I lived in Mongolia for two years as a missionary and taught ESL at schools every day. The schools systems there are what you would expect from a 3rd world country but it never ceased to amaze me how many bright, gifted Mongolians that had innate desire to learn and improve their situation, even with very troubling situations at home.

haldujai 13y ago
'even with' might actually be 'because of' the troubling situations. There is nothing like hardship to motivate someone to improve their station in life.
- corporalagumbo 13y ago
  Don't dismiss the power of a generally constructive, optimistic culture.
  - lignuist 13y ago
    While I agree with your argument in general, you obviously haven't been to Mongolia lately. The average Mongolian is dumping his plastic waste into the nature, trying to get a car and TV set as large as possible and is extremely envious if his neighbour is accomplishing this goals earlier than himself. Really, I wasn't able to find a place in Mongolia, where I couldn't spot a plastic bottle on the ground and that's not what I would describe as constructive culture. However, Mongolians can be really warm people, but the society is totally broken at the moment. This country is currently transitioning from socialism to turbo-capitalism. http://english.news.mn/content/96843.shtml http://english.news.mn/content/96843.shtml
  - brador 13y ago
    And supportive parents.
- gexla 13y ago
  This might be true of someone who has fallen from high places and then experienced hardship, but it's not true for people in poverty. The power of poverty to keep someone in that situation is great. In most cases, more powerful than the ability for someone to rise above it. Depending on how bad your situation is, there's just so many ways that poverty affects you and also the logistical challenges of doing anything but barely surviving are great.

gexla 13y ago

Silly title of course. I don't want to criticize the kid, I just hate the sort of bullshit articles which have been screwing up my view of the world for my entire life in an attempt to sell eyeballs.I'm happy for the kid getting exposure which may end up with giving him an opportunity that few people in this world get (even in the U.S.) That's the craziness of luck. I will just go ahead and say that I would place myself more on the idiot end of the spectrum rather than genius end. Yet, if a 15 year old kid were to show off the same things I know, that kid would be praised as a genius. What I know isn't rocket science, it's just a huge number of small, very easy things learned from many hours of determination to learn something. Unfortunately, I never had this determination for anything in school. I had a stumble on the opening path to where I'm at today almost by accident. Perhaps that's the difference between what this article is referring to as genius and whatever this article might think of kids who aren't genius. Maybe the author could give us a term for it. Hacker news discussions have talked about the 10X programmer and how that programmer perhaps should be paid 10x more than everyone else. But I agree with the counter arguments that programmers who aren't contributing are overpaid rather than the 10x programmer being underpaid. I think we could apply this to schools as well. These kids aren't genius, but rather, it's school's which are failing to help kids find their own path to something they can be passionate for. The things this kid is doing may sound like some big step for someone who is non technical, but it's amazing what anyone can achieve with a bit of time and drive (and not having to deal with the issues of poverty.)

corporalagumbo 13y ago
I see where you're coming from. Most young people around the world don't really engage with creative learning, the fog of social games obscures the power and possibilities of education I guess. Your best shot is if you have an amazing teacher, but most teachers are products of the same system, and working with limited resources to boot. The brilliant are much more likely to wind up as professors, which I suppose could be why most people who have these later epiphanies tend to have them around college. That said, this article is really a testament to the incredible potential of online education. A link was forged between a global centre of thought and a young boy in a far-flung, isolated and poor country. That's pretty awesome when you think about it, and hopefully something that will happen more and more as things get better! Anyway, I hope you don't let stuff like this get you down. It's never too late in life to find your path.

Toenex 13y ago

Can anyone tell me what the correlation is between being proclaimed a child 'Genius' and you're impact on society when you reach maturity? There must have been studies looking to see if these kids actually go on the significantly progress their field. My concern is that we might do these kids a disservice by accelerating their education in such a narrow way.

ihnorton 13y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Study_of_Mathematically_Precocious_Youth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Study_of_Mathematically_Precoci...

mathattack 13y ago

I find this interesting because this view of online education is the opposite of cheap education for the masses. It shows online education as a means to find the prodigies around the world.

philangist 13y ago

I'm really glad for the kid, but was anybody else concerned by the fact that he doesn't listen to music? Or that he dismissed the Harry Potter books because they had no objective gain for him? Whatever happened to having fun for the sake of fun..? But I guess when you're a boy genius you have a different definition of fun.

seclorum 13y ago
I was impressed by his lack of interest in Harry Potter, as I consider it a pox on modern culture, but saddened by his lack of interest in music. To each, their own .. but I hope he discovers something frivolous and trivial, whether its music or trashy fiction, at some point in his life to enjoy. Genius without frivolity is often a fast road to torture and anguish, a fact that wouldn't be true if it weren't for the fact of the existence of both music, and trashy fiction, in perpetuity ..

seclorum 13y ago

He needs to get help starting a hackerspace. http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/ http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/ There is no better way to treat Genius than to let it propagate, and no better way to propagate knowledge, socially, than a hacker space. Sure, he could try to go to school - and he should - but getting others involved in his hacker projects is a lot more achievable.