"The positive revolutions will not be started by generals and politicians. They'll be started by innovators like you," said Khan, a 1998 graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge.

Some would place Khan and the nonprofit online education venture he founded, , into this category. The organization offers, for free and to anyone with a Web connection, approximately 3,000 videos Khan created and narrates off camera explaining a range of topics mostly in the science and math fields. In the videos he writes on a virtual blackboard, drawing notes and diagrams to accompany the lessons, and uses Web services, like Google Maps, to help teach. Some of the many lessons on include videos on the big bang theory, chemistry and home buying in addition to topics on U.S. history and civics.

In 2006 Khan began making the videos and posting them to YouTube as a way to tutor his cousin in New Orleans in math. The videos proved popular with people outside of his family and in 2009 he quit his analyst job at a Silicon Valley hedge fund to make the videos and the software to support them full-time.

During his speech, which was also webcast, Khan said that the spirit of MIT OpenCourseWare, an online education effort the school launched in 2001 that offers material from many of its classes for free, influenced the principles of Khan Academy.