Salman Khan of Khan Academy honored with 2018 Visionary of the Year award

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NEW YORK – Salman Khan, the founder of Khan Academy, has won the 2018 Visionary of the Year award from The San Francisco Chronicle.

According to a San Francisco Chronicle report, Khan received his award at a gala that was held at the War Memorial Veterans Building in San Francisco, California, which was attended by about 150 people, including Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, former Secretary of State George Shultz and his wife, Charlotte Shultz.

Khan was nominated among five other finalists and will be granted $25,000 as part of the award.

In 2008, Khan quit his day job in finance to start Khan Academy, an educational website where he delivered tutorials in math by posting videos on YouTube.

Soon enough the Silicon Valley entrepreneur became a celebrity as he had impacted many children and their families who were struggling in school.

Today Khan Academy has more than 62 million registered users in nearly 200 countries where his voice is widely recognized as he narrates many of the tutorials.

According to San Francisco Chronicle, students and parents have often stopped him on the street to thank him for his virtual assistance in their work.

Khan Academy features coursework in various fields from art to science at all levels from kindergarten to college as well as SAT instruction and personal finance.

Khan’s Mountain View nonprofit has more than 150 employees now and he still continues his mission to provide “world-class” education to anyone anywhere at no cost.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Google and Bank of America are just few of Khan’s supporters and he has been featured on “60 Minutes” and the “Colbert Report”. He has written a book called “The One World Schoolhouse: Education Reimagined,” according to a San Francisco Chronicle.

Khan accepted his award as he recalled the first student he had helped out; his cousin Nadia.

“As I tell everyone, this is just something I fell into. I thought it was a dumb idea at first,” he said.