Sugata Mitra
MIT Media Lab and Newcastle University (http://sugatam.wikispaces.com)
Dr. Sugata Mitra is a visiting professor at MIT Media Lab in the US and Professor of Educational Technology, School of Education, Communication and Language Sciences, at Newcastle University in the UK. His biography from his now-famous TED talks reads: "In 1999, Sugata Mitra and his colleagues dug a hole in a wall bordering an urban slum in New Delhi, installed an Internet-connected PC, and left it there (with a hidden camera filming the area). What they saw was kids from the slum playing around with the computer and in the process learning how to use itand how to go online, and then teaching each other.
"In the following years they replicated the experiment in other parts of India, urban and rural, with similar results, challenging some of the key assumptions of formal education. The "Hole in the Wall" project demonstrates that, even in the absence of any direct input from a teacher, an environment that stimulates curiosity can cause learning through self-instruction and peer-shared knowledge. Mitra, who's now a professor of educational technology at Newcastle University (UK), calls it 'minimally invasive education.'"
[Note - the time is listed in EST]