CEO Of The World's First MOOC Provides Hope To Former Prisoners Through Education - Forbes http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterhigh/2015/07/21/ceo-of-the-worlds-first-mooc-provides-hope...

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Peter High (http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterhigh/) Contributor

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7/21/2015 @ 7:35AM 6,756 views

CEO Of The World's First MOOC

Provides Hope To Former
Prisoners Through Education
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Mike Feerick leads a company that has been

credited as being the first ever massive open online
course or MOOC. He founded ALISON (https://alison.com/subjects
/25/Diploma-Courses) in 2007. Unlike other prominent MOOCs such
as Udacity, Coursera, and edX, ALISONs content is not drawn from elite
US-based universities. Rather, the Galway, Ireland based company focuses on
practical workplace skills that can be tested by employers to gauge growing
competencies. Since I last spoke with Feerick (http://www.forbes.com/sites
/peterhigh/2013/12/31/lessons-from-the-ceo-of-the-first-ever-mooc/), the
company registered its five millionth user, and much of the growth has been
in the developing world. India, for instance, is the companys fastest growing

24/Jul/2015 9:20 PM

CEO Of The World's First MOOC Provides Hope To Former Prisoners Through Education - Forbes http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterhigh/2015/07/21/ceo-of-the-worlds-first-mooc-provides-hope...

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market. ALISON has thrived on serving traditionally underserved education

marketplaces.
As Feerick probed for opportunity to serve additional groups of people that
have been underserved, perhaps the most marginalized group of all became a
target: the population of formerly incarcerated people. In the US alone, 20
million people are among the formerly incarcerated, and one of the triggers of
recidivism is a lack of solid job opportunity. As Feerick describes in this
interview, he believes ALISON is perfectly suited to serve this often
marginalized population while reducing the rates of recidivism in the process.

(This is the 14th article in the Education Technology series. To read past
articles with such luminaries as the CEOs of Khan Academy, Udacity,
Coursera, and edX, please visit this link
(http://www.metisstrategy.com/education-technology-innovationseries-summary-in-forbes/). To read future articles in the series, please
click the Follow link above.)
Peter High: Mike, I was intrigued to hear this announcement about
ALISON getting involved with the formerly incarcerated to provide training to
make them both more employable and presumably less inclined to
recidivism. The data is actually quite stark. There has been a lot written
recently on the incarcerated population in the United States. The data
indicates that 2.3 million people are currently incarcerated in the United
States, there are up to 20 million ex-offenders, and that up to six million
people are still under supervision of one kind or another. There certainly is a
big population you might serve. Could you talk about the genesis of this idea?
Mike Feerick: I enjoy using new technologies and business systems to
organize solutions to address social issues. With ALISON, we are making

24/Jul/2015 9:20 PM

CEO Of The World's First MOOC Provides Hope To Former Prisoners Through Education - Forbes http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterhigh/2015/07/21/ceo-of-the-worlds-first-mooc-provides-hope...

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education more accessible the world over, but some marginalized groups
have greater challenges than others in accessing what we provide
incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people among them. The need is
huge, not just in the USA, but globally. For instance, there was one article in
the Guardian yesterday that said that 92 percent of those being released from
UK prisons feel unprepared for the world outside the penitentiary. These
people have some of the greatest educational need in society.
The percentage of the US population in prison is just extraordinary. You have
25 percent of the worlds prison population, and yet America has less than 5
percent of the worlds population. Something is seriously wrong. For the 20
million people you mentioned who are already out of prisonif you have a
felony, it is hard to get on with life as there are so many roadblocks. The one
thing a formerly incarcerated person can do however is educate themselves,
and the beauty of ALISON providing a massive number of free courses at
many different levels is that the starting point can vary to suit every potential
student.
As we have been leading this education revolution, I have had an eye on this
social group and I thought, OK, there are very few education dollars left for
these people when they get out, yet it costs $100,000 on average per year to
keep prisoners in jail. But when they get out, the government pays very little
money to keep them out.
So how do you educate these people in basic skills? First, a large number of
formerly incarcerated people do not know how to learn. You need to pick
them up at a very low level and bring them on with a focus on the
fundamental stuff like how to study. The second thing is that a lot of them
have been behind bars for quite some time. Many simply do not know what a
mobile phone is, or how it can be used. When they come out you need to
teach them basic technology. Then the soft skills: do they really understand

24/Jul/2015 9:20 PM

CEO Of The World's First MOOC Provides Hope To Former Prisoners Through Education - Forbes http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterhigh/2015/07/21/ceo-of-the-worlds-first-mooc-provides-hope...

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why it is important to turn up on time for work and why you have to work a
full day? Now that might sound patronizing, but actually it is an issue in
terms of reliability, dependability; there are issues that are not engendered in
people that are under supervision all the time.

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