What if everyone in the world could teach something they know, and learn something they want to know, directly from another person?

That question started 8Billionminds.

We have more access to information than at any point in history. You can watch a video on almost anything, ask an AI, or search for an answer in seconds. Yet something is still missing: people learn incredibly well from other people.

We are hard-wired to connect with other humans. That makes us feel alive. It makes us motivated, inspired, and appreciate this incredible and magical Universe that we find ourselves in. A great teacher can do all this and so much more. And teaching changes the teacher too. I found that out more than 15 years ago..

The spark

After finishing my Physics degree at the University of Sussex, I started tutoring privately. I saw how powerful one-to-one learning could be. I could help students understand things that had seemed impossible and build their confidence. But I also learned a huge amount from teaching. It exposed the gaps in my own knowledge and forced me to see ideas from new angles.

I also noticed something else. For most of my life, I felt my potential was untapped, held back not by ability or curiosity but by money. Access to great teachers, courses and opportunities so often depends on what you can afford.

Then I thought: what if we all taught each other? If everyone shared what they know, the potential would be unlimited. What if someone in Brazil could teach someone in Bulgaria to play guitar? What if a retired engineer could teach maths to a teenager, or a student could teach their native language and learn photography in return?

Couchsurfing, but for knowledge.

That idea became iSKILLu.

Building with nothing

In 2011, I had no experience running a technology company, no funding, and no idea how hard building a platform would be. A developer friend and I built with free software and launched at an event in Brighton with a few hundred people, live drummers, funk bands and DJs.

It was thrilling. It was also a disaster. The technology wasn't ready, bugs were everywhere, and the platform couldn't cope with real scale. The concept was also too ambitious: we were trying to create a time-based, virtual currency (way before cryptocurrency!) - and the economists I approached at universities stared at me blankly.

Then my developer friend became seriously ill, and I had a choice: give up, or learn to build it myself.

I chose to learn.

The long middle

For years I chased funding and hit the classic catch-22: investors wanted proof the platform worked, but making it work needed money. Exhausted and burnt out, I travelled to India. After a few months I felt rejuvenated, and from a mountaintop in Hampi I recorded a crowdfunding video asking friends and family for £3,000 to finish the website. Then I spent 52 hours on a train editing it.

It worked. Those early supporters gave me something worth more than the money: proof that other people believed in the idea. I went on to join The Prince's Trust, the School for Social Entrepreneurs and UnLtd. But something still wasn't right.

Starting again

In 2017 I made one of the hardest decisions of the journey: start again from scratch. Technology had moved on, and the experience I imagined was more than I could build alone. So I brought together developers, designers, animators, community builders, economists and researchers from around the world, all contributing because they believed in the idea.

The concept evolved too. We had planned to exchange time credits, an hour given for an hour received. Gradually we realised the currency wasn't the point. The connection was.

How 8Billionminds works

8Billionminds is a one-to-one, private teaching platform, and you choose how to use it. You can teach for money, or share what you know for free. You can pay for lessons, or learn without paying.

Every time you use it, you also support our free learning community, which makes lessons possible between people without money all around the world. Paid lessons help fund free ones.

Every lesson takes place in our free, built-in virtual classroom with an interactive whiteboard, so you don't need any other tools.

Why live learning?

Information isn't the same as learning. A video, an article or an AI can teach you something. But learning live with another person is different:

• You can ask a question the moment you're confused.

• Explanations adapt to you.

• You have a conversation instead of consuming content.

• You practise together and build a connection.

Most importantly, you feel inspired, motivated and energised. Nothing replaces the human part.

It doesn't need to be formal or involve qualifications. It can be two people sharing their passions, help preparing for an exam, or advice from someone already working in the career you want. And you don't need to be a professional teacher. Everyone knows something that someone else doesn't.

Our mission

We're on a mission to unite the world through knowledge, and to help it flow to the places that need it most. A brilliant mind in a remote village shouldn't be held back because the right teacher lives thousands of miles away.

Fifteen years later

There have been many setbacks: failed projects, rebuilt technology, disappearing developers, scarce funding. Along the way I also worked at NASA and Airbus, studied at the International Space University, and started another company, The Climate App. But the original idea never left me.

The internet has connected billions of people, yet much of that connection is passive: watching, scrolling, liking. What if we used it to help people actively learn from one another?

That's why 8Billionminds exists: a global community where people teach, learn and connect, live, one person to another. After all these years, we're finally ready to open the doors.

Welcome to 8Billionminds. What will you teach, and what will you learn?