Bill Gates: beginning of tech revolution

“Technology can pull the United States out of recession and help the world’s ailing financial markets work better, Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) Chairman Bill Gates told a high-level business summit at the company he co-founded” reports Reuters. 
“The drug companies will get back in high productivity mode. The software, IT revolution — we’re just at the start of that,” said Gates at Microsoft’s annual CEO Summit at the company’s campus near Seattle.
“What we can do for education, communication, and what that looks like for the efficiencies of world markets, we are just at the beginning of that.”
Bill is right about the level of opportunity in education, but openings into the calcified US K-12 system are limited.  Informal learning is exploding as our kids grow up in a digital soup.  Transforming the system we have will take more than technology, it will take political  leadership to create a few openings to show what’s possible.  
There’s lots of private equity on the sidelines waiting for an opening to invest in education, but there’s still little venture funding given the risks of trying to break into a tech-adverse over regulated government delivery system.  Maybe EdTech will work like cell phones in Asia–they get the new technology first and it eventually makes it way to America.