CME Group's Center for Innovation today announced that Sal Khan is the 2013 CME Group Melamed-Arditti Innovation Award recipient. Khan is the founder of the Khan Academy, a free online education platform and not-for-profit organization. CME Group will present the award at the sixth annual Global Financial Leadership Conference in Naples, Florida on Tuesday, November 19.
Khan, a former hedge fund manager, began distributing his tutorials on YouTube in 2006. In 2009, the Khan Academy received the Microsoft Tech Award for education and in 2010, Google provided $2 million to support the creation of more courses and enable the Khan Academy to translate its core library into the world's most widely spoken languages. Khan Academy has now produced more than 4,300 videos on a wide variety of subjects, mainly focusing on math and science, which have garnered more than 300 million views.
"Sal Khan's achievement of providing free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere is a groundbreaking innovation which has had a transformative impact on the world," said Leo Melamed, CME Group Chairman Emeritus and Competitive Markets Advisory Council Vice Chairman.
"I consider this award a real honor," said Khan. "Many of the leaders of this organization are people I read about and looked up to during my own education."
Chosen annually by the members of the Competitive Markets Advisory Council (CMAC), the CME Group Melamed-Arditti Innovation Award, formerly known as the Fred Arditti Innovation Award, is named after the company's chairman emeritus, Leo Melamed, in recognition of his revolutionary achievements in introducing financial futures instruments to the world in 1972; and former Chief Economist Fred Arditti who was instrumental in developing the index upon which CME Group's Eurodollar futures contract, the world's most actively traded futures contract, was based.
The award honors an individual or group whose innovative ideas, products or services have created significant change to markets, commerce or trade. The award strives to celebrate innovation that through practical application has had a positive impact on the economic well-being of individuals, industry or a nation.
Past recipients of the award are:
- 2012—Jimmy Wales, co-founder and promoter of the online non-profit encyclopedia Wikipedia and the for-profit Wikia web-hosting company
- 2011—Myron S. Scholes, chairman of the Board of Economic Advisors of Stamos Partners and Robert C. Merton, School of Management Distinguished Professor of Finance at the MIT Sloan School of Management
- 2010—David Ferrucci, IBM Senior Manager
- 2009—Harry Markowitz, Nobel-prize winning economist
- 2008—Michael Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg LP and Mayor of the City of New York
- 2007—Eugene Fama, distinguished Service Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business
- 2006—Leo Melamed, founder of financial futures and CME Group chairman emeritus
- 2005—William F. Sharpe, Nobel-prize winning economist
To read more about Khan, and follow coverage of the Melamed-Arditti award presentation, visit CME Group's online magazine and blog, OpenMarkets, at www.openmarkets.com.