While online education has been transforming the field of education in recent years, the lack of access to such resources in many parts of the world has received relatively little attention. In this presentation, we examine the lack of infrastructure in the developing world for accessing video-based online learning, showing that there does exist a large infrastructure gap in broadband connectivity that will prevent online video-based education from reaching more than a small percentage of the worlds population for decades. We analyze the potential of mobile devices and mobile broadband as channels to provide access to a larger audience, noting that the large file size of video is a key barrier preventing video-based online learning from reaching the mobile-connected users. Finally, we present a potential a software based solution: "e-lessons" - files which provide a 20-30 minute long Khan Academy-like learning experience offline and on mobile phones in less than 5 megabytes, demo the technology, and outline the technologies used to achieve this.
