YouTube's Looking for the Next Education Superstar

Back in 2008 Justin Bieber was just another fresh faced singer posting videos on YouTube. The rest—as millions of screaming teen girls around the world can attest—is history. Can YouTube transform educators into superstars, too? That's the goal of the Next EDU Gurus contest, which hopes to turn 10 video-savvy content creators into "the next generation of educational YouTube stars."

In the past year viewers spent 50 percent more time watching YouTube's 700,000 existing education videos and the number of subscribers has doubled. That means there's a real need for fresh, high quality educational content on the site. To fill the gap, YouTube says on their blog that they're looking for finalists from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand "with a talent for explaining tough concepts in compelling ways, and the passion and drive to assemble a global classroom of students.

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Content from all curricular areas is welcome and entrants "can submit any style of video as long as it’s educational and family-friendly." However, this probably isn't the time to submit a video about that one math shortcut you know. By "guru", YouTube means people with significant topic expertise who could potentially make 10-50 creative and engaging videos exploring the nuances of a subject.

To enter, simply submit education video samples and answer two short essay prompts. Finalists get a $1,000 gift card they can use for video production equipment, training, and mentoring from YouTube. Selected participants will also be flown to a three day workshop at YouTube's headquarters with the contest's cosponsors, the Khan Academy.

And, since YouTube's looking for their gurus to have monetized YouTube channels, the promotion each will receive could potentially send thousands of viewers to their YouTube videos, putting a nice chunk of change in the guru's pocket. The entry deadline is October 1st.

Photo via (cc) Flickr user bark