Our congratulations go out to MIT Media Lab visiting scientist and Peer 2 Peer University co-founder/executive director Philipp Schmidt, who was recently named by musician Peter Gabriel to the Wired.co.uk Smart List 2013.  From the listing:

Peter Gabriel selects J Philipp Schmidt, cofounder and executive director of Peer 2 Peer University (Image: Lauren Crow. All rights reserved.)

Peter Gabriel selects J Philipp Schmidt, cofounder and executive director of Peer 2 Peer University
(Image: Lauren Crow. All rights reserved.)

20. Peter Gabriel, musician and activist; founder, Real World Records, selects: J Philipp Schmidt — cofounder and executive director, Peer 2 Peer University
The old model of further education belongs to a time when universities were essentially for the wealthy. In terms of access and cost, our universities can never hope to satisfy people’s needs, either in traditional economies or those of the booming young populations in transitional economies. Philipp’s team is well on the way to providing a model that might be the basis of the next generation of university education. P2PU is a wonderful idea that not only ensures a lot of education is available online free (or freemium), but emphasises the power of group learning and mentoring. The goal is also to transform the accreditation system, and to make further education incremental and flexible.

Philipp is a longtime member of the OpenCourseWare community and served on the board of the OCW Consortium from 2008 to 2012.  Phillip was also instrumental in the development of the Mechanical MOOC “A Gentle Introduction to Python” course, which is a collaboration between P2PU, MIT OpenCourseWare, Codecademy and OpenStudy.