In his article, "Why software is eating the world", Marc Andreessen makes the point that the current dot-com boom is based not a bubble built on speculation about fantastical internet dreams, but is rather about software companies out performing traditional players in traditional industries.

Examples include Google dominating the advertising industry, Amazon dominating books and Netflix overtaking Block Buster in video entertainment.

He makes a compelling case, and then goes on to ask whats next, the answer being education and health.

And its not just him thats picking education as an industry ripe for online transformation, Y-Combinator, perhaps the most influential startup incubator in the world, thinks so too. On their article "Startup ideas we'd like to fund" is this:

13. Online learning. US schools are often bad. A lot of parents realize it, and would be interested in ways for their kids to learn more. Till recently, schools, like newspapers, had geographical monopolies. But the web changes that. How can you teach kids now that you can reach them through the web? The possible answers are a lot more interesting than just putting books online.

One route would be to start with test prep services, for which there's already demand, and then expand into teaching kids more than just how to score high on tests. Another would be to start with games and gradually make them more thoughtful. Another, particularly for younger kids, would be to let them learn by watching one another (anonymously) solve problems.

And, of course, the dramatic rise in khanacademy.com shows that this isnt something in the future - its here - now.

NZ is already doing well in the rapidly growing health software space with Orion being our biggest software exporter.

And the education industry is a big export earner for NZ. But what would happen if education is transformed globally and we're not in on it? And what about the opportunity for NZ to lead the transformation?

Got to be worth a shot...