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Here’s the dream.

It’s a school, but with a twist. In addition to schooling as we know it, there’s a place where children can make discoveries of their own and share them. It’s a place where children can get hold of information and link up with mentors online. It’s a place that takes advantage of cloud technology, with adult supervision.

This is Sugata Mitra’s dream, and he’s got $1m from global ideas conference TED to start him off.

Many of you know Sugata as professor of educational technology at Newcastle University’s School of Education, Communication and Language Sciences, but he’s also recognised for an interesting Hole in the Wall experiment, where he dug a hole in the wall of a New Delhi slum, put a connected computer in it, and watched children learn for themselves.

It’s this kind of interest that’s inspired him to work on the School in the Cloud project, a learning lab in India which would use cloud technology to allow children to talk to teachers and mentors online and explore topics of their own.

His idea has won him this year’s $1m TED Prize, which will allow him to “break ground” on the project in India this year. He’s the eighth winner of the prize, which is given to social entrepreneurs to realise exciting projects. Previous winners include Jamie Oliver and Bono.

However, he’s also looking for help. He’s looking for parents, teachers and educators to help support the children as they explore big questions. For more details on this and the award itself, go to the TED blog.

Sugata’s well-known to TED audiences, and he’s also a previous speaker at Gateshead’s Thinking Digital, which returns in May.

Here’s his talk from 2012.

And, as a little bonus, here’s his TED talk from 2010 as well…