Meet Eric Simons | Two Months of Hiding in AOL Offices

What would you call a guy who has been hiding for two months in a bigwig company? Someone who has been keeping his name under the mat, eating from the company’s cafeteria and sleeping on couches here ‘n there? Doesn’t that remind you of one of those Tom Hanks’ films, where he spent years on an Airport in much similar manner?

Meet Eric Simons, visionary, a super dedicated guy and probably flat broke. Known as “The AOL Squatter”, Simons spent over two months at America Online’s Palo Alto Calif. Offices. This young man was spending his time under false pretense this whole while because he didn’t have enough money to afford a roof over his head.

All he had was a vision and long hours of working on his own startup business. Simons did have his small incubator of an office at AOL, which is why he had a “reason” to do overtime, while the rest of the office colleagues left for their heavenly abodes.

However, Eric Simons was caught and thrown off premises by the classy AOL security staff. If I were the CEO of AOL, I’d have done the total opposite in this case. Cmon’ what else could you root for? The guy has that spark in him. Can’t you at least give him some funds and a chance to do something phenomenal? Simons might not be in AOL’s good books but he does have a flare for hard work and his startup project that he likes to call: ‘ClassConnect’.

“Teachers from all over the U.S. and the world are asked to follow a checklist when teaching”, told Simons to new reporters. “They are asked to do the same thing each year, which kind of kills creativity. Also, it leaves no room for something new to be added to the syllabus.” ‘ClassConnect’, Simons’ dream project, is the GitHub for new and improved teacher lessons.

Codenamed Claco, TechCrunch interprets this program as a golden opportunity for teachers and teaching methods alike. For example, instead of using their own lesson plans, teachers can fork someone else’s lesson plans to add leverage to the curriculum.

At the moment, Claco has a whopping 5 man team and it is looking for volunteer teachers. If you are a teacher, who aspires to deliver quality over quantity, contact Eric Simmons now. Claco is also looking forward to closing the deal with trusty investors who can take the project to the next level. Finally, the education system in America is going to be reshaped.