A revamping of the K-12 educational system was proposed by former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, who spoke in the Alliant Energy-Lee Liu Auditorium on Friday to a group of students and faculty members.

Gingrich’s speech focused on a projected worldwide increase in science and technology over the next 25 years and the bureaucratic national science programs and educational system that stop people from keeping up with the new technology. To solve this perceived problem, Gingrich proposed a complete overhaul of the current educational system, beginning by encouraging all people to become inventors and reward those inventors.

“What I want to do is liberate the system. Break down the barriers, put money into a prize system,” Gingrich said. “We will reward you if you learn faster than the curriculum.”

Gingrich proposed an educational program that he said is the exact opposite of “the bureaucracy we call education.” His proposal would encourage children to work to their potential, calling the current American system a “system of disengagement” in which children are taught to slow down their individual learning.

“The generation of founding fathers went to college at age 13,” Gingrich said.

Gingrich said he believed this change would encourage people to find a hobby which they love, pursue that passion and turn it into a 40-hour-a-week job. He also proposed a prize system to incentivize inventors, claiming that NASA’s plan to travel to Mars would be realized more quickly if there was competition. Gingrich compared the idea to a yacht race in which the winner would be awarded billions of dollars.

“What we fail to do with science is not opening up paths for people without credentials,” Gingrich said.

Gingrich also proposed a tax-free prize for any individual who could build a hydrogen engine for a $30,000 to $40,000 car. Gingrich said this prize system would work better than the current system, citing the success of the Wright brothers’ invention of the airplane. The Wright brothers, Gingrich said, brought enough wood to rebuild the plane when the plane crashed. Gingrich said when the Smithsonian was awarded a $50,000 grant to build a plane for the U.S. Navy, they built a catapult that would launch an airplane. The test plane landed in the ocean and sank, negating any opportunity for repair.