A free online course in artificial intelligence (AI) created by the University of Helsinki and technology consultancy Reaktor has drawn 140,000 students from around the world. Launched in spring 2018, the Elements of AI is available in English and Finnish. It was originally envisioned with the ambitious goal of training one percent of the Finnish population -- 55,000 people -- in the fundamentals of AI. Inspired by the Finnish model, Sweden and the Netherlands have created similar courses, with 15 other countries interested in developing comparable course for their citizens. Part of the course's popularity is the fact that it's available online for free and doesn't require any prerequisite technology skills.