Fifteen projects from 9 countries have been shortlisted for their innovative solutions to education challenges and their positive social impact.
The 15 finalists join the WISE Awards community of projects that are supporting the replication of cutting-edge practices and encouraging new collaboration around the world. Most of the finalists use tech as the foundation of their project to improve education, and are already up-and running.
The 2017 WISE Awards finalist projects have built effective, tested solutions to global educational challenges. Whether ensuring access to fundamental primary education or preparing young people for the 21st century workplace, each project is already transforming lives, and provides an inspirational model for other communities to adopt
The WISE Awards selection process now enters its final phase in which the WISE Awards Jury selects the six winning projects. These will be announced in mid-September and celebrated at WISE, 14-16 November, in Doha, Qatar.
The UK’s Camfed’s Learner Guide Program, Open Book Publishers and STIR Education’s Building a Teacher-Led Movement for Change and Innovation have been selected as three of the 15 finalist projects for the 2017 WISE Awards.
Each year, the WISE Awards recognize and promote innovative projects from around the world that are addressing global educational challenges. The WISE initiative The Qatar Foundation, a private, non-profit organisation that supports programmes in three areas: education, science and research and community development.
Camfed’s Learner Guide Program is opening up pathways to opportunity and employment for young women in rural Tanzania, while simultaneously tackling the learning crisis in under-resourced rural schools.
Based in Cambridge, UK, Open Book Publishers is a non-profit organization providing free high-quality educational books in digital format to disadvantaged readers the world over.
Building a Teacher-Led Movement for Change, a project led by UK-based STIR Education, impacts millions of children in Uganda and India through igniting teacher intrinsic motivation (TIM) in education systems.
Alessandra Tosi, Managing Director, Open Book Publishers, said: “We are delighted to receive this nomination, which recognizes our success in reaching readers in the developing world. At a time when online education is expanding, our developing list of free-to-read online textbooks and monographs is a much-needed resource to help support education worldwide.”
Stavros N. Yiannouka, CEO of WISE, said: “We congratulate Camfed International, Open Book Publishers and STIR for making it to the finalist stage. The 2017 WISE Awards finalist projects have built effective, tested solutions to global educational challenges. Whether ensuring access to fundamental primary education or preparing young people for the 21st century workplace, each project is already transforming lives, and provides an inspirational model for other communities to adopt. This is vital to our mission at WISE, dedicated to empowerment and collaboration.”
The 15 projects come from nine countries and most programmes are based on technology. Mindspark, a project in India uses adaptive and personalised learning in maths and languages. Ubongo aims to bring fun learning using interactivity of mobile phones. Lights to Learn is a joint public-private sector effort in education, energy and ICTs in South America which offers teacher training and offers Internet and IT equipment to the community’s schools.
They were evaluated by a pre-Jury of international experts and the due diligence was conducted by independent education consultants from Parthenon-EY. The finalists were evaluated according to strict criteria. They must be successful, innovative education projects that have already demonstrated a transformative impact on individuals, communities, and society. They must be financially stable, have a clear development plan and be scalable and replicable.
The six WISE Awards winning projects will be announced in September 2017 and celebrated at the eighth World Innovation Summit for Education, November 14-16, 2017, in Doha, Qatar. In addition to publicity and networking opportunities, each project receives $20,000 (US).