2017 WISE AWARDS: THREE UK PROJECTS IN THE RUNNING

Projects by Camfed, Open Book Publishers and STIR Education are among 15 finalists chosen by the World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE) for their innovative and impactful approaches to today’s most urgent education challenges
 
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.
 
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 STIR Education, impacts millions of children through igniting teacher intrinsic motivation (TIM) in education systems. Headquartered in the UK, the project benefits education systems in India and Uganda. 
 
Lydia Wilbard, National Director, Camfed Tanzania, said: “When I heard the news that Camfed’s Learner Guide Program was among the finalists, I shouted for joy. I shouted for more than 800 young African women Learner Guides, who are committed to changing the futures of marginalized girls at school. What an extraordinary opportunity to raise the voices and acknowledge the expertise of some of the most vulnerable girls in Africa, while contributing to the global knowledge of what works to transform young lives.”
 
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.”
 
Sharath Jeevan, Founder and CEO, STIR Education, said: “It is a huge honour to have been shortlisted for this award. With the recognition from WISE, we hope to galvanise the rapidly growing support for our vision of a world where every child has an intrinsically motivated professional as a teacher. This is especially critical at this stage in our growth where we approach the challenge of reaching 60 million children through partnering with the governments in Uganda and India.”
 
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.”

Fifteen projects from nine countries have been selected by the World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE) for innovative and impactful approaches to today’s most urgent education challenges

• ANEER, Morocco
• Building a Teacher-Led Movement for Change and Innovation, UK
• Lights to Learn, Spain
• Mindspark: Personalized, technology- based learning, India
• PhET Interactive Simulations, US
• Open Book Publishers, UK
• OPENPediatrics – Serious Games to Save Children’s Lives, US
• REACH, Ghana
• 42, France
• Science Bits, Spain
• Shams Generation, Qatar
• Tele-Education Project-SAME, India
• The Learner Guide Program, Tanzania/UK
• The Speed School project, US
• Ubongo Edutainment, Tanzania

About the WISE Awards: Each year, the WISE Awards recognize and promote six successful innovative projects that are addressing global educational challenges. Since 2009, WISE has received more than over 3,000 applications from over 150 countries. To date, 48 projects from a wide variety of sectors and locations have won the WISE Awards, for their innovation, positive contribution and their potential for scalability and adaptability. These projects represent a growing resource of expertise and sound education practice. Year by year, WISE is building a community of education innovators which offers a fertile environment for ground-breaking collaboration. Today the WISE Awards network comprises pioneering projects that are helping bring real change to societies and communities.
The six winning projects will be announced in September 2017. The winners will attend the eighth World Innovation Summit for Education, November 14-16, 2017, in Doha, Qatar.

About Parthenon-EY: Parthenon-EY is a strategy consultancy, committed to bringing unconventional yet pragmatic thinking together with our clients’ smarts to deliver actionable strategies for real impact in today’s complex business landscape. The Parthenon-EY Education practice has an explicit mission and vision to be the leading strategy advisor to the global education industry. To achieve this, the company invests significantly in dedicated management and team resources so that its global experience extends across public sector and not-for-profit education providers, foundations, for-profit companies and service providers, and investors. Parthenon-EY has delivered more than 1,000 education sector engagements across over 95 countries in the last 10 years. Parthenon-EY is a member of the global network of EY Firms.
 
About the World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE): The World Innovation Summit for Education was established by Qatar Foundation in 2009 under the leadership of its Chairperson, Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser. WISE is an international, multi-sectoral platform for creative, evidence-based thinking, debate, and purposeful action in education.  Through the biennial summit, collaborative research and a range of on-going programs, WISE is a global reference in new approaches to education.  WISE 2017 will take place in Doha on November 14-16, 2017 under the theme: “Co-Exist, Co-Create: Learning to Live and Work Together”.