JOIN USWISE, the World Innovation Summit for Education, has opened the submission period for the 2013 WISE Awards.
By recognizing projects that are having a positive and tangible impact on education, the WISE Awards seek to highlight today’s most innovative initiatives in education from around the world.
The projects must be aimed at solving current challenges in education. Finalists and winning projects of the WISE Awards demonstrate both real-world solutions to current educational challenges and serve as examples that can potentially be replicated in other parts of the world.
The WISE Awards winning projects will each receive $ 20,000 (US) and benefit from global visibility via the WISE network: a community of more than 9,000 education experts and practitioners from 152 countries.
In this way winning teams and finalists have the opportunity to promote their achievements and establish new partnerships that could lead to the growth and replication of projects in other educational contexts and regions of the world.
Applicants must demonstrate how their project has, through education, made a positive contribution within a community or society.
In addition to projects taking place in schools, previous submissions have included creative initiatives from the vocational, corporate, and agricultural sectors.
For example, The Smallholder Farmers Rural Radio, a winning project in 2010 from Nigeria, broadcasts radio programs on crop cultivation, livestock rearing and soil management, 10 hours a day in the local Igbo language, reaching and educating small farmers.
The Cristo Rey Network, an organization based in the USA and a winning project in 2012, facilitates work experience at local companies which provides both practical training and covers tuition fees for students from low-income families.
Applicants are requested to submit details of their projects on the WISE Awards website: www.wise-qatar.org/awards, by March 31, 2013 (by 23.59 GMT).
A shortlist of 12 finalists will be announced in June, after which a jury of international education experts will choose six winning projects. Selected in September, they will be showcased at the 2013 WISE Summit in Doha, taking place on the 29th, 30th, and 31st of October, 2013.