The World Innovation Summit for Education has announced six groundbreaking projects from around the world as winners of the 2012 WISE Awards, under the theme “Transforming education.”
The six winning transformative educational project presenters will go home with $15,000 each at a presentation award ceremony to be held later this year in the United Arab Emirates.
The WISE Awards was inaugurated in 2009 to identify, showcase and promote innovative educational projects from around the world.
To date, 1,600 applications have been received from 128 countries, resulting in 122 finalists and 24 winning projects.
The 24 successful projects have come from a variety of countries around the world, including Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ghana, India, Morocco, Nigeria, Pakistan, Paraguay, South Africa, Turkey, the UK and the USA.
These “real world” initiatives are progressively building a pool of sound practice, which is having a local or global impact on education.
Now in its fourth year, the WISE Awards identify, showcase and promote innovative educational projects from all sectors and regions of the world in order to inspire change in education.
The chairman, WISE, and chairman of the WISE Awards Jury, Dr. (Sheikh) Abdulla bin Ali Al-Thani, in a statement explained that the 2012 winning projects, which were selected for their concrete and positive impact upon society would receive global visibility and a prize of $15,000 each.
The winning initiatives, he stated, came from Bangladesh, Cambodia, Chile, Denmark, India and the United States of America after they scaled the pre-selection process, whereby works of 24 participants from 14 countries were judged.
According to him, winning projects have been selected for their tangible and positive impact on the society and their innovative approach to solving important global educational problems.
“Since 2009, the WISE Awards have recognised successful, transformative projects in education in order to generate a pool of sound practices and to inspire their adoption and adaptation elsewhere.
“When determining the best projects, we look at what is being achieved as well as how it is done. The winning initiatives were selected not only because they are successful, but also because of their innovative approach. These are not ordinary education efforts,” he said.
He added that the diverse projects offer unique solutions to today’s most important challenges, from poverty to climate change.
The solutions proffered by the winners, he said, include unconventional business models to provide low-income families with affordable education, as well as original ways of bringing high-quality education to remote and destitute parts of the world.
One of the six winning projects is a solar-powered floating school designed for unreached pupils in Bangladesh during monsoon. The device, Nigerian educationists said, would be useful for people in riverine and flood-prone areas.
The project was presented for the awards by a Bangladesh -based non-profit organisation, Shidhulai Swanirvar Sangstha.
According to a statement introducing the project, “the solar-powered floating schools are to ensure children’s education even during the height of the monsoon. The boats collect students from riverside villages, dock at a final destination and provide on-board, small-group instruction.
Finalists and winners of the WISE Awards will, according to the organisers, participate in the annual WISE Summit taking place between November 13 and 15 at the Qatar National Convention Centre in Doha, Qatar, under the theme “Collaborating for change.”
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Source : punchng[dot]com
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