Doha, Qatar, September 27, 2011: A Jury appointed by The World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE) has announced the winners of the 2011 WISE Awards – the third round of these awards. The following six projects have been selected under the theme Transforming Education: Innovation, Investment and Inclusion because they are deemed to be efficient, replicable, locally adaptable, measurable and economically sustainable.
Al Jisr School-Business Partnerships
Activity: Involving the business sector in order to improve the quality of education
Country: Morocco
Reach: Morocco
Project holder: Mhammed Abbad Andaloussi
Organization: Al Jisr
"Recognition by the WISE Awards will greatly help us to mobilize more businesses and more donors to support our expansion. We will have the opportunity to scale up pilot projects that we have already launched, to offer support to potential dropouts, and to provide training and the delivery of Junior Achievement programs for more students. We will also be able to develop creativity and imagination units in pirmary schools by providing iPads to students and classrooms for kids aged under six.”
Mhammed Abbad Andaloussi, Project Holder
More about Al Jisr School-Business Partnerships.
Activity: Providing English language lessons through
mobile devices
Country: UK
Reach: Bangladesh
Project holder: Mohammad Ashrafuzzaman
Organization: BBC World Service Trust
"BBC Janala is very proud to be a WISE Awards Winner. This will enable us to further develop our work in Bangladesh or in other parts of the world where poor people need better access to education. In our globalized world, language skillis are key to getting a better job and improving the quality of life of individuals, families and entire communities."
Mohammad Ashrafuzzaman, Project Holder
Activity: Sharing educational materials through an open source platform
Country: USA
Reach: Global
Project holder: Richard Baraniuk
Organization: Rice University
“The prestige of being recognized as a 2011 WISE Awards Winner will help us tremendously as we are recruiting new contributors, users and funders. Moreover, participation in the WISE 2011 Summit as a WISE Awards Winner will enable us to engage with education thought leaders and pioneering practitioners who can help us both enlarge our vision and advance towards achieving our goals.”
Richard Baraniuk, Project Holder
Activity: Developing the creative skills of young people
Country: UK
Reach: UK
Project holder: Paul Collard
Organization: Creativity Culture and Education (CCE)
“The fact that we have been rewarded by a panel of eminent experts will provide us with global recognition for the value and impact of our work. Sharing the prestigious WISE Award with our many beneficiaries and stakeholders will also represent a milestone in the history of Creative Partnerships and acknowledge the part they have played in a ground breaking and innovative educational programme.”
Paul Collard, Project Holder
More about Creative Partnerships
Activity: Supporting literacy learning for children with
hearing disabilities
Country: Chile
Reach: Chile, Mexico, Uruguay, Costa Rica and Spain
Project holder: Ricardo Rene Rosas Diaz
Organization: CEDETI
"The WISE Awards represent for us an opportunity to have more visibility for our center and for the SueñaLetras Project. This means the possibility to access international grants, generate possibilities of contact with other institutions and, from this, gain the opportunity to recognize the users’ needs in learning and communicating. This international honor will also enable us to improve our technologies and reach out to other deaf communities. This global recognition acknowledges more than 15 years of dedication to the development of free software for people with disabilities.”
Ricardo Rene Rosas Diaz, Project Holder
Teacher Education in Sub Saharan Africa (TESSA)
Activity: Improving teacher education in Sub-Saharan Africa
Country: UK
Reach: Sub-Saharan Africa
Project holder: Freda Wolfenden
Organization: The Open University
“We have received important recognition for the achievements of a truly international consortium, working collaboratively across several cultures and languages. The WISE Awards will enable us to extend our activity and that of related projects to the next level. This great honor acknowledges the work of the Open University in Sub Saharan Africa and lends support to our plans for similar projects in India and other locations.”
Freda Wolfenden, Project Holder.
2011 Main Trends
Every year the WISE Awards give an overview of the main trends in innovative educational practices. This
year’s trends include:
• An increased use of Information Communications Technology (ICT), multi-media approaches and a focus on opensource platforms
• The spread of holistic, comprehensive learning approaches to ensure sustainability
• The emergence of inter-sectoral and multi-stakeholder strategies involving public-private partnerships.
Following a first selection by a Pre-Jury, applications were evaluated by a high-level Jury which selected the six winners. The Jury Members were: H.E. Sheikh Abdulla bin Ali Al-Thani (Chair); Dr Abdul Waheed Khan (President); Talal Abu Ghazaleh Business University (Kingdom of Bahrain); Prof. Lidia Brito, Director, Division of Science Policy and Sustainable Development UNESCO (France); Mr Rodrigo Baggio, Founder and Executive Director, Centre for Digital Inclusion (Brazil); Prof. Asha Singh Kanwar, Vice President, Commonwealth of Learning (Canada); Mr Esko Aho, Executive Vice-President, Corporate Relations and Responsibility, Nokia Corporation, and former Prime Minister (Finland); and Ms Linda Koch Lorimer, Vice President and Secretary, Yale University (USA).
Commenting on the winning projects, H.E. Sheikh Abdulla bin Ali Al-Thani, Chairman of WISE and Chairman of the WISE Awards Jury, says: “Innovation is crucial for continuing to improve both access to and quality of education. The WISE Awards aim to showcase inspiring projects and give them the exposure they deserve. The 2011 WISE Awards Winners have often had to overcome pre-conceived ideas and find creative solutions to break down barriers to innovation in education. They have already been rewarded by the positive results of their projects. I would like to congratulate them all for their perseverance and worthy achievements. They are genuine role models for the entire WISE community.”
About the WISE Awards
Since 2009 the WISE Awards have been identifying, showcasing and promoting innovative educational projects from around the world. To date, 18 projects have been awarded and 98 finalists have been shortlisted from 116 countries. These “real world” initiatives are progressively building a global community of educational innovators. These “real world” initiatives are progressively building a global community of educational innovators. The WISE Awards 2011 winners will be presented during a Gala Dinner on November 2nd and will receive a prize of $20,000. The winners will also have the opportunity to exhibit their projects to 1,200 leading international influencers at the WISE Summit.
To find out more about the WISE Awards, please visit the website www.wise-qatar.org and the WISE Awards blog: http://awardsblog.wise-qatar.org/
For any media enquiries, please contact your local press officer on wisepr@fleishman.com