Education

Saving Brains Grenada is a meme-building corporal punishment prevention project. The goal is to prevent violence against children in small island developing states, starting in the Caribbean, by improving self-regulation and attachment capacity in parents, caregivers, and teachers.We use paraprofessionals and mobile units (Saving Brains Buses) to provide alternatives to traditional child-rearing practices that are detrimental to neurodevelopment and subsequent human capital.

The mission of Two Rabbits is to provide high-quality early childhood education to the marginalized children who need it most. It is our mission to empower the world's hardest to reach children to live in dignity, respect, and peace, providing foundational skills that prepare students for school and life. Our team of education specialists works together with local partners and community stakeholders to create culturally-adapted curricula, rooted in the child's language and culture.

Sophie Mower of The Centre for Global Equality in the United Kingdom will establish a collaborative program for technology students at Bahir Dar University in Ethiopia using expertise and support from a number of other centers in Africa and beyond to provide training and financial resources for them to research and develop their own innovative solutions to local challenges. Students at the university work on creative solutions such as mapping applications particularly in areas of agriculture and health.

Hans Brunner of Value Spring Technology, Inc. in the U.S. will build and test an artificial intelligence (AI) tutor to teach the scientific method and critical thinking skills to individual students at their pace and level. All children learn differently but one-on-one lessons are often prohibitively expensive or unavailable. To address this, in collaboration with two non-profit teaching institutions, they will adapt their AI software for education, and build and train an AI tutor, Ali.

Anthony Kolozetti of My School ROCKS in Canada will develop an educational music application for schools that combines collaborative technology with the universal medium of music to help young people succeed academically and acquire 21st century skills such as mindfulness, stress management, resilience and empathy. Growing numbers of students are suffering from unhappiness at school, experiencing daily anxiety and stress.

Yen Verhoeven of the Paragon Learning Research Group in the U.S. will create a digital platform for massive open online courses (MOOCs) and a supportive online community of professionals for kindergarten to sixth grade teachers to transform their teaching practices and bring STEM and 21st century skills to their schools. MOOCs were developed as a means to provide free education to everyone. However, their content is typically restricted to videos and reading with little interactive learning, which is inadequate for teaching life skills such as critical thinking and creativity.

Saurabh Agarwal of Deeper Learning Innovations Private Limited in India will build an interactive, digital teaching platform using advanced data analytics and artificial intelligence algorithms to enable teachers across the globe to more effectively teach life skills to every child. Teaching standards in developing countries suffer from limited access to quality content, restricted teaching methods for teachers, and a lack of ways to transfer knowledge and skills to other teachers and parents.

Malcolm Mooi of the Dr CL Smith Foundation in South Africa will further develop their common online platform for teachers, which provides training, materials, and support to improve the quality of teaching in South Africa. Teachers are the number one drivers of learning in schools, but there is a lack of curriculum and holistic support for teachers in many countries, which has a direct, negative impact on student performance.

Henry May of Coschool in Colombia will develop an integrated teaching course including in-person boot camps, mobile learning, and online communities, to equip teachers with advanced skills and tools to promote the wellbeing of themselves and their schools and communities. Teaching 21st century skills can help bridge the wide achievement gap between urban and rural communities in Colombia, and also help peace building in post-conflict territory. Their method focuses on five skills: growth mindset, self-awareness, empathy, critical thinking, and grit.

Romeo Rodriguez of World Possible in the U.S. will use their massive open online courses (MOOC) to provide teachers with advanced practical skills and tools such as inquiry, teamwork, and self-directed learning, to transform teaching and improve student performance in developing countries. The online course also works offline using their low-cost community hotspot.