São Paulo – Enrolment is open for the WISE 2012 award, to be granted to six innovative projects in the area of education in November. Initiatives from all over the world may participate. Enrolment should take place up to the 31st and the theme proposed is "Transforming Education". The US$ 20,000 award will be delivered to each winner at the World Innovation Summit for Education, to take place in Doha, Qatar, from November 13th to 15th.
The WISE summit was released in 2009 by Qatar Foundation for Education, Innovation and Community as an initiative of the president at Qatar Foundation, Moza bint Nasser. The meeting takes place every year and brings together researchers in the area of education, entrepreneurs in the field and establishers of public policies from over 100 countries to discuss the challenges for education.
It is during the summit that the winners of "The Wise Awards", which honours people or groups who developed the best projects in the area in the year prior to the award, are announced. To date, 18 institutions have been awarded. Over 1,300 enterprises from 116 countries enrolled to participate in previous editions of the summit.
One of the 2011 winners was a project from Bangladesh that transmitted English lessons by mobile phone. Another, from Chile, proposes teaching children how to read and write using sign language. It was developed in institutions in Chile, Mexico, Uruguay, Costa Rica and Spain.
Another project, Al Jisr, from Morocco, forecasts that companies that donate money to schools do not act solely as project financers, but interfere in execution. The objective is, this way, to improve the quality of teaching and to guarantee that the cash donated by the company actually be employed where necessary. According to WISE, 300 schools and 150,000 students have been benefited from the project.
Of the 18 winners of the award in the three editions of WISE, one is Brazilian. The Amazonas State Education Secretariat was one of the six winners in 2009 due to the development of a distance learning project in Amazonas. It is estimated that 35,000 students benefitted from the initiative.
Apart from the Wise Awards, the meeting also awards a person or organisation that, recognizedly, contributed to the improvement of education. The award is US$ 500,000 and a gold medal.
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All those interested in participating in the project should enrol up to May 31st. A pre-jury should evaluate the projects and select the 24 finalists. The winners will be announced in September and the awarding ceremony will be on November 14th. To participate, it is necessary to fill out the enrolment form with detailed descriptions of the project and to send it to the organisation. Further information at site www.wise-qatar.org
*Translated by Mark Ament
