WISE Awards begins search for most innovative education projects

MANILA, Philippines - The World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE) has announced the opening of submissions for the 2013 WISE Awards. In recognizing projects that have a positive and tangible impact on education, the WISE Awards highlights today’s most innovative initiatives in education from around the world. Finalists and winning projects of the WISE Awards demonstrate both real-world solutions to current educational challenges and offer effective strategies that can be replicated in other parts of the world.

Applicants are requested to submit their projects through the WISE Awards website: www.wise-qatar.org/awards on or before 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 by September. Winning projects will be showcased at the 2013 WISE Summit in Doha, which will be held from Oct. 29-31, 2013.

The WISE Awards winning projects will each receive US$20,000 and benefit from global visibility via the WISE network: a community of more than 9,000 international experts and specialists from 152 countries. Through this community, projects are promoted for their achievements and new connections are made, leading to the growth and replication of projects in other educational contexts and regions of the world.

H.E. Sheikh Abdulla bin Ali Al-Thani, PhD, Chairman of WISE, states: “Through the WISE Awards, we are not only seeking out and honoring projects that solve real-world barriers to education, but we are also ultimately creating a toolbox of best-practices in education. Thanks to WISE’s diverse, global platform, we are able to showcase these projects for communities around the world to replicate. In 2013, we are working to encourage more applications from the Philippines. We know that there are many exciting projects taking place and we want to recognize and share this work. There is a lot the Philippines can teach the world.”

Applications must demonstrate how a project has successfully impacted education within a community or society.