Edwin Naidu
India’s Safeena Husain, Founder and Board Member of Educate Girls, was a worthy winner of the WISE Prize for Education – the first global award of its kind that honours an individual for an outstanding contribution to education.
Mumbai-based Husain, who spent time working in the healthcare sector in South Africa, was recognized for dedicating 16 years to building the non-profit organisation focused on empowering communities for girls’ education in some of India’s hardest to reach villages.
An excited Husain told Inside Education after her triumph that her programme to reach the most vulnerable, ensuring that girls’ lives are transformed through learning, can be replicated throughout the world.
“We are happy to share our programmes with organisations wishing to use our model to change the lives of girls through education,” she said.
A video of the work undertaken in villages throughout India showed how, through champions, they would seek girls who would be working in the field or carrying out household chores and speak to their families to explain the importance of education to help them secure a better life.
Husain’s journey with WISE began with a WISE Award in 2014 that acknowledged Educate Girls for its positive social impact and ability to scale. Over the years, Educate Girls has mobilised more than 1.4 million girls for enrolment and supported over 1.9 million children in their learning in India.
Adopting a precision targeting method using Artificial Intelligence (AI), Educate Girls can target, in five years, the same number of out-of-school girls, which would otherwise require 45 years. Through a network of over 21,000 community-based champions in some of the most marginalised communities in the country, the organisation has been working to break the intergenerational cycle of inequality and exclusion.
Under Husain’s guidance, Educate Girls has evolved into a leading global force, harnessing innovative financing and AI technology to bridge the gender gap in education. This is mirrored in its global milestones: the delivery of the world’s first Development Impact Bond in education, and the organisation becoming Asia’s first The Audacious Project – which, housed at TED, is a collaborative funding initiative catalyzing social impact on a grand scale.
Commenting on the award, Husain said: “This is a collective win for all of us working toward girls’ education, right from the government and local communities to dedicated gender champions and our supporters. It is a testament to the array of initiatives that are actively addressing this global challenge, embracing grassroots innovations and technology-driven solutions that are tirelessly working to ensure that every girl, in every village, is in school and learning well.
“Girls’ education is the closest thing we have to a silver bullet to solve some of the world’s most complex problems. We must recognise that the right to education is a girl’s inherent right – a right that must always take center stage.”
Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, Chairperson of Qatar Foundation (QF), spoke at the opening of the 11th edition of the WISE Summit taking place from 28-29 November in Doha, Qatar, under the theme ‘Creative Fluency: Human Flourishing in the Age of AI’.
The global summit convenes more than 2,000 education industry stakeholders, including influential thought leaders, young trailblazers, and key decision-makers to foster dialogue on the transformative power of Artificial Intelligence AI in the global education landscape.
“I want to ensure WISE is a platform for new ideas that keep pace with the changes taking place in the world, and the obstacles that education faces in certain countries for reasons of which we are all too aware. There is no alternative but to innovate if we are to find solutions to intractable problems,” said Sheikha.
Among the highlights of the opening plenary was a heartfelt performance by 15-year-old Palestinian rapper Abdulrahman AlShanti – known as MC Abdul.
The official strategic partner of WISE 11, Education Above All (EAA), a global non-profit organisation established by Her Highness Sheikha Moza, dedicated to transforming lives through education, is at the forefront of the summit’s programme creating dialogue around inclusive education, innovative financing, and protecting education in crises.
Day one was spread across distinct thematic zones that included diverse sessions covering some of the core summit discussion topics: Classrooms of the Future; AI and Digital Sovereignty; and Building Ethical AI.
A series of thought-provoking panel discussions and policy roundtables explored topics such as strategies for educators to future-proof classrooms in the era of AI and navigating the impact of AI superpowers to build an inclusive global AI landscape, among others.
Young innovators and advocates led discussions on a range of topics including personalised learning for students with disabilities, and cultural perspectives of Arabic learners in classrooms at the Youth Studio.
A number of partner-led workshops provided students and teachers with hands-on learning and immersive experiences in the use of cutting-edge AI tools and systems across the education space, as part of WISE’s Learning Labs.
A special plenary honored the 2023 WISE Awards winners this year for their innovative projects addressing global educational challenges and driving positive societal impact. Jeffrey Sachs, University Professor and Director of the Center for Sustainable Development, Columbia University, addressed the economic impact of conflict on education in his keynote speech at the session.
Founded in 2009 by Qatar Foundation under the visionary leadership of its Chairperson, Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, WISE (World Innovation Summit for Education) has evolved into an international, multi-sectoral platform dedicated to fostering innovation and evidence-based approaches in education. WISE 11, the summit’s 11th edition, marks a significant milestone, emphasizing a new era of global educational transformation. Through its biennial summit, collaborative research, and several ongoing programs, WISE has become a global point of reference for new educational paradigms.
Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development (QF) is a non-profit organisation that supports Qatar on its journey to becoming a diversified and sustainable economy. QF strives to serve the people of Qatar and beyond by providing specialized programmes across its innovation-focused ecosystem of education, research and development, and community development.
QF was founded in 1995 by His Highness Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, the Father Amir, and Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, who shared the vision to provide Qatar with quality education. Today, QF’s world-class education system offers lifelong learning opportunities to community members as young as six months through to doctoral level, enabling graduates to thrive in a global environment and contribute to the nation’s development.
QF is also creating a multidisciplinary innovation hub in Qatar, where homegrown researchers are working to address local and global challenges. By promoting a culture of lifelong learning and fostering social engagement through programmes that embody Qatari culture, QF is committed to empowering the local community and contributing to a better world for all.
Inside Education was a media partner at WISE 2023.
