Over 57 million children around the world have no access to any kind of primary school and in addition, 250 million kids lack basic literacy and numeracy skills. According to UNESCO, countries will need an extra 1.6 million teachers to achieve universal primary education, costing economies up to USD $129 billion.
The Global Learning XPRIZE wants to do something to change that landscape.
Open to competitors globally of any age with a range of skill sets both as individuals or pre-formed teams, the $15 million Competition aims to reward technology innovations that will help up reading, writing, and arithmetic among children on their own pace in their own space.
The Global Learning XPRIZE is a 4 ½-year, fixed-date competition will see the teams develop software solutions aimed at accelerating adaptable, child-driven learning. The finalist software will be released as an open source so that kids anywhere in the can become not merely consumers but also global producers of knowledge.
The top five teams with a project that promises effective learning of reading, writing, and numeracy will walk home with USD $1 million while the Grand Prize will USD $10 million after an 18-month field testing phase.
The competition launches in September 2014, individuals and Teams will have until March 31, 2015 to register and pay. After Registration closes on March 31, 2015, Teams will have 18 months (until September 30, 2016) to develop their solutions.
Semi-finalists will be announced, followed three months later by the top five Finalists. There will be 18 months of field testing from June 2017 through November 2018. A panel of judges will assess the results of the field testing
beginning in December 2018, and the Grand Prize winner will be announced in March 2019.
Once the five Finalists are selected, XPRIZE will distribute the Entries crafted by those teams to the 3,000-4,000 children ready to receive them for the field testing.
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