Our aim: £1M to the first community-centred edtech solution that delivers one million hours of quality education to young people displaced by climate change
Climate change is already a leading cause of human displacement that ranges from short-term relocation, whether internal or international, to permanent migration. Many low and middle-income countries (LMICs) are disproportionately affected and this is only set to intensify. By 2050, the number of environmentally displaced people is expected to range between 25 million and 1 billion.
Many environmentally displaced young people are unable to access a high quality of education. EdTech provides a promising opportunity to create and deliver flexible curricula suitable for students and communities who have been environmentally displaced.
EdTech is a growing and promising market, but few solutions have been successfully adapted to meet the needs of displaced people at scale. To deliver on their potential, EdTech solutions will need support to develop and adapt their technical, content and business models.
Challenge prizes are effective at incentivising innovations to develop and scale in ambiguous contexts. Traditional grant models are typically restrictive and prescriptive, requiring grantees to adhere to preset deliverables.
Venture capital’s preference for proven track records and quick returns on investment limits access for unproven but promising teams and inhibits innovation cycles that require longer time periods, as is the case in education. Challenge prizes, however, encourage experimentation and innovation alongside the development of viable business models.
Their focus on outcomes allows innovators to adapt and improve ideas while enabling funders to support a range of solutions.
The Million Hours Edtech Challenge will support solutions that are community-centred involving caregivers, teachers and other members of the community to deliver educational outcomes. Consortias led by LMIC innovators will be encouraged with tailored packages of support provided to enable their success.
The winning solution will be responsive to the complexities of delivering quality education, rapidly and at scale, to children displaced by climate change.
Get in touch if you are interested in collaborating on this future prize.
This prize idea is designed to be a conversation starter, so tell us what you think!
The best prize ideas are developed through extensive research and engagement with experts, stakeholders and people with lived experience of the problems they are focused on. We start with a first draft like the one above – then work to improve, refine and validate our thinking.
We’re particularly keen to have conversations about this idea with potential funders and organisations working in the field. Get in touch if you’re interested – or if you think you have a better idea – and we’ll schedule a call.
Challenge Works has put together a report shedding light on the role of challenge prizes in revitalising the UK Innovation Strategy.
Challenge prizes can complement grants, reduce risk in portfolios of government innovation investments, and can be particularly effective at stimulating near-market innovation targeting specific outcomes and private R&D investment.
