ProFuturo, a program sponsored by Fundación Telefónica and “la Caixa”, has joined with Wayra, Telefónica’s startup accelerator, to launch a worldwide call to identify solutions that complement their program of digital education and pedagogical innovation in vulnerable environments in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. The program, whose aim is to narrow the educational and digital gap in vulnerable environments, will offer a workspace in one of Wayra’s Innovation Hubs for six months to a total of three projects so they can develop and scale their innovation projects in the schools where ProFuturo has a presence. At the end of the process, it will be assessed whether to incorporate these projects as part of ProFuturo’s education proposal.
Would you like to be part of the change? ProFuturo, an initiative run by Fundación Telefónica and “la Caixa”, whose aim is to improve the quality of education for boys and girls in a situation of vulnerability, and Wayra, Telefónica‘s accelerator for entrepreneurial projects, have launched a joint call worldwide for ideas that complement and improve ProFuturo’s education solution.
With this competition, the program is looking for projects that respond to the daily challenges facing ProFuturo: challenges deriving from the lack of connectivity and access to energy; low pedagogical and digital levels among teachers, and the personalization of learning for teachers and children.
Candidacies can be submitted until April 30, and the competing projects will undergo a selection process based on criteria of technical, functional and pedagogical assessment.
Five areas of interest have been defined for the competition: artificial and learning analytics applied to education; energy generation and sharing; connectivity: provision and optimization; hardware and devices that are more interactive, renewable and low-cost; and innovative digital education solutions for teachers and students.
Finalist initiatives
The preliminary assessment of the initiatives will take place in May and will result in a shortlist of ten projects that will be invited to an interview where they can defend their project in person before a selection committee. The three finalist initiatives will be selected in June and July.
The support provided for the winning projects will consist of the allocation of a workspace for six months in one of the Innovation Hubs at Wayra, Telefónica’s startup accelerator, where they will be able to develop the project together with ProFuturo and have the possibility, depending on the progress of the project, of carrying out a pilot in the schools where the program operates. The winning projects will also potentially have visibility in a teaching community of over 300,000 teachers, more than 20,000 schools and eight million boys and girls in 28 countries in Africa, Latin America and Asia where ProFuturo is present.
The pilot projects will be developed and deployed in the schools between August and November, during which time the social and educational impact and functional value of the proposal will be analyzed, along with its potential scalability.
For more information, visit us at: https://calls.openfuture.org/calls/retos_en_educacion_entornos_profuturo and become part of the change. #SomosProFuturo
