In 2017 I was fortunate to be invited to the World Innovation Summit in Education by the Qatar Foundation International. This remarkable conference, held every two years in Doha, opened my eyes to the educational innovations being developed globally.
I reconnected with the WISE team in early December following a lecture I did at an educational research conference in Zhuhai, China. The staff prompted me to take a look at the six 2024-25 finalists for the WISE Prize for Education to see what socially impactful educational innovation looks like. How right they were.
All of the finalists will receive financial aid and capacity-building support from WISE and its program partner, Dalberg Advisors. This takes the form of mentorship, conditional grants of $125,000 to each team to support the development of its MVP (minimum viable product), and membership in a community of innovators. The winner, juried by an international panel, will be awarded the $1 million WISE Prize for Education at the WISE12 Summit in Doha next fall.
To understand what this type of recognition means to an organization I contacted Executive Director Tyler Samstag of Remake Learning, which was a WISE Prize winner in 2022. Remake Learning, a free peer network for educators and innovators that helps people connect, exchange knowledge, collaborate on new ideas, improve their practice, and find funding, has been widely acclaimed for its ability to create equitable learning opportunities in the Pittsburgh region.
“We were founded in 2007,” Samstag explained, “and followed a very organic model of growth for our first 15 years. The WISE award allowed us to be recognized and legitimized internationally. We felt we really were becoming part of a community when we joined WISE. It allowed us to partner with great organizations. Now we have people and organizations that come into Pittsburgh and see our work and then say, ‘How do we replicate this in our city.’“
Remake Learning is not the first American organization to win recognition from the WISE selection committee. That honor goes to High Tech High School founder Larry Rosenstock, who was named a WISE prize laureate in 2019. In addition, two other U.S. projects reached the semifinal round for the 2024-25 competition: Day of AI from MIT and SayKid’s Toybot.