The Education for All (EFA) movement is a global commitment to provide quality basic education for all children, youth and adults. At the World Education Forum (Dakar, 2000), 164 governments pledged to achieve EFA and identified six goals to be met by 2015. UNESCO is mandated to coordinate the collective efforts of governments, development agencies, civil society and the private sector to reach the EFA goals.

EFA Crowdsourcing Challenge Overview –video:

Nokia, UNESCO and the Pearson Foundation have all teamed up to enable people with similar interests to share ideas, connect and collaborate on solutions to EFA. The EFA Crowdsourcing Challenge is an initiative to develop various suggestions on how mobile communication can help achieve EFA goals.

The suggestions are generated by a dynamic interaction between education experts, teachers, students and software developers. These dynamic exchanges will lead to concrete projects that will then be developed and implemented either by Nokia or by participants in the challenge.

Each month will feature a separate EFA goal. The fourth month is devoted to finding solutions on how mobile communication can contribute toward meeting Improving the quality of Education. Please click on the following link to submit your idea on Improving the quality of Education

Participants can still submit mobile communication ideas on the previous EFA goals featured in the Challenge. Prizes by Pearson Foundation are still available for each sub-challenge, so feel free to share your ideas before the 31st of May 2012. To submit your idea on the previous sub-challenges, please click on the following links:

Youth and Adult Learning Needs

The monthly winner of Youth and Adult Learning Needs sub-challenge  is Education Time Bank by Eric Kotonya

Primary Education

The monthly winner of Primary Education sub-challenge  isI-Learn by Swaroop John

See more in the challenge page.

Literacy

The monthly winner of Literacy sub-challenge was TOT by Sanjith Yeruva

Read Unesco Press Release about the Literacy challenge winners

The EFA Crowdsourcing Challenge allows participants to:

• Create ideas

• Evolve current ideas to ensure they meet their potential

• Learn from experts and one another

• Find people with similar interests and areas of expertise

• Link people with needs, ideas and the skills to act on them

Timeline:
Begins: October 10, 2011 at 09.00am EET (GMT+2)

-Literacy: October 10, 2011 at 09.00am EET (GMT+2)

-Universal Primary Education: November 10, 2011 at 09.00am EET (GMT+2)

Ends:

All sub-challenges end: May 31, 2012 at 5pm EET (GMT+2)

Panel of judges:
David Atchoarena (Division Director, UNESCO),

Jacqueline Batchelor (Independent educational researcher),

Daniel Chun (Founder - ClassBooking and PhD Student, Lancaster University),

Shafika Isaacs (Programme Specialist, UNESCO),

Fengchun Miao (Programme Specialist, UNESCO),

Jorge Sequeira (Institute Director, UNESCO),

Mike Sharples (Professor of Educational Technology, The Open University),

John Traxler ( Professor of Mobile Learning in University of Wolverhampton),

Steve Vosloo (Programme Specialist, UNESCO)

Challenge hosts:
Francesc Pedro (Chief of Section, UNESCO),

Jenny Raymond (Pearson Foundation),
Riitta Vänskä (Nokia),
Heli Haapkylä (Nokia)

Rewards:
Monthly prize of the Nokia Lumia 800 with Windows Phone will be awarded to the best idea recognized by the panel of judges. The ideas for a monthly winner will be chosen between the ideas submitted to the sub-challenge on focus. For the sub-challenge Improving the quality of Education the period is 10.02.-10.03.2012. The winner will be announced before 30th of every month starting from November 2011 and ending June 2012.

The Pearson Foundation will donate US$3,000 for each sub-challenge (EFA goal) winner. The winners will be chosen as well rewards paid at the end of the EFA Challenge in June 2012. All the ideas in all the sub-challenges will be taken into account, which have been submitted before the end of the EFA challenge May 31, 2012.

In addition, The Pearson Foundation will donate a library of children’s books (a mixture of digital and print) worth US$3,000 to a not-for-profit in the country of each sub-challenge winner. The Pearson Foundation will find a suitable not-for-profit organisation in co-operation with the sub-challenge winner.

The best ideas will also be published and promoted on UNESCO’s website to explain their proposal in further detail and to encourage the development of the ideas into concrete projects.

Unesco Press Releases:

10.10.2011 “Crowdsourcing – linking up to reach Education for All”

10.11.2011 EFA Crowdsourcing Challenge: How would you reinforce primary education?

08.12.2011 EFA Crowdsourcing Challenge on Literacy: and the winning app is...

Additional information:
Education for All

Accelerating Progress in  Education For All (video)
ICT in Education

Nokia Education
Pearson Foundation