Her Highness Sheikha Mozah Presents WISE Awards to Six Outstanding Education Innovators

DOHA, Qatar, November 18 - Please click on the following link to access the full version
of the Digital Press Release:
www.digitalnewsroom.co.uk/wise09/gala-dinner/

Her Highness Sheikha Mozah Bint Nasser Al-Missned, Chair of
Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development, has
honoured six laureates at the WISE Awards ceremony which took place in Doha,
Qatar last night. The WISE Awards recognise pioneering education-related
practices from around the world tangible, duplicable and measurable. Also in
attendance at the inaugural WISE Awards ceremony were Mrs Carla
Bruni-Sarkozy, Mrs Irina Bokova UNESCO Director General, Mrs Ruth Dreifuss
Former President of the Swiss Confederation, Mr Gerhard Schroeder Former
Chancellor of Germany, Fidel V. Ramos Former President of the Philippines and
Biz Stone Co-founder of Twitter Inc.

Addressing the audience at the WISE Awards ceremony, Dr. Abdulla bin Ali
Al-Thani, Chairman of WISE and Qatar Foundation's Vice-President of
Education, said "change takes place because individuals or teams of people
have not only identified a problem, but have decided to do something about
it. That's why we decided, in this inaugural year of WISE, to showcase and
reward exceptional projects and initiatives that demonstrate a tangible
impact on each of our three sub-themes."

In line with the global and inclusive outlook of WISE, the
WISE Awards programme generated widespread international interest from
diverse groups and individuals, with project submissions stemming from a
variety of contrasting geographical locations. From a total of 588 entries,
six projects originating from South and Latin America, North America, Africa,
and Asia and Oceania were chosen for their exceptional impact within the
fields of Pluralism, Sustainability and Innovation in education.

The winners were:

           Pluralism            Sustainability         Innovation
    MEHTA Sheetal / India   BURT Martin / Paraguay  LEVY Peter / USA

    Project: Project Nanhi  Project: The            Project: Curriki
    Kali                    Self-Sufficient School
    COLBERT Vicky /         DONGOTEY-PADI Joyce /   MORAIS Delio /
    Columbia                Ghana                   Brazil

    Project: Escuela Nueva  Project: WANE - Widows  Project: Distance
                            Alliance Network for    Learning in the
                            Sustainable Economic    Amazon Forest
                            Development in Ghana

The WISE Awards embody the unique spirit of WISE, reflecting the
initiative's multidisciplinary and universal ethos. While these winning
projects have their origins in specific regions, they each possess the
potential for inspiration and implementation on a wider scale. The winning
projects serve traditionally overlooked and underprivileged populations. They
involve whole communities and create new partnerships. They spread the
effects of innovative educational practice efficiently, widely, sustainably
and equitably. They can be replicated and their positive effects can be
easily measured.

Sustainability laureate Joyce Dongotey-Padi from Ghana, shared: "the WISE
Awards allowed project WANE - Widows Alliance Network for Sustainable
Economic Development to gain international recognition and establish itself
as a legitimate local actor. The experience has given us the opportunity to
develop further initiatives."

The WISE Awards winners were chosen by a renowned international jury
following a rigorous process of adjudication. The two-tier selection firstly
involved the short-listing of 48 projects by a 15-member committee of
multidisciplinary experts which were subsequently reviewed by an
International Jury consisting of 11 of the world's leading experts in
pluralism, sustainability and innovation.

The WISE Awards will act as an annual platform to showcase concepts that
have successfully made the transition to concrete, workable and effective
practices.

The six WISE Awards winners each received a prize of $20,000
to support their respective educational initiatives, as well as a unique
hand-made trophy modeled on original artwork by Celine Tilliet.

ABOUT WISE

WISE (World Innovation Summit for Education) is a global,
groundbreaking collaborative initiative established by Qatar Foundation under
the patronage of Her Highness Sheikha Mozah Bint Nasser Al Missned. WISE
seeks to monitor and contribute to 21st century challenges and their impact
on education. With 1,000 leading education stakeholders, opinion leaders and
decision-makers from 120 countries and from the spheres of education,
politics, international institutions, NGOs, grassroots movements, the private
sector, media and multimedia, culture and the arts. WISE endeavours to
propose visionary thinking on education, offer new ways of addressing current
global challenges and untapped opportunities and anticipate future education
models. The WISE Forum will take place in Doha, Qatar, from November 16th to
18th, 2009. Sponsors of the Summit are Exxon Mobile, Qatar Petroleum and
Microsoft Corporation.

Full details on the WISE website: www.wise-qatar.org

ABOUT QATAR FOUNDATION

Founded in 1995 by decree of His Highness Sheikh Hamad Bin
Khalifa Al Thani, Emir of Qatar, Qatar Foundation is a non-profit
organization focusing on education, scientific research and community
development. Under Qatar Foundation's umbrella are Education City, which
comprises elite universities, several academic and training programs and
Qatar Science and Technology Park, which boasts more than twenty-one
world-class companies involved in scientific research and development.

Chaired by Her Highness Sheikha Mozah Bint Nasser Al Missned,
Qatar Foundation also aims to enhance lives through community development
initiatives including Doha Debates, Reach out To Asia and Al Jazeera
Children's Channel.

Joint venture partnerships in the areas of design, ICT,
telecommunications, policy studies and event management contribute to
fulfilling the objectives of the Qatar Foundation. For more information,
please visit: www.qf.org.qa

Source: World Innovation Summit of Education - WISE

WISE Awards 2009: Winning Profiles

Pluralism Cateegory

MEHTA Sheetal / India

Project: Project Nanhi Kali

Project Nanhi Kali was launched by KCMET in 1996 with the
objective of providing education to underprivileged young girls in India.
Since 2005 Nanhi Kali has been jointly managed with the reputable NGO, Naandi
Foundation, to ensure that the girls' needs for education are met for a
continuous ten years. It is now reaching out to 52,000 girls (from 1,700 in
2002) in urban, rural and remote tribal areas across eight states of India.

Project Nanhi has increased enrolment and attendance of girls
in schools, reduced dropout rates and improved learning levels. Its goal is
to provide education to 100,000 underprivileged girls by the end of 2009.

Main assets:

"This fantastic project has been clearly-designed to reach a
population in under-served areas. The interesting and unusual combination of
funders and NGOs combined with volunteers at grassroots level has created a
very strong and sustainable partnership."

COLBERT Vicky / Columbia

Project: Escuela Nueva

Escuela Nueva provides a cost-effective, replicable and
scalable solution to improving the quality of basic education in low
income-schools. Through its collaborative learning approach, it transforms
the traditional classroom and promotes entrepreneurial skills learning to
learn, lead processes, teamwork and decision-making. It was initiated in 1975
in rural Colombia in response to endemic educational problems such as high
dropout rates, weak school-community relationships, ineffective teacher
training and the lack of children's learning materials.

Main assets:

"This is a well-executed straightforward idea which delivers
all of the WISE Awards criteria. It is proven to be a consistent model which
has been successfully copied throughout the world."

Sustainability Category

BURT Martin / Paraguay

Project: The Self-Sufficient School

The Self-Sufficient School, launched in 2003, is a model of
technical/vocational education that provides high quality, affordable
education to chronically poor young people without relying on third-party
support. The school transforms young farmers into financially successful
"rural entrepreneurs" by integrating the teaching of traditional high-school
subjects with the running of 17 small-scale, on-campus rural enterprises.

By helping to run these enterprises, students gain technical
and entrepreneurial skills. At the same time, these enterprises generate
enough income to cover 100% of the school's operating costs. Over 20
institutions in Latin America and Africa have adopted the model or are
preparing to do so.

Main assets:

"The Self-Sufficient School has huge potential and is highly
replicable involving partners from all localities. Its entrepreneurial manner
of funding and sustaining schools must be commended."

DONGOTEY-PADI Joyce / Ghana

Project: WANE - Widows Alliance Network for Sustainable
Economic Development in Ghana

The Widows Alliance Network project, launched in 2007, aims to
emancipate Ghanaian widows from the social, cultural and economic deprivation
brought about by the prejudices they face because of their status. The
project was introduced to equip widows in Ghana with the prerequisite
employable skills, human rights education, reproductive health and social
integration programmes. Through WANE, 216 widow groupings have been formed in
Ghana with 6,000 members. As a result, "widow" status, economic empowerment
and rights have now improved in communities and towns throughout Ghana.
Widows now act as agents of environmental, sexual and reproductive health
progress in their communities.

Main assets:

"This is an inspirational, unique, non-profit funding project
which provides much needed seed money, training, support and business
assistance to widows. It can be replicated in other regions and also on other
subject matters such as the empowerment of populations in emergency
situations."

Innovation Category

LEVY Peter / USA

Project: Curriki

The Curriki website is a platform that provides users with the
tools and services necessary to develop, aggregate, evaluate and support Open
Educational Resources. With a community of nearly 90,000 registered members
around the world, it is a collaborative workspace that offers educators the
opportunity to work together, to individualise instruction and create and
customize high-quality instructional materials, all at no charge. Curriki is
challenging the traditional publishing paradigm and changing the way
educators teach and the way students learn.

Main assets:

"Curriki is a compelling global story which provides open
access to the globalisation of teaching content done in an accessible way. It
has unlimited potential as the project is based on Web 2.0 technologies and
encompasses a growing amount of content."

MORAIS Delio / Brazil

Project: Distance Learning in the Amazon Forest

The Distance Learning in the Amazon Forest project was
launched in 2007 by the Secretariat of Education and Learning Quality of
Amazonas State. The project involves transmitting live classes via a two-way
videoconference link to 25,000 students in 300 secondary schools and 700
classrooms, throughout the 62 county districts. A teacher is also located in
each classroom to support local activities. Amazonas is the largest state in
Brazil and many small towns and villages are only accessible by boat. As a
result of this initiative, Amazonas State has greatly increased the breadth
of education, allowing effective, low-cost, large-scale and constant
provision of high-quality secondary-level courses. The project is highly
flexible and can be used for education projects at any level.

Main assets:

"This project increases rural children's competitiveness and
raises their awareness on the advantages of a globalized world. With
limitless potential and possibility to be applied at any educational level,
it can be easily disseminated in regions where connectivity will remain a
challenge."

WISE Awards 2009 International Jury

Chairman: Dr. Abdulla bin Ali Al-Thani, Chairman of WISE and Vice
President of Education, Qatar Foundation.

Vice-Chairman: Dr. Ahmad Hasnah, Vice-Chairman of WISE and Associate
Vice-President of Higher Education, Qatar Foundation

    Pluralism:

    - Susan J. Bodilly: Director of RAND Education (Research And Development
      Corporation)
    - Nicholas Burnett: Assistant Director-General for Education at UNESCO.
    - E. Gordon Gee: President of Ohio State University

    Sustainability:

    - Christian Bode: Secretary General of the German Academic
      Exchange Service (DAAD)
    - Patrick M. Callan: President of the National Center for
      Public Policy and Higher Education
    - Amy Gutmann: President of the University of Pennsylvania

    Innovation:

    - Mike Gibbons: CEO of the Richard Rose Federation
    - Anoop Gupta: Corporate Vice-President, Technology Policy and
      Strategy at Microsoft Corporation
    - Zhou Qifeng: President of Beijing University

    For further information, please contact :

    Emilie Demange / Constance Lozet
    Tel: +33(0)1-47-42-19-54 /+33(0)1-47-42-92-78
    Email : wisepr@fleishman.com

For further information, please contact : Emilie Demange / Constance Lozet, Tel: +33(0)1-47-42-19-54 /+33(0)1-47-42-92-78, Email : wisepr at fleishman.com