Educate Girls, a non-profit working in remote, rural regions of India, has announced that its solution to ‘Empower 1.5 million girls to go to school’ has been selected as one of the 2020 new Solver class at MIT Solve Challenge Finals.
MIT Solve, an initiative of the Massachusetts Institute for Technology, is a marketplace for social impact innovations. The incoming 2020 Solver Class was selected by Solve’s expert judges from a pool of over 2,600 applicants from 135 countries. Making it to the top 7 in the Learning for Girls and Women category, Educate Girls is now among 2020’s new Solver Class of 35 tech-based social entrepreneurs that address global challenges through their innovative social change solutions.
Educate Girls’ solution directly addresses this year’s challenge of – how can marginalized girls and young women access quality learning opportunities to succeed? Elaborating on this, Safeena Husain, Founder of Educate Girls, says, “Our program model is focused on behavioral, social and economic transformation to ensure all girls get access to quality education. We leverage advanced analytics and community outreach to ensure higher enrolment, retention and improved learning outcomes for out-of-school-girls.”
Since its inception in 2007, Educate Girls has been bridging the gender and literacy gap in the country by by bringing back girls who have dropped out of schools or girls who have never enrolled in schools, back to mainstream education. Working in partnership with the Government and community volunteers called Team Balika, they work in schools across the states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. Gaining many accolades for their work in education, Educate Girls is well-known for its success at the world’s first Development Impact Bond and becoming the first Audacious Project in Asia.
Through technological intervention and the use of Machine Learning, the organisation has identified 5% of those villages which hold 40% of India’s out-of-school girls. With a focused approach to identify these girls, enroll and retain them, while ensuring continued learning through its remedial curriculum, Educate Girls has improved learning outcomes for over 1.3 million children till date.
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