DOHA: Six winners of the WISE 2011 awards were yesterday recognised for their innovative approaches and positive impact on societies and education. H H Sheikha Moza bint Nasser presented the awards to the winners at an event held at the Qatar National Convention Centre on the second day of the World Innovation Summit for Education. Al Jisr School-Business Partnerships in Morocco, BBC Janala in Bangladesh, Connexions based in the USA, Creative partnerships in the UK, SueñaLetras in Chile and Teacher Education in Sub-Saharan Africa are the winners of the third edition of the WISE awards. This year’s awardees were selected under the theme of Transforming Education: Investment, Innovation and Inclusion, and each were presented with a cash prize of $20,000. A seven member jury selected this year’s winners from the 20 finalists. Sheikh Abdulla bin Ali Al Thani, Chairman of WISE, was the chairman of the jury. Since 2009, the WISE awards have been identifying, showcasing and promoting innovative educational projects from around the world. Adding significance to the WISE awards this year, one project was selected from an Arab country and another has been awarded for its work to educate physically challenged children. The Al Jisr School-Business Partnerships in Morocco is an organisation working to improve the quality of education by mobilising and involving businesses and moving them beyond charity or philanthropy towards true engagement. BBC Janala project in Bangladesh uses mobile, web and print media to enable millions of people to learn English in a simple and affordable way. To date, Bangladeshi people have listened to BBC Janala English learning lessons through mobile phones more than 13.8 million times, visited the BBC Janala website more than one million times, and downloaded BBC Janala English Learning audio lessons more than 240,000 times from the mobile Internet site. Connexions based in the USA benefits people around the globe as a content platform that enables the free and open use of high-quality educational materials by a global community. Over two million people in more than 190 countries have benefited through this project. The Creative Partnerships project of the Creativity Culture and Education (CCE ) in the UK operates in around 2,500 schools throughout England each year and is designed to develop the creative skills of young people. It helps to raise aspirations, skills and attainment levels and prepare young people for the world of work. SueñaLetras based in Chile which reaches people in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Uruguay, Costa Rica and Spain, is a tool that supports the literacy learning process using sign language as a bridge to reach written language. To date, it has been translated for five countries, and on each occasion several institutions, educators and deaf people have actively participated. Teacher Education in Sub Saharan Africa benefiting people in the sub Saharan Africa is working to improve access and the quality of school-based training for existing teachers, student teachers and aspiring teachers across sub-Saharan Africa. It aims to increase the number of skilled teachers working in African schools. 400,000 teachers and student teachers. The Peninsula

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