WASHINGTON, July 25, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The Tools Competition—the world's largest edtech competition—has announced more than $8 million in awards to teams developing learning tools that promise to transform education worldwide.  

The Tools Competition is a multi-million dollar funding opportunity for edtech innovation that leverages digital technology, big data, and learning science to meet the urgent needs of learners. In all, 50 winners from 18 countries will receive more than $8 million to reach an estimated 24 million learners around the globe.

Winning ideas range from AI-powered simulators for teachers-in-training, to support chatbots that help prevent student dropouts, to expanded data sets for researchers studying what works in education. Notable ideas receiving awards today include:

• Yiya AirScience: an edtech solution that promotes problem-solving and creativity skills in under-resourced Ugandan youth by leveraging keypad phones to teach STEM content.
• Handwritten Math Benchmark for LLMs: a dataset that will use multimodal visual LLMs to diagnose and provide feedback on handwritten student math work, ultimately improving the capabilities of multimodal models.
• Bookbot: Reading Coach for Early Grades: a reading instructional platform that uses real-time conversational features to nurture children's critical thinking, social, emotional, and communication skills.
• Wingspans: an AI powered career navigation platform that leverages storytelling to educate adult learners on career pathways and translates their previous experience into tangible skills applicable to high-growth careers.
• FIND-C: a video instructional coaching platform that reinforces responsive interactions with students, thereby improving outcomes in language development, social-emotional development, and literacy.
• HVAC Hero: an adaptive, simulation-based platform aimed at widening access to high-quality skilled trades by training and expanding pathways into the HVAC workforce.

A complete list of winners can be found here.

Additionally, the Tools Competition partnered with OpenAI to offer the OpenAI Learning Impact Prize for teams using the power of AI to accelerate educational progress, particularly in underserved communities. The KOBI team was named the winner of this prize and will receive an additional $100,000 to enhance reading skills for children with dyslexia, as well as API credits and technical guidance from the OpenAI team. 

"Winners are demonstrating the power of advanced technology to accelerate learning and are working with researchers to scale their impact for the benefit of the field at large," said Kumar Garg, President at Renaissance Philanthropy and a founding sponsor of the Tools Competition.

This year's competition generated nearly 2,000 submissions from 92 countries, with the winners hailing from institutions and organizations across all continents. This is the fourth cycle of the Tools Competition. To date, the competition has awarded $17.5 million to 130 edtech innovators.

The 2024 Tools Competition was run with support from: Renaissance Philanthropy, Griffin Catalyst, Walton Family Foundation, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Siegel Family Endowment, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Ballmer Group, Calbright College, Axim Collaborative, Jacobs Foundation, Endless Network, and OpenAI.

The competition is administered by The Learning Agency and Georgia State University.

The next cycle will launch in September 2024. To learn more, join the mailing list here. 

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SOURCE Tools Competition