Deadline Date: June 27, 2026
The WISE Prize for Education is a global award program that identifies outstanding education innovations and provides funding, mentorship, and development support to help impactful solutions reach scale.
The 2026–2027 cycle centers on a single unified challenge that seeks practical solutions capable of delivering significant and measurable improvements in learning and life outcomes. The program focuses on reaching marginalized and underserved learners, particularly in fragile and crisis-affected contexts, promoting the effective and responsible use of AI and other disruptive technologies, strengthening culture and language as foundations for identity and engagement, improving literacy, numeracy, and foundational competencies, and supporting learner wellbeing including mental, emotional, and physical health.
The program offers substantial financial and technical support to selected finalists and winners. Each finalist receives between $100,000 and $125,000 USD to further develop their solution into a minimum viable product over a twelve-month period. In addition to funding, finalists benefit from tailored mentorship and coaching designed to strengthen implementation and scalability. A total prize fund of $1 million USD will be distributed among the top three winners at WISE 13 to support further scaling and evidence generation of their innovations.
The challenge is open to organizations from anywhere in the world that are legally registered and working in any field of education. Individuals are not eligible to apply. Eligible organizations include universities, colleges, academic networks, schools, school networks, civil society organizations, community organizations, government and public agencies, international and intergovernmental agencies, private-sector companies, and non-profit entities.
The program welcomes initiatives from all education sectors including pre-primary, primary, secondary, and tertiary education, as well as EdTech and digital learning, vocational training, higher education, special needs and inclusive education, informal learning, lifelong learning, and early childhood development.
Applicants are expected to present solutions that build on already successful approaches and are ready to be adapted, tested, or scaled in new contexts while meeting the WISE Prize selection criteria. The initiative emphasizes evidence-based approaches that demonstrate clear potential for improving educational access, learning quality, and learner wellbeing across diverse settings.
For more information, visit World Innovation Summit for Education.
