The Education (Re)Open Competition

We invite solutions from everyone navigating “back to school” challenges during the pandemic. We’re especially interested in solutions that could work in the Los Angeles area — a region rich in diversity and imagination, but also severely impacted by COVID-19 — but are also focused on spotlighting solutions that can impact everyone nationwide. The most promising solutions will be featured in a robust and public Solutions Exchange, a repository of ideas that can help school communities prepare for the upcoming school year. The Education (Re)Open is more than an open call for solutions; it’s a chance to reconnect people and enhance collective wellbeing, teaching, and learning — for this moment and into the future.

Our K-12 schools face enormous pressure as sites attempt to reopen safely. With over half of students learning entirely from home — 19% in hybrid models and 28% in person — educators and families have been on the front lines of meeting children’s educational, social, and emotional needs.

While we socially distanced to keep each other safe, other gaps grew. If you had access to technology, reliable internet, social support, and private tutors, you likely did okay. If you didn’t, you might’ve fallen behind. Some educators’ workloads doubled as they taught virtual and in-person students, while many parents became teachers overnight. Yet, the ingenuity of families and school communities not only persisted — but flourished.

Help us spotlight, share, and scale this ingenuity! Have you discovered something that helps everyone be more connected or empowered, despite social distancing or remote learning? Do you have a brilliant idea for helping people feel better, learn better, or teach better? Could your solution help all types of learners, in all zip codes?

USC Center EDGE, Andrew Nikou Foundation, and IDEO welcome your solutions that can support school communities to reconnect and enhance collective wellbeing, teaching, and learning as sites reopen. Whether you have a solution gaining ground in school or you’re designing a new concept with others, share what you got. We need your innovations to move towards lasting changes that survive not only now, but deep into the unknowable future. By August 2021, your solution could be scaled throughout the Los Angeles area and beyond!

Some inspiration:

• High school students in Southern California established free tutoring organizations — Girls Empowering Girls (part of Study Smart Youth Services) and Tutor Together.

• #frommywindow is a worldwide social media movement that invites people to share works of art in their windows to connect with and bring joy to other community members of their community.

• In Pacoima, one of the Los Angeles districts hit hardest by the pandemic, many schools are focused on providing basic needs, like food, vaccine access, and COVID testing, in addition to their full load of educational ones.

• The Global Oneness Project is using the power of storytelling to meaningfully connect people online at a moment when we’re being drawn apart, physically and emotionally.

• Berkeley Public Schools Fund arranged a partnership between BUSD and Sonic to provide free hi-speed internet to families on free-and-reduced lunches.

• In Panama, 6 million students accessed the nation’s best teaching via lessons broadcast on national television.

Awards:-

We are humbled by participants who take time to submit solutions — your ideas have the potential to impact people and schools across the world. We are offering participants the following types of support, with no expectation of additional work after the (Re)Open:

• Funding: Each solution that gets featured in the Solutions Exchange will receive $1,000. Refer to the section “How the (Re)Open Will Work” section for more details on the Solutions Exchange.

• Audience with the Nikou Foundation: Select submitters will be invited to a virtual lunch/conversation with representatives from the Andrew Nikou Foundation to share their experience of the (Re)Open.

• Professional learning support: Select education professionals whose solutions get featured in the Solutions Exchange will receive a free, 1-year license to TED Masterclass and a group coaching session with TED-Ed coaches.

• School and classroom tools: All education professionals who submit a solution will receive access to Heartbeat, a research-based classroom technology tool from Shmoop that helps bring focus to the whole child.

• Exposure to experts: All solutions and submitters will be visible to experts from 10+ partner organizations focused on K-12 education, fundraising, educational technology, and design. Judges will be recruited from this partner group — along with the educational community — and they will help select solutions to be featured in the Solutions Exchange.

Media coverage and visibility: Throughout the (Re)Open, all participants are elevated through coverage via social media, radio, television, and online publications. Ideas that make it into the Solutions Exchange will receive significant promotion!

Deadline:- 23-04-2021

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