Here at The Varkey Foundation we believe in the power of new ideas to shape the future of education. But we know that taking a great idea off the drawing board and into the real world doesn’t just take hard work – it takes support. That’s why we created our Challenge Fund.
We believe every child deserves a good teacher. But we also know that the international community isn’t doing enough to make that happen. Global investment in education is falling and many schools around the world lack leaders and qualified teaching staff. Research by The Varkey Foundation has also found that the global status of teachers is very mixed – and few parents would actively encourage their children to join the teaching profession.
To help solve this problem, The Varkey Foundation will partner with other organizations to create a global change in the way teachers are trained, treated and perceived. Through our Challenge Fund, we will support partner organizations who are working on big new ideas for education – and to boost the status of teachers worldwide.
The Varkey Foundation Challenge Fund is aimed at supporting a small number of early-stage initiatives, with individual grants of up to US$50,000 available to help build the capacity of teachers and to strengthen the status of the teaching profession.
Apply for a grant
On the basis of our portfolio and areas of interest, The Varkey Foundation is particularly interested in receiving proposals which address the following:
- The recruitment and retention of teachers
- Influencing public policy and discourse about the teaching profession
- School leadership and management
- Support to teachers and school leaders in Fragile and Conflict States (FCAS) and emergency situations
- Teacher-related challenges
Click here to read more about the Challenge Fund or here to apply.
When Tesla unveiled its Semi electric truck last week, everyone agreed that it looked cool, but some actual truckers weren't necessarily sold on its functionality. Most observers will be impressed with the pricing if it holds, though. Tesla has listed estimated price on its Semi website for the 300- and 500-mile versions of $150,000 and $180,000 respectively, less than some pundits predicted. The fancier Founders Series, with the top specs, will cost $200,000. Looking at the $180,000 model, it's still around $60,000 more than a diesel-powered semi truck. However, the Semi could cost around 20 percent less to run, Tesla estimates, putting savings over a million miles at around $250,000.
The Tesla Semi will improve the trucker experience with an Enhanced Autopilot (automatic emergency braking, automatic lane keeping and lane departure warning) that will improve safety for drivers and other vehicles. It also features jackknife protection, sensors and cameras meant to reduce blind spots. For a truck it'll also have crazy acceleration, which could be useful for hill-climbing and other chores.
Source: Engadget
The INNOVATE Call for Proposals (the Call) seeks applications from eligible organizations, companies and institutions (i) to pilot a Non-Traditional Finance (NTF) product/service focused on rapid testing and learning OR (ii) to document through a case study an ongoing or completed initiative related to NTF. The initiatives should demonstrate the potential and/or ability of products, services, or delivery channels that can catalyze and/or foster the adoption of agricultural innovations by women and men smallholder farmers in East Africa, South America (the Andes) and South Asia.
INNOVATE aims to learn from the experiences of the grant recipients; to test and document which products, services or delivery channels have potential to catalyze agricultural innovation by smallholder farmers. Therefore, a key focus of the Call is learning. The Call also has a focus on gender, in which applicants shall clearly differentiate between women and men’s priorities and needs, treating them as distinct market segments in the proposal and research process.
Successful proposals will be awarded up to CAD $200,000 (pilot award) or up to CAD $50,000 (case study award).
Eligibility Criteria
- Minimum organizational requirements:
- Legally registered entities with audited financial statements for the last two years and proof of legal registration for a commercial entity/NGO, or proof of legal registration for a research institute AND current financial policy and procedures
- Minimum three years' experience
- Applicants shall propose initiatives for implementation in the target regions/countries:
- East Africa (Burundi, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda)
- South America (Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru)
- South Asia (Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka)
- Applicants shall apply only for one type of grant and clearly identify/demonstrate a matching contribution.
How to Apply
- Review the Call Application Guidelines.
- Download the Proposal Form(PDF) and Budget Template (Excel) (link to app docs) and prepare your proposal. You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to complete the Proposal Form.
- Submit your application through the Online Application Form and upload your completed proposal and supporting documents.
- The submission deadline is Friday, October 6, 2017, 11:59PM EST.
Apple (AAPL) will soon release its new iPhone and, for now, there’s no way to know whether the tech giant will reinvent the device or continue on its path of slow incremental improvements.
The forthcoming iPhone 8 will likely have the following features:-
- An OLED screen,
- A virtual home button,
- Inductive charging,
- A tap-to-wake feature,
- Facial-recognition unlocking, and more.
Read more about users preference according to Yahoo Finance survey.
Source: Yahoo Finance,
From April to June, tech's biggest companies all held their annual mega-events, laying out their grand visions for the next 12 months or so. Facebook kicked it off in late April with its F8 conference, followed by Microsoft Build, then the Google I/O conference, and Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference finished things off. Amazon doesn't really hold events, but it unveiled two new Amazon Echo smart speakers during that period for good measure. And things will get exciting again, sooner than you know it. This Fall, Apple is expected to reveal a 10th-anniversary iPhone, Google will likely reveal a revamped Pixel smartphone, and Microsoft is expected to hold another one of its regular late-October Surface computer press conferences.
In the meantime, there's not much to do but reflect on what we've learned so far this year about the future of tech. And beyond the hype and the hyperbole, we're starting to see the very earliest stages of a battle for the next phase of computing. Because while Apple and Google may dominate the smartphone market today, technologies like augmented reality present whole-new platforms where there's no clear winner. So Amazon, Microsoft, and Facebook, having missed out on owning a mobile platform, are doing their damndest to hasten the end of the smartphone — and the end of Apple and Google's duopoly, while they're at it.
Source: World Economic Forum
Alibaba founder and executive chairman Jack Ma announced the creation of a US$10 million African Young Entrepreneurs Fund, during the Youth Connect Africa Summit co-hosted by UNCTAD and the Government of Rwanda. UNCTAD is working with Mr. Alibaba's Jack Ma to explore opportunities with African businesses to participate in global trade, as well as to raise awareness of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which was adopted by the international community in 2015. In addition to his role as an adviser to UNCTAD, Mr. Ma also serves as a UN Sustainable Development Goals Advocate. Mr. Ma underscored the importance of internet access in all nations, saying it was an even more important raw material for economies than coal and electricity were in the past. In light of that, Mr. Ma said that he planned to roll out a partnership with African universities to teach internet technology, artificial intelligence, and e-commerce.
Key Points
- African entrepreneurs should not be asking successful businesses, 'How can I distribute your products?' Africans should be saying, 'I have an idea I want to grow – how can you help me to grow it? How can you help me market it?
- Unlocking Africa's e-commerce is a key priority for UNCTAD, given the potential of online trade to power development.
- Not being connected to the internet today is worse than not having electricity 100 years ago
- The Internet & Big Data is the future. You can never stop it. You like it or don’t like it. But you will never stop it.
- Every time you have a technological revolution, it will kill a lot of jobs and it will create a lot of jobs.
Source: UNCTAD News
The pace of technology development determines the pace of replacement of old products. Here is a list of items according to Dr. James Canton and other experts consulted by NBC News MACH say are likely to go the way of typewriters and cassette tapes. Read more
- Metal Locks & Keys
- Parking Meters
- Cash
- ATMs & BANKS
- Desktop Computers
- TVs
- Telephones
With the rise of contactless card and mobile payments, there’s no denying that consumer spending habits are changing as technology continues to evolve, with contactless payments now making up over 50% of all card payments. The question that will be on many business minds over the next few months, however, will be “How will this impact my consumer relations?” Contactless Technology. It’s been less than a decade since Barclaycard introduced their contactless technology to the UK, but already we’ve seen a contactless adoption rise at a rapid pace, with contactless already making up 51% of card payments, a 90% boost in usage in the past year alone. Read more
Australian engineer in collaboration with Dr. Susan Graham have develop a pair of drones that can help mitigate some of the damage by planting trees at a rate that far outpaces what is possible to do by hand. The first drone scans an area of land, searching for an ideal plot to plant. This drone helps to make a 3D map of the area and then special algorithms are employed to find the best places to plant. The second drone then takes that map and its payload of up to 150 seed pods and gets to work shooting the seeds into the ground. Lauren Fletcher, the CEO of BioCarbon Engineering, said: "We're firing at one a second, which means a pair of operators will be able to plant nearly 100,000 trees per day — 60 teams like this will get us to a billion trees a year."
Drones get a lot of press for their delivery capabilities, but Amazon packages aren't the only way to utilize this technology. There are lifesaving drones that can beat EMTs to emergencies, drones that could help to support declining bee populations, and even drones to stand in for backup dancers. All of this and much more is to come, since not even the sky is the limit. Readmore
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