BusinessWire India
New Delhi [India], November 11: XPRIZE today launched XPRIZE Accelerate Learning, a US$6 million, two-year global competition designed to incentivise breakthrough solutions that can help Grade 1 learners master Foundational Literacy and Numeracy (FLN) skills in a cost-effective way and at scale. Partnering with the British Asian Trust and ShikshaNext to bring the initiative to India, this competition is open to innovators worldwide, and aims to identify, test and validate transformative, affordable, solutions that strengthen FLN skills for Grade 1 students in India.
Registration opens globally today, inviting innovators from all over the world, from all backgrounds: entrepreneurs, researchers, educators, technologists, and the non-profit sector to rethink how children acquire foundational skills. Winning solutions will establish new models in regions across Sub-Saharan Africa and India, which governments and communities can adopt, sustain, and scale well beyond the competition.
Since the launch of the NIPUN (National Initiative for Proficiency in Reading with Understanding and Numeracy) Bharat Mission in 2021, India has made FLN a national priority, with the goal that every child reads with understanding and does basic maths by Grade 3 by 2026-27. ASER 2024, covering roughly 650,000 rural children, shows reading levels in government schools rising from 16% in 2022 to 23%. Yet more than three in four children are still falling behind, and early gaps widen over time. Early intervention is critical.
“XPRIZE Accelerate Learning reimagines what’s possible for every child, regardless of geography, income, or circumstance,” said Anousheh Ansari, Chief Executive Officer, XPRIZE. “We’re challenging innovators to harness the latest in technology and learning sciences to develop solutions for each child’s pace, language, and cultural context. By putting the child and their learning ecosystem at the center, we can unlock lifelong opportunities for children and families around the world.”
The competition will feature two tracks in India, each designed to address different aspects of the foundational learning challenge:
- Core Track (US$5 million): With the British Asian Trust as the strategic partner in India, this track invites teams to develop solutions that help 150,000 first-graders improve in FLN skills in one year. Teams must demonstrate at least a 25 percentage-point improvement in mastery at a cost of under US$10 (INR 944) per child per year, with solutions designed for adoption across entire school systems.
- Last Mile Moonshot Track (US$1 million): Driven through a strategic partnership with ShikshaNext in India, this track focuses on innovative technology-based solutions developed alongside teachers in target communities. Participating teams must demonstrate at least a 50 percentage-point improvement in mastery at a cost of under US$40 per child per year.
Unlike conventional grant-funded interventions, the competition follows an outcomes-driven model that incentivises innovators to demonstrate measurable improvements in children's learning. It is solution-agnostic, welcoming both AI-enabled and non-AI approaches. Participating teams will receive prize funding, while independent evaluation will assess learning gains, affordability and potential for scale.
Teams will collaborate with local schools or districts to test and implement solutions, ensuring that innovations are grounded in classroom realities and responsive to the needs of children, teachers and communities.
Bharath Visweswariah, Executive Director, India, British Asian Trust
“Our partnership with XPRIZE brings together distinct strengths to advance foundational learning in India. Building on our experience of working towards India's foundational literacy and numeracy goals, we see an opportunity to draw on XPRIZE's global networks and experience in large-scale innovation competitions to attract new ideas, talent and partnerships into India's education ecosystem. What makes this model particularly compelling is its focus on ambitious, measurable learning outcomes for Grade 1 students, with incentives linked to results and independent assessment to establish what works. We see this as an opportunity for innovators with promising solutions, and funders who share our ambition, to come together to help more children build strong foundational skills and take effective solutions to scale.”
Ishmeet Singh, CEO, Central Square Foundation
“We are proud to partner with XPRIZE on the Accelerate Learning Moonshot India Track through the ShikshaNext initiative. This partnership offers an exciting opportunity to discover technology-led innovations that can deliver outsized foundational learning gains for underserved children across India. Our ambition is to identify breakthrough EdTech approaches that go beyond incremental improvements in learning outcomes — approaches that are grounded in evidence, rooted in home languages, and tailored to the needs of the children we serve.”
The competition is open to startups, nonprofits, universities, corporations, government agencies, consortiums and individuals. Applicants can register to participate in either or both tracks.
Registration closes on February 15, 2027, for the Last Mile Moonshot Track and March 15, 2027, for the Core Track.
To learn more and register, visit xprize.org/acceleratelearning.
Dell Foundation, Gates Foundation as Founding Strategic Partners, and Central Square Foundation as the Managing Partner. Learn more at https://www.shikshanext.org/.
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