GOLD
Language and Learning Foundation – NEEV Multilingual Education Programme for Equitable Foundational Learning
Since 2015, Language and Learning Foundation (LLF) has reached 21.8 million children and 1.18 million teachers across 10 states, strengthening foundational literacy and numeracy for India’s most marginalised children, at scale.
Our flagship NEEV Multilingual Education Programme reaches 55,000 children across all 1,524 government primary schools in Bastar, Chhattisgarh, one of India’s most educationally disadvantaged districts, where 95% of children speak indigenous languages at home, instead of Hindi, the medium of instruction. NEEV bridges this language gap by bringing children’s culture, identity, and language into classrooms.
What sets NEEV apart is its commitment to embedding MLE within government systems, ensuring solutions are sustainable and owned by the state. Third-party evaluations recorded learning gains of 20% in literacy and 18% in numeracy. Having informed MLE models in Jharkhand, Odisha, and Rajasthan, NEEV offers a blueprint for building equitable education systems that could potentially impact 36 million children if scaled nationally.
SILVER
Aga Khan Foundation & Schools2030 – Scaling Teacher-Led Innovation Through Human-Centred Design and Open Learning
Schools2030 is a global movement transforming education by positioning teachers as innovators and leaders of change. Led by AKF, the programme has supported over 10,000 public-sector teachers across ten developing countries to use Human-Centred Design (HCD) and holistic assessment to improve learning outcomes and student wellbeing.
Through open, practitioner-led resources hosted on the AKF Learning Hub platform, Schools2030 now enables educators worldwide to access, adapt and scale proven innovations. These include tools for inclusive teaching, climate education, and social-emotional learning, all co-created with teachers and aligned to local contexts.
By combining low-cost innovation, participatory design and open-access learning, Schools2030 is bridging the gap between classroom practice and system-level change; ensuring that high-quality, inclusive education is scalable, sustainable, and driven by those closest to learners. And now, through the AKF Learning Hub, not only across ten countries but globally.
BRONZE
Digit<all> – Future digital skills for <all>
The climate crisis demands a generation of diverse, digitally confident problem-solvers. But in a country where just 15% of children study Computer Science at GCSE — and far fewer from disadvantaged backgrounds — that generation isn’t being equipped.
But thanks to Digit<all>, there are ten-year-olds in Birmingham programming devices to track their school’s energy use, coding an alert system that cuts waste. In Bradford, students built a wildfire risk alarm, sharing the process in a video that received 10,000 views. In Oxford, young girls gather air quality data and use it to campaign for traffic changes near their school. And in Wales, there are teachers leading coding sessions in Welsh, using resources downloaded for free.
None of these people are climate activists. They’re examples of some of Digit<all>’s one million beneficiaries: ordinary people learning to code through our accessible, hands-on programmes — and building real environmental tools in the process.
BRONZE
GT Scholars – Inspiring Future Leaders Project
Inspiring Future Leaders is a six-month leadership and personal development project delivered by GT Scholars that supports boys aged 12-14 across the UK. The project combines mentoring, skill-building workshops and enrichment activities to build resilience, leadership skills and future aspirations.
GT Scholars’ goal is to help young boys develop communication, teamwork, confidence and goal-setting, while gaining access to positive role models and guidance on academic and career pathways. The project is designed to address gaps in access to support, particularly for young people who lack support networks and opportunities outside of school.
In 2025, the project demonstrated a strong impact, with 80% of participants reporting increased motivation and optimism, 93% gaining leadership skills, and 86% of parents reporting improved confidence and social development in their child. Delivered through a network of partner schools, Inspiring Future Leaders is helping to improve outcomes for young people and support long-term social mobility.
ONE-TO-WATCH
Onja – Connecting talent to opportunity, no matter where you’re from
Onja is a social enterprise in Madagascar that trains underprivileged youth into world-class software developers. Access to meaningful education and sustainable career opportunities are vital to breaking cycles of disadvantage in Madagascar—where only 6% of people access higher education.
This work is guided by the belief that talent is everywhere but opportunity is not. We identify the brightest Malagasy students who cannot afford to continue their education and train them in English and in-demand skills. This includes software development as well as new, AI-resilient career pathways.
Our innovative model allows our developers to pursue life-changing employment with global businesses overseas. In their first year of employment, developers’ income increases fourfold and is 13 times higher by their fifth year of work. This creates a ripple effect: all graduates support their families’ basic living costs and siblings’ education, while also paving the way for more young people to unlock their potential.