Education Learnings

If you ever wondered how a Silicon Valley mindset rooted in social entrepreneurship can improve global education, then this episode on the Do One Better Podcast featuring our Amy Klement is for you.

Three Austin-based startups — one focused on cybersecurity and two on remote education offerings — have combined to raise $24 million funding deals. Upswing, supported by Imaginable Futures is one.

Upswing is an integrated student services platform, designed particularly for working adult learners, student parents, and students of color, improving college persistence and driving completion.

This report from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research describes challenges faced by student parents and actions that policy and education leaders can take to better support their success.

SPARK Schools concludes a successful Series C capital raise, making it possible for the affordable K-12 private school network to reach over 35,000 learners in South Africa in the next 10 years.

Six public entities partnering with community organizations will advance professional success for students who are parents, in this initiative supported by Imaginable Futures and ECMC Foundation.

MathTalk uses a mix of technology and math-focused installations to harness playful learning, reduce math anxiety and create positive math experiences for kids and their parents.

O Brasil - sempre entre as últimas colocações no ranking do exame - teve 267 dias de escolas fechadas até o fim de janeiro.

ALiVE is an ambitious first-of-its-kind multi-country initiative that will provide a platform for the education community in East Africa to implement mainstream SEL in learning practices.

When our philanthropic investment firm launched last year, we could never have anticipated the year that was 2020. Here’s how our values guided us in 2020 and the learnings we’re taking into 2021.

With a Biden-Harris administration, the next phase of work for early education has already begun in the US, but it must accelerate to tip the scales of political will toward real action.

Working with partners such as SHOFCO helps us to support communities and address the most pressing education priorities at each step of the way.

To strengthen family success and remove obstacles to intergenerational mobility, we must deal with “time poverty”—the phenomenon of having too many things to do, and not enough time to complete them.

We invested in Career Karma because it is a promising model that helps learners access middle-to-high skill tech jobs, many of whom are women, students of color and student parents.

Career Karma raises $10 million, with support from investors including Imaginable Futures to scale their platform, which helps workers navigate digital and technology career pathways.

While research organization Datafolha finds wide accessibility of education in Brazil during COVID-19, troubling indicators of inequity in learning and risk of school dropout are persistent.

Tom Vander Ark interviews Isabelle Hau who shares investment opportunities in early learning that could reignite an equitable start in life and long-term economic mobility for children and families.

We invested in Shujaaz because of their unique focus and commitment to listening and lifting youth voices. Understanding youth sentiment is critical for designing youth and equity-centric solutions.

The Centering Healthcare Institute has announced grants totaling $13 million supporting efforts to scale up its model, which provides continuity of care from pregnancy through early childhood.

This Global Entrepreneurship Week, we’re honoring with gratitude and celebrating all the brilliant and compassionate edu-preneurs with whom we are grateful to partner.

Kenyan teacher and Global Teacher Prize winner Peter Tabichi has his eye on AprendiZap, a tool we've invested in. The learning platform helps children in Brazil continue to learn during the pandemic.

There is tremendous value in learning across and from different geographies. A report we commissioned draws from lessons learned on education innovation in the United States to apply to Brazil.

What if, at this moment of disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, our learning systems in Kenya could be redesigned to eliminate the inequities that are embedded in our schools and communities?

Ascend at the Aspen Institute announces winners of the Aspen Parent Powered Solutions Fund – the first student parent-led fund supporting organizations dedicated to supporting student parent success.

Handshake, which provides a platform for college students to search for work, and for recruiters to search for candidates and advertise entry-level openings, has raised $80 million.

Understanding the impact of the pandemic on early learning, families and children is crucial. That is why we’re supporting Edsurge’s efforts to expand coverage on this topic.

Amy Klement joins Tom Vander Ark on the Getting Smart podcast to discuss equity, impact investment, as well learnings from our joint exploration on the future of learning with IDEO.

Unprecedented in Brazil, the Takorama Festival features short films of different themes for children, youth and educators throughout the country this October.

On our Learning to Overcome podcast, UNICEF’s Robert Jenkins and Think Equal’s Leslee Udwin share how to help the whole child – educational and social emotional needs – during the pandemic.

Even before the pandemic, Edquity was supporting students experiencing financial emergencies. Since March, it has scaled up efforts to reach more students in crisis, many of whom are student parents.

Student parent judges Lesley Del Rio and Ariel Ventura-Lazo chose College Unbound to receive the $100,000 Risers’ Choice prize. In this Q&A, we find out why and what made College Unbound stand out.

Efforts to support college students who are also parents should include flexible wraparound services tailored to the multifaceted identities of student parents.

Life before the pandemic was not working for most student parents. Now, to survive through the pandemic, the higher education field was forced to adapt and innovate quickly.

On Higher Learning Advocates’ blog, Vinice Davis calls on philanthropy to advance innovation that supports student parents by seeding and incentivizing promising ideas and evidence-based solutions.

Launched with UNICEF, our new podcast features educators and innovators who share their ideas and strategies to support our students’ learning and well-being through the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.

Imaginable Futures and UNICEF release a three-part podcast series, Learning to Overcome to explore supporting students during COVID. The podcast is hosted by NPR reporter Gwen Thompkins.

With innovative edutainment programs, Ubongo is equipping Africa's next generation with the educational foundation, critical skills and positive mindsets to change their own lives and communities.

Students in Latin America face many educational challenges due to COVID-19, but promising deployment in edtech like Blended are helping them overcome those barriers and adapt to new ways of learning.

The Rise Prize shows how much energy has been building around serving student parents. To keep up the momentum, we must learn from the innovators working in this space, and creatively fill the gaps.

A new report from Imaginable Futures and Lumina Foundation examines promising ideas and practices in supporting student parents, common barriers to success, as well as innovative ways to overcome the…

Student parents make up 22% of the undergraduate population. This report from Imaginable Futures and Lumina Foundation shares the solutions that exist & the opportunities to support and lift up them.

"Learning has been disrupted because of the pandemic, yet also reimagined. I don't fantasize remote learning will ever be as good as being in school," shares our Amy Klement in Impact Alpha.

Amy Klement and Erin Simmons share our Learning Reimagined: Radical Thinking for Equitable Futures report and invite you explore drivers of change, early signals of hope and future scenarios.

What if our learning systems could be redesigned to eliminate embedded inequities? Read our report Learning Reimagined: Radical Thinking for Equitable Futures.

In this Q&A, we asked the team behind Morehouse College’s Fathers to the Finish Line Initiative to share the inspiration behind their program and their experience participating in the Rise Prize.

We teamed up with the Lemann Foundation to commit a combined $1 million for a COVID-19 emergency relief program in Brazil. In this post, we announce the grant recipients and the RFP process we used.

Programs at Everett Community College and Bristol Community College, both aimed at removing barriers for student parents and helping them succeed, are among the 15 winners of the Rise Prize.

Winning solutions of the Rise Prize, announced in early July, embodied the 6 C’s for improving the success of student parents. We highlight how the winning solutions fit into the framework.

With the crisis likely to extend into the fall, we need more philanthropic investment in emergency aid for students left behind by federal programs.

Vinice Davis co-authors this op/ed in Philanthropy News Digest calling for support to two groups of students left behind in the pandemic relief aid: undocumented students and student parents.

A survey study that Imaginable Futures co-funded with Lemann Foundation and Itaú Social uncovers learning activities in Brazil since COVID-19. Erin Simmons and Nathalie Zogbi reflect on findings.

Michelle Weise shares why she is energized to be joining the team at Imaginable Futures in a dual capacity as both a Senior Advisor and Entrepreneur-In-Residence.

A research team at the University of Nebraska Medical Center was awarded $430,000 in funding from five foundations to conduct the first U.S.-based validation of a new scale of early child development.

Imaginable Futures, a venture of the Omidyar Group, and Lumina Foundation have announced grants totaling $1.55 million to the fifteen winners of the Rise Prize.

An upcoming expansion of an Arizona State University chatbot, Sunny, hopes to make higher education easier for any parent to access. ASU was one of the 15 winners of the Rise Prize.

Announcing the 15 winners of the Rise Prize, awarding $1.55 million in combined prizes to the best innovative ideas supporting the postsecondary success of student parents.

A new Bay Area nonprofit, Composer, has developed a platform that seeks to be a place for educators to access the world’s best citizenship education resources from more than 30 content providers.

As the debate about virtual classes intensifies, research organization Datafolha discovers that 58% of parents in Brazil consider it very difficult for students to maintain a study routine.

By investing in student parents & organizations that center their lived experiences, Imaginable Futures is committed to helping Generation Hope turn the statistics on student parents around—for good.

Ensuring education and training is both accessible and tied to jobs isn’t just an economic issue – but also one of racial equality.

A survey conducted by Datafolha found that 74% of public school students in Brazil receive some non-classroom teaching content, but one in four students is without any type of teaching activity.

On Juneteenth, we celebrate the progress towards racial justice in the US, but also recognize the reality of how systemic racism has historically impacted and still permeates society.

We’re proud to partner with Common Sense on new free content, activities and resources in English and Spanish to keep kids active, entertained & learning this summer, available on Wide Open School.

There is a near-universal consensus that early learning programs can break cycles of poverty and lead to lasting upward mobility. But they have always been fragile, and now more so due to COVID-19.

Twenty-six finalists from more than 300 applications are selected for innovative solutions that support student parent success, in a joint initiative of Imaginable Futures and Lumina Foundation.

There is much work to do. We are failing the challenge before us and we don’t have all the answers on the path ahead. Yet, we have an unshakable commitment to listening, learning and acting together.

The first wave of the crisis affected physical health, the second wave is economic. Now comes the third wave—mental health—and our system is ill-prepared.

Isabelle Hau and Cindy Minn write in EdSurge on the looming mental health crisis — the third wave of the pandemic; and call on the urgent need to invest in solutions.

A report by Generation Hope reveals concerns from student parents, such as feeling disconnected and unwelcomed, in need of family-friendly policies, and assistance in applying for aid.

With the World Bank we are creating the Global Edtech Readiness Index, a benchmarking instrument for pilot countries to assess how ready their ecosystems are to roll out edtech solutions.

Due to prolonged isolation caused by COVID-19, the risk of dropping out of school for students in Brazil has increased, according to survey findings from research organization Datafolha.

We have a keen eye on how the strengths of student parents can improve the academic outcomes of not only their children, but also will have a broader societal impact.

PelotonU is rising up to support students and families, quickly adapt their program to the new normal and undertake deep reflection to ensure long-term impact and sustainability themselves.

As COVID-19 continues to spread, funders and investors including Imaginable Futures, are stepping up to meet the immediate needs of individuals and vulnerable populations impacted by the virus.

The global pandemic has caused an unprecedented uncertainty for many, including student parents. The Rise Prize seeks to support innovations that meet the challenges they face in their journey.

In Part 2, Amy Klement, shares the investments Imaginable Futures has made both within its current portfolio as well as new investments that will help those in need.

In this two-part series, Amy Klement shares how she is looking at the education landscape and how Imaginable Futures might best help learners around the world against the current crisis.

We need bold ideas now more than ever to help student parents not only survive this crisis, but thrive today and in the future.

To help communities in Brazil, Imaginable Futures has teamed up with the Lemann Foundation to establish an emergency relief fund.

We invested in Capita because we knew then that we wanted to imagine a different future, particularly for young children and their families. Today, it’s even more important.

Imaginable Futures is among funders stepping up to fill the gaps in public support for women, who face multiple challenges during the pandemic, including securing child care.

The COVID-19 pandemic requires us to rebuild a childcare and early childhood education system that works for everyone. Through our GSV session, we present solutions to do just that.

Student parents are one of the most impacted communities due to the pandemic, as they are feeling the effects of the unfolding challenges at every level.

Ubongo aims to educate African children by leveraging technology common among most African families — radio, TV, mobile and paperback books — to deliver local language educational content.

With the global COVID-19 pandemic impacting all our lives – and the lives of our families and communities around the world – we are thinking of you, what you may need and how we can best assist.

For International Women's Day, we honor our Imaginable Futures portfolio and the incredible women who have persevered to be part of the solutions for learners and their families.

Isabelle Hau co-authors this op/ed with funding partners highlighting ways philanthropy can support student parents and also shares our two-generation support model and the Rise Prize.

At Imaginable Futures, we carry the whole-child philosophy into how we interact with entrepreneurs. Call it our “whole entrepreneur” philosophy.

High quality on-site childcare helps student parents beat the odds and graduate. From policymakers to funders, support has been rising to support the needs of student parents, including childcare.

We are inspired by Educate! whose focus on youths in Africa is rooted in scaled impact and systemic reform.

Imaginable Futures' Rise Prize is mentioned in the Chronicle of Higher Education's "The Edge" a weekly roundup of people, trends and ideas reshaping education.

Awarding $1 million in combined prizes to 10 innovative ideas supporting parents’ postsecondary education success.

We must serve student parents better. While the increased attention over the past few years has been critical, we’re still doing far too little to actually design education solutions for parents.

When 10 tornadoes ripped through the Dallas, it left $2 billion in damages and thousands of displaced people in its wake. Many of them were college students.

Imaginable Futures, Omidyar Networks’ latest spinout, will focus on early childhood through adult learning in Africa, Latin America and the U.S, while working closely with Omidyar Network India.

Launches with $200 million of capital invested and $150 million from philanthropists Pierre and Pam Omidyar. Will focus on the future of learning across US, Africa and Latin America.

We’re thrilled to share that after seven years as Omidyar Network’s Education initiative, today we launch as Imaginable Futures, an independent global philanthropic investment firm focused on the fut…

Omidyar Network is spinning off its education initiative into a standalone entity. Called Imaginable Futures, it will invest in for-profit and non-profit ventures addressing the future of learning.

Launches with $200 million of capital invested and $150 million from philanthropists Pierre and Pam Omidyar. Will focus on the future of learning across US, Africa and Latin America.

Laboratoria exists to drive a more diverse, inclusive and competitive digital economy in Latin America, that opens up opportunities for all people, equally.

Despite the growing need, the dream of building new opportunities for young learners can be a challenge. Qualified leaders face hurdles in many different areas, just to be able to open up their doors.

SPARK Schools is an independent network of affordable private schools in South Africa offering globally competitive education.

Omidyar Network announces the latest and final spinoff of its education intiaitive, now Imaginable Futures led by Amy Klement.

Education is supposed to prepare children for the future, yet the current system is 100 years behind the times.

We know that cognitive, physical, and social-emotional development are all critical elements of a child’s school and life readiness. However, we don’t always make the connection back to the key healt…

A group of 10 funders today announced a new collaborative, Home Grown, to improve home-based child care in the United States. Home Grown will increase access to and the quality of home-based child ca…

If you’re a parent of a young child, searching for the perfect fit for child care can often be a struggle.

Through guided play and exploration at Ms. Kelly’s family child care program, Nevaeh builds math, literacy, and social emotional skills in a nurturing, educational environment.

In most parts of Asia, smartphones are king. They’re the sole mode of communication for millions of Indonesians, connecting remote island dwellers to the outside world, and the de facto wallet for Ch…

The Brookings Institute estimates that it will take 100 years for the world’s poor children to reach the same education levels as the wealthy at today’s pace. It’s a daunting statistic.

Nearly two years ago, our team at Omidyar Network Education invested in Holberton School. At the time, Holberton had a single campus in San Francisco. We were excited by their innovative approach to …

More than 800 million children and young people will lack the basic skills or qualifications needed for the modern workforce. Disruption is needed to address this challenge, and the answer can’t be m…

Teachers are the single most important factor in improving student achievement. That’s why, while most education innovation is geared toward students — helping them learn, study, or gain access to on…

In 2018, Omidyar Network’s Education initiative, in partnership with Lean Data, conducted a 12-week “Sprint” to collect customer feedback and impact data across our global portfolio.

Jessica and I are both parents of young children, and as we go into each day, we do our best to listen to our kids to help guide them to learn and grow. What they are thinking, how they are feeling, …

I recently visited Bright Beginnings, an early childhood and family learning center in Washington, D.C. Even the fact that they call themselves a “family learning center” speaks to their emphasis on …

In countries around the world, technology is playing an increasingly important role in education systems, schools, and at home. For instance, in Chile, teachers are trying out tablet-based software t…

There are 250 million learners around the world who have finished their schooling – yet aren’t able to read or write well and lack the skills they will need to succeed in the 21st century. The Brooki…

With excitement, we share our new report, Scaling Access & Impact: Realizing the Power of EdTech, one of the most ambitious deep dives to date into the world of education technology (EdTech).

Isabelle Hau, a former investment banker at Morgan Stanley (where I originally met her more than a decade ago), now serves as the investment partner for US Education at Omidyar Network. She joined me…

Omidyar Network, in partnership with Sesame Workshop and Promise Venture Studio, hosted Early Futures, a first-of-its-kind event focused on early childhood development. For two action-packed days in …

More than 22 million young people in Latin America and the Caribbean neither work nor study. That number is slightly higher than the population of Chile, and two and a half times as many people as li…

Earlier this month, Omidyar Network released a report called Big Ideas, Little Learners highlighting the mega trends and impactful innovations that we see changing the way our youngest members of soc…

Since we started investing in education across Latin America in 2015, we have been primarily focused on companies that are developing innovative classroom technology that supports individual, persona…

There is no question that the past 50 years have seen major progress in practices for young children and families. In addition, tremendous breakthroughs in brain science have clearly established why …

Looking Back: Early Childhood Progress in Past 50 Years

Agenda Edu (www.agendaedu.com), a platform that increases engagement in school settings, announced today that Omidyar Network, the philanthropic fund created by Pierre Omidyar and his wife Pam Omidya…

Pallavi is an eleventh grade student from Kharagpur, a small town in India that is well known for having one of India’s finest engineering colleges. She and her father aspire for Pallavi to become a …

Today, Omidyar Network, Sesame Workshop, and Promise Venture Studio will kick off Early Futures – a two-day event featuring more than 200 experts, entrepreneurs, investors, researchers, and policymak…

Although there has been a significant increase over the last 10 years in entrepreneurial activity in US K-12 and higher education, the same cannot be said for early childhood innovation that targets …

Innovation in meeting the needs of young children is not a new thing. Head Start and Sesame Street were both born out of the War on Poverty in the 1960s, and Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood celebrated it…

When Brittany Block was in her early 20s, she was building a successful career: earning a cosmetology credential and supervising airline operations. Her life was upended when she met a partner that s…

To gain career experience and help pay for her school tuition, she works part-time on campus and last summer interned with KWCH News 12 Wichita, a local news station. Carolina found and secured both …

Handshake, the leading career network for U.S. college students, announced today that it has closed a $40 million Series C funding round led by the EQT Ventures fund ("EQT Ventures"), a European mult…

For people currently working in early childhood, the time when we did not understand the importance of the first five years of life may seem like a distant past. We now recite with ease the criticali…

Sarah was a teacher’s aide and wanted to take her passion for children to the next level and become a certified teacher. Alejandro needed financial stability, and saw a career in accounting as a path…

This week, the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly opened, and global leaders are actively discussing our progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Across the US and around the world, education technology, or “edtech,” has been under attack.

Education technology (also known as “edtech”) too often seems like a luxury found only in well-off communities. But while it does have the potential to exacerbate inequities in education, it can act…

How will technology impact learning outcomes? It has become increasingly clear that just getting computers to students does not improve learning outcomes. In a recently published review of evidence b…

Sub-Saharan Africa remains the worst performing region in education outcomes with 40 percent of children not meeting basic outcomes in literacy and numeracy.

Today, Khan Academy announces the launch of Khan Academy Kids — the first early learning platform that is both personalized and focused on the whole child — and we could not be more excited for them …

Despite progress over the past 20 years to increase access to education around the globe, we remain in a global learning crisis. According to the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, more than 617 millio…

When Kara’s* oldest son came home from his school in Indiana with a flier for a new program promoting school readiness, her first thought was “I don’t know what to expect, but it’s worth a try.”

One of the biggest issues facing higher education in the US today is return on investment. Is the price of a higher education leading to a fulfilling professional career that will enable a student to…

Like everywhere, parents in India demand the best possible education for their children. Today, Indian parents perceive that private schools offer a higher quality education than government-run schoo…

Melanie Richardson, a mental health professional, and Christine Neely, an educator, were twenty-year veterans in their respective fields and met as colleagues while delivering a community based liter…

During Women’s History Month, we want to celebrate women we feel fortunate to work with every day who are pursuing big, bold visions to create positive change for millions of children and families in…

As any parent knows, focusing a three-year-old on any activity requires creativity and perseverance. Imagine if you also had to impart the intellectual, emotional, and social competencies a child wil…

Children are naturally curious. Interacting with their world and their teachers can ignite that curiosity. But they need the space for the spark to occur, and too often our youngest learners don’t ha…

Parents are both the first teachers for their children and stewards for their future learning. Interactions between child and parent in the first few years of life are tremendously important for a ch…

One of the best parts about working and investing in the education sector is having the privilege to meet and connect with educators who dedicate their lives to developing future generations.

At Omidyar Network, we look at the transformative power of technology to help solve some of the world’s most challenging problems. And with our investments in US education, we are seeking to address …

The rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning is already disrupting our notions of work and education, and as AI grows more powerful it will dramatically change the skill…

For millions of young Americans, a four-year college degree is the gateway to a modern career. Many others, though, want or need the chance to pursue a rewarding career path sooner and are looking fo…

Edtech is on track to be a $252 billion global industry by 2020, bringing more innovative education tools to the hands of students, teachers, and families around the world.

Tinkergarten is taking education technology outdoors, supporting a play-based, early learning movement that is helping thousands of children in nearly every US state become more ready for kindergarte…

We believe there are few better paths to opportunity and a bright future than a good education, and that an education that begins early in a child’s life sets the tone for everything that follows.

We believe education increases opportunity for all. In this new video, learn why we invested in Bridge International Academies, an organization working to improve student learning outcomes in underse…

IkamvaYouth staff were stumped. Why were high numbers of learners unable to meet the minimum 75% attendance requirement of their after-school tutoring programs? It was a recurring topic at team meeti…

Improving educational outcomes for Brazil’s low-to-middle-income families depends on innovations that include the participation and input of parents and students.

One million of the best jobs in America may go unfilled if our children don’t learn to code. And even for those who will not become professional coders, computer literacy and the basic logic and crit…

If no two students learn the same way, why do many schools teach everyone the same way? The data shows that if all students received the one-on-one support and tutoring that many more affluent studen…

Most people intuitively know the transformational power of a good education on the lives of individuals and their families. There is now also a host of evidence that shows that improving the quality …

Quality early childhood learning opportunities are critical to children’s future success. From childcare to enrichment activities, these opportunities build the foundational skills and mindset to lea…

At Omidyar Network, we believe there are few more direct pathways to opportunity than education. High-quality education can have a greater impact on a young person’s development, livelihood, economic…

The Latest Learnings from Imaginable Futures