Lights, IT and digital books: 15 finalists compete for grant at education awards

In the developed world, we take for granted our light switches to give us light as when we want it.

But globally, as many as 1.2 billion people do not have access to electricity, according to the International Energy Agency. This ‘energy poverty’ essentially cuts their community off from meaningful development.

One area where this is of particular detriment is education – schools can’t run without universal electrification in their country and that’s where the ‘Lights to Learn’ (LTL) initiative by Organization of Ibero-American States for Education, Science and Culture (OEI) plans to step in.

LTL is a joint public-private sector effort to install photovoltaic solar systems to bring electricity to Latin American schools. More than 25,000 primary pupils, 1,197 teachers and 556 rural schools are expected to benefit from the initiative.

As one of the 15 finalists for this year’s World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE) Awards, LTL will be competing against 14 other projects that tackle a number of pressing education issues from access to books, coding and digital skills, to boosting maths, science and reading levels.