IDB launches call for proposals for innovations promoting the 21st century skills

The Spotlight project will target countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.  

Today, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and HundrED.org, a global education nonprofit, announced the launch of a Spotlight project. This aims to identify effective models for cultivating 21st century skills, also called transversal skills, in students by looking for innovations in learning from Latin America and the Caribbean. This launch takes place within the framework of the United Nations World Youth Skills Day, which this year focuses on the theme "Skills for a resilient youth in the era of COVID-19 and beyond".

Together over the next year, the IDB and HundrED will shine a Spotlight on the region and selecting a diverse range of innovations that are promoting 21st century skills inside and outside formal education, including but not limited to: social-emotional skills, project-based learning, self-guided learning through digital, music, sports, citizenship and entrepreneurship programs. This Spotlight will discover the leading innovations developing transversal skills in students in the region; understand how schools or organizations can implement these innovations; gain insights into any required social and economic conditions for these innovations to be effectively introduced into a learning context; and celebrate and broadcast these innovations to help them spread to new countries.

Innovations will undergo a rigorous evaluative research process which adheres to specific criteria around impact and scalability. The final innovations will be selected by the advisory board constituted by an advisory board of 40 members -including teachers, leaders, experts, academics, and students- who will have expertise from a range of contexts and perspectives in education. As part of the partnership, the IDB and HundrED invites innovators to contribute to this effort and participate in Spotlight by sharing their work. The submission call deadline is Friday, 30th October, 2020. To find out more information and submit innovations, please visit: clic-skills.iadb.org/en/spotlight.

HundrED has also joined the IDB’s Coalition for Transversal Skills in the 21st Century. The Coalition is a multi-sector partnership led by the IDB to promote the development and strengthening of transversal skills, in Latin America and the Caribbean. The Coalition is an open partnership and the IDB invites interested public and private organizations to join the initiative and help lead global, transformative efforts to transform the lives of individuals across the region.

As part of its membership in the Coalition, HundrED will collaborate with IDB and other partners on new ways to leverage innovation projects to advance equity and inclusion in education. HundrED has been highly active in seeking, sharing and spreading education innovations across the world with over 4,000 innovators, educators, and stakeholders. With a solution-oriented and global approach, they have become experts in pedagogically sound innovations that are highly impactful and scalable.

The collective action is within the framework of the 21st Century Skills Initiative promoted by IDB. The initiative responds to the new challenges faced by students in the 21st century, shaped by an extremely dynamic environment with a changing labor market and increasingly diverse societies. Including the addition of HundrED,  more than 30 public and private sector partners have joined the Coalition: Ashoka, CLOO Behavioral Insights Unit,  D2L, Education Above All, Empresarios por la Educación-Colombia, Forge, Fundación Danilo Perez, Fundación F.C. Barcelona,Fundación Gratitud, Fundación Scholas Ocurrentes, Google, GRAMMY Music Education Coalition, Holberton School, iNNpulsa, ISTE, Minerva, REDUCA, Skills Agility Lab, SKT Telecom, Think Equal, TUMO Center for Creative Technologies, Virtual Educa, Fundación Real Madrid, MEDUCA, Laboratoria, Fundación Trilema, Fundación Santillana, Fundación Wikimedia, and Fundación Gabo.

To learn more about the coalition, visit clic-habilidades.iadb.org