USAID: Call for Proposals: 7th Annual Mobile Education Alliance Symposium

Washington, DC, October 5–6, 2017

This year the mEducation Alliance Steering Committee is taking a novel approach for the guiding theme and format for this year’s Symposium: Potential presenters, including education policymakers, are asked to look backwards from the year 2020 and share specific information about the pathways they or other partners followed for gathering the evidence to scale and spread their successful information and communications technology (ICT) initiatives by this year. The mEducation Alliance embraces a broad definition of ICT4E including, but not limited to, phones, laptops, e-Readers, tablets, flash memory, micro projectors, and audio/video devices.

Presentation proposal applicants should include the proposed “future-proofing” steps for their initiatives, identifying the piloting, research, evidence, technology selection, and partnerships to achieve their ICT4E initiative’s goals. This year’s theme demonstrates the power of the Symposium as a venue for discussing pathways to spreading and scaling innovations and the importance of gathering evidence of impact and for highlighting the essential role of policy makers in adopting ICT4E initiatives and in spreading and scaling the most impactful of these innovations.

The Symposium will follow a first-time Education “track” at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Annual Grand Challenges (Gates GC) Meeting, also being held in Washington, DC, October 1-4, 2017, and just before the Symposium.  Several of the sub-themes highlighted at the Symposium will carry through these two events. Some mEducation Alliance Symposium attendees will also be invited to attend the Gates GC Meeting.

Sub-themes of this year’s Symposium include:

Literacy (including assessment, local language materials, etc.)
Girls’ Education
Disabilit
Nonformal Education/Lifelong Learning
Monitoring and Evaluation/Research

The 7th Annual Symposium is a valuable opportunity to connect with leading donor organizations, private sector, NGOs, ICT4E researchers, innovators, and policymakers engaged in the field. As in past Symposia (see here for 2016 Symposium highlights), this year’s event will include interactive sessions and formats including pitch presentations (with the always popular “mock investors” panels), gallery walks, and even more extreme event networking.

Please follow this link to submit your presentation proposal for the 2017 Symposium. You can also preview the application questions ahead of time here, and indicate your interest in applying by following the link here.