About Us
Learning Crisis
The global pandemic had its deepest and most profound impact on the lives of children. While data showed that more than half of 10-year-old children globally were not able to read and understand a simple sentence before the pandemic, long school closures made the situation a lot worse, with nearly two-thirds of all children not being able to read with understanding. India is no exception to these trends.
Learning losses due to the pandemic, combined with low levels of learnings to begin with, put millions of children at risk of lagging behind not just in school, but also in their working lives.
In order to address this crisis, leading education actors and experts in India have recommended a deeper focus on the ‘building blocks’ of learning – foundational literacy and numeracy (FLN), which help children thrive in schools and throughout their lives. The Government of India has taken this issue seriously and is prioritising achieving universal FLN in the new National Education Policy and through the NIPUN Bharat Mission.
LiftEd
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Recognising the urgent and important need for collaborative action alongside the Government of India’s NIPUN Bharat Mission, a coalition of partners has launched a first-of-its-kind initiative, LiftEd (Learning and Innovation in FLN to Transform Education)
The EdTech Accelerator forms an integral part of this initiative to achieve FLN goals for all children in India. The Accelerator supports EdTech solutions that are seeking to provide access to affordable and quality learning solutions for the low-income segment. It will also help organisations innovate to address challenges, and build evidence on learning outcomes, benchmarks, and cost-effectiveness, thereby supporting the education ecosystem to improve access to quality education at scale.
Over a period of two years, the Accelerator will fund eight high-quality EdTech solutions from both non-profit and private organisations that aim to build, pilot, measure, and test innovative ideas. Impact-focused grant funding and dedicated mentoring support are given in year one, and grants to further scale up this work will be available in year two, thereby reaching up to 2.5 million children by 2025. More about the Accelerator here
Learn MorePartners
Founding Partners
About Michael and Susan Dell Foundation
The Michael & Susan Dell Foundation is dedicated to transforming the lives of children living in urban poverty around the world. With offices in Austin, TX, New Delhi, India, and Cape Town, South Africa, the Dell Foundation funds programs that foster high-quality public education and childhood health and improve the economic stability of the families we serve. To date, the foundation has committed $2.3 billion to global children's issues and community initiatives to accelerate opportunities for families.
About Reliance Foundation
Reliance Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Reliance Industries Limited, aims to play a catalytic role in addressing India’s development challenges through innovative and sustainable solutions. Led by Founder and Chairperson Smt. Nita Ambani, Reliance Foundation is relentlessly working to facilitate transformative changes for the overall well-being and higher quality of life for all. Reliance Foundation is focused on addressing the nation’s development challenges in rural transformation, education, health, sports for development, disaster management, women empowerment, urban renewal, and arts, culture and heritage, and has touched the lives of more than 64 million people across India, in more than 53,000 villages and several urban locations. For more information, please visit
About UBS Foundation
UBS Optimus Foundation, was founded by UBS Group AG. The foundation funds programs and businesses that help the most vulnerable around the world in the areas of health, education, protection of children and youth, and the environment. UBS Optimus Foundation acknowledges that each social problem may need a different solution and therefore, use a wide range of tools to achieve social and environmental impact: grant making, result-based financing such as development impact bonds, and investments into impactful businesses. The foundation manages more than 200 projects deploying around USD 160 million annually
https://www.ubs.com/global/en/ubs-society/philanthropy/optimus-foundation.html
About USAID
USAID is the U.S. Government’s premier international development agency and a catalytic actor driving development results. USAID works to help lift lives, build communities, and advance democracy. USAID’s work advances U.S. national security and economic prosperity goals; demonstrates American generosity; and helps countries progress along their development journey. In India, USAID is collaborating with the country’s growing human and financial resources through partnerships that catalyse innovation and entrepreneurship to solve critical local and global development challenges. To learn more, visit
Programme Leader
About British Asian Trust
The British Asian Trust wants to see a South Asia that is prospering and fair for all. The British Asian Trust’s work supports large-scale, sustainable solutions that enable poor and marginalised people to achieve their full potential. Since its inception in 2007, the British Asian Trust has had a positive impact on the lives of almost 6.6 million people in Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka. The British Asian Trust is a global pioneer in social finance, with a strong track record of driving successful collaborations and applying social finance approaches to solve social and economic challenges in South Asia. The British Asian Trust works to address challenges and barriers faced by non-profits, governments, donors, and other key stakeholders with social finance tools like impact bonds.
Design and Technical Partner
About Central Square Foundation (CSF)
Central Square Foundation (CSF) is a non-profit organisation, working with the vision of ensuring quality school education for all children in India. Since 2012, CSF has been partnering with the government, private sector, non-profit organisations, and other ecosystem stakeholders to improve the learning outcomes of children, especially from low-income communities. CSF is driven by its mission to enable the school education system to adopt solutions that are scalable, sustainable, and effective so that all children get equal access to opportunities needed for leading a better life.
