Catalyzing quality and
The Challenge
At a time when India’s school education system was already struggling to address a massive learning divide, 600+ days of school closures during the COVID pandemic only aggravated the crisis.
80%
Children aged 14-18 years have reported lower levels of learning
74%
Youth aged 18-23 years don’t have access to higher education and skilling
With rising smartphone penetration and 1 Bn+ Indians estimated to be online by 2030, contextualized ed-tech solutions can unlock massive potential for Bharat. On one hand, adaptive and AI-enabled ed-tech is the need of the hour to help address learning losses resulting from school closures. On the other hand, it can also overcome the constraints and lack of effectiveness of under-resourced classrooms, to not only bridge the learning divide but also accelerate both learning and skilling amongst children and employment-ready youth from low-income backgrounds.
Our Thesis
Our early insights suggest that Bharat needs more ed-tech solutions that are low-cost, mobile-friendly, integrated with Whatsapp, have vernacular educational content and are highly personalized to aid learning for under-served children and youth.
ACT For Education aims to enable the bottom three quartiles of India’s population to learn effectively by harnessing the power of affordable, accessible and high-quality ed-tech interventions. The 100 Cr fund will seed the capabilities of education-centric as well as skilling-focused organizations and accelerate their impact by helping them forge strategic partnerships and opening up distribution networks.
Provide Catalytic Funding
Fuel the next-gen of ed-tech social entrepreneurs through incubators & challenge grants and accelerate scale by collaborating with other ecosystem stakeholders.
Build Capacity
Leverage the ACT collective to support our portfolio organizations across key need areas like product & technology, network access, marketing, organizational development etc.
Generate Insights
Work closely with the portfolio and external researchers to create proof-points for ed-tech on effectiveness and impact on learning outcomes.
Our Portfolio
Frontier Markets
A tech-first startup that runs an assisted e-commerce platform which trains and equips a rural all-women's salesforce of ‘Sahelis’ to market and sell products / services to rural consumers through the ‘Meri Saheli’ app.
What We’re Looking For
If you’re a social entrepreneur building an innovative ed-tech solution for Bharat, we want to hear from YOU!
Here is a quick checklist that’ll help you understand what we’re looking for and whether your product / solution would be eligible to be evaluated for a grant:
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Tech First
Should leverage technology to expand reach, enable affordability and improve the user experience.-
Made For Bharat
Should be specifically designed to cater to the needs of children and young adults from low-income families. -
Evidence Of Learning Impact
Must have some demonstrated evidence of positively influencing learning outcomes. -
Potential For Scale
The model should have high potential for scale to millions of users over the next 3 to 5 years. -
Roadmap To Sustainability
Must have a clear roadmap to grow sustainably (either by generating revenue or fundraising effectively) beyond ACT’s support.
ACT Capital Foundation For Social Impact is a not-for-profit company incorporated and registered under Section 8 of the Companies Act, 2013. All donations made to ACT Capital Foundation are eligible for income tax deduction under Section 80G of the Income Tax Act.
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