New Delhi, India – 15 February, 2016: Microsoft India today announced the selection of 71 Innovative Educators and 20 Showcase Schools from Delhi NCR in the 2015-2016 class of Education Innovators. The program recognizes educators and schools who have integrated technology in everyday learning process, contributing towards transforming the education ecosystem in India. Chosen through a rigorous process of selection, these educators and schools are now part of Microsoft’s global community of 3,700 MIE Experts and 400 Showcase Schools.
The selected MIE Experts will get access to professional and career development opportunities and Certifications from Microsoft. They will be able to share their expertise with world-renowned educators and specialists to scale their innovations and will also be eligible to attend the Microsoft Global Educator Exchange Event (E2), Spring 2016, apart from other special events by Microsoft. The selected Showcase Schools will get an opportunity to collaborate and engage with Microsoft Showcase Schools around the world to learn best practices for transforming schools through technology.
“I am thrilled to welcome this group of passionate educators and schools who are using technology to drive real impact. By leveraging the power of technology, they are adopting new approaches to teaching and learning, and reinforcing critical 21st century skills in today’s youth. At Microsoft, we remain committed to supporting the education community to transform learning environments and deliver more personalized education to students, allowing them to achieve more,” said Pratik Mehta, Director – Education at Microsoft India.
Leveraging technology, the selected educators have created unique, impactful projects to provide a learning environment which is interactive, interesting and beneficial for students. Aakanksha Kochhar from DAV Public School, New Delhi, created an online community for students, teachers and parents to provide accessible learning material on a common platform, helping both parents and students to stay in touch with the ongoing syllabus. Another example is Anuradha Natrajan from Amity International School, Gurgaon, who created a project to educate and create awareness about the need for cleanliness. Similarly, Ekta Singh from DPS International, Gurgaon, worked on a project where students learned to use technology to create awareness about eye care.
Driven by the shared belief that the use of technology in education can help remove limitations, foster innovation, and enable students and teachers to achieve their fullest potential, Microsoft India’s education, skilling and entrepreneurship programs have touched over 5 crore people across 20 Indian states in the last decade alone.
Notes to the Editor:
Microsoft Innovative Educator (MIE) Expert is an exclusive program created to recognize global educator visionaries who are using technology to pave the way for their peers for better learning and student outcomes. These are experts who integrate progressive pedagogy with advanced technology to advance learning and better prepare students for the jobs of the future.
Microsoft Showcase Schools is a leadership-focused initiative to highlight innovative leadership and teaching across globally recognized schools through the use of technology to drive school-wide transformation and efficiencies. These schools are recognized leaders in personalized learning, amplified by 1:1 deployments effectively using Microsoft solutions (e.g. MS powered devices, Office 365, Office Mix, OneNote, Skype), to enable anywhere, anytime education for all students.
About Partners in Learning
Microsoft Innovative Educator Experts and Microsoft Showcase Schools are part of the company’s Partners in Learning (PiL) program. Through PiL, Microsoft introduces and fosters innovative approaches to pedagogy, actively supports teacher professional development, and provides education leaders with the tools to envision, implement and manage change. Known as Project Shiksha in India, PiL has trained more 7,60,000 government school teachers in IT skills in an effort to enable professional development for educators, impacting more than 38.2 million students. Learn more about this program here.
About Microsoft India
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) Microsoft is the leading platform and productivity company for the mobile-first, cloud-first world, and its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. Microsoft set up its India operations in 1990. Today, Microsoft entities in India have over 7,000 employees engaged in sales and marketing, research and development, and customer services and support across ten Indian cities – Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Gurgaon, Hyderabad, Kochi, Kolkata, Mumbai and Pune.