The Brookings Institute described a 100-year gap, the century it will take for the world’s poor children to achieve educational parity with the wealthy at today’s pace. Neither our world nor those learners can wait that long: We must find ways to close that gap quickly and efficiently, to allow all learners, educators, and educational systems to realize their full potential. In pursuit of this goal, Omidyar Network’s Education initiative began in 2009 to invest in education innovations with such “leapfrog” potential and in 2014, specifically focused some of our investments on interventions powered by technology. Omidyar Network has since invested more than US $150 million in promising global innovations in education across four continents. Our efforts have been inspired by public, private, and social sector education leaders, including bold entrepreneurs, who are unleashing the human potential of a generation of learners through “Equitable EdTech.” We have witnessed that Equitable EdTech models can bring students from several years behind to on grade level, while also supporting teachers and shifting the norm from teacher-centered instruction to student-centered learning. We are therefore hopeful that the power of technology, when thoughtfully employed, can serve as a great equalizer in delivering quality education. By enabling ubiquitous access and personalization, Equitable EdTech can close the gap for students while also empowering teachers to be more effective, especially when there is lack of access to highquality schools, high-quality teacher training, rigorous curriculum, or appropriate interventions. Additionally, recent evidence demonstrates that these models can be both highly impactful and cost-effective. | 
Realizing the power of Ed Tech
