The Education Innovation Fund for India (EIFI) is a collaborative project between the HP Office of Global Social Innovation and the India Council for Integral Education (ICIE), an initiative of the Sri Aurobindo Society. The purpose of EIFI is to identify and collaborate with significant innovative ideas and projects in education that can be developed and scaled to the next level of operation, with the sponsorship of an EIFI Grant. The grants will be awarded to organisations and students.
Grants for non-profits/ educational institutions/ organizations
An organisation can apply for any one of the following two categories:
1 Crore Grant: This category will include projects that require funding of up to ₹1 crore. This is the largest grant amount being given to one organization by EIFI. Only one organization will be selected for this grant and it will be called the ‘Most Promising Project in Educational Innovation’.
15 Lakhs Grants: Projects that need funding of up to ₹15 lakhs will fall under this category. This grant will be given to 15 organisations.
The applications for both grants can be under one or more of the following sub-categories:
- Innovation in education
- Information technology
- Pedagogy
- Social process
- Replication of cutting edge innovations from other countries and culture
- Any other ‘out-of-box’ solutions
Proposal submissions can be for any of the following levels of education: Kindergarten, elementary, middle school, high school, undergraduate, post-graduation, PhD, laboratory schools, adult learning, distance teaching/learning and non-formal education.
For more information and details about the application process, check this page EIFI Grants for Organisations.
Grants for Students
This grant allows children and young adults to apply for grants by conceptualizing and creating breakthroughs in the field of education. Applicants can be individuals or a group of maximum five students. You will have to apply through your school or junior college. The two categories in this grant are Young Learners and Young Innovators.
Young Learners (11-14 years)
The individual projects will receive ₹11,000 while the group projects will get ₹20,000. Twenty grants will be given in this category.
The individual projects should be innovative and practical ideas that help address the basic issues in Indian education and make the education system more responsive, interesting and relevant. You can take up any /all of the issues listed below or anything else that comes to your mind.
- Lack of amenities – no drinking water, no proper school building, and inadequate teaching-learning infrastructure
- Shortage of qualified, well-trained teacher
- A rigid, information dominant syllabus
- Little or no scope for creativity, innovation and exploration
- Need for a more practical approach and relating school education to life
- Exam stress
- Assessment is largely information and exam based because of a larger number of students and other factors
For more information about this category and description of group projects, check this page EIFI Grants for Students.
Young Innovators (15-17 years)
Both individual and group projects will receive up to ₹1 lakh and twenty grants will be awarded in this category.
The individual project should be an innovative idea for an educational application program for mobile phones or computers. Examples of applications include word processors, database programs, web browsers, development tools, drawing, painting, image editing programs, and communication programs.
For more information about this category and description of group projects, click EIFI Grants for Students.
Fill the grant applications online at http://www.eifiaurosociety.org/applyonline/.
Deadline for applications is 15th December, 2011. Grants will be selected by a jury of prominent leaders in India’s education, government service and business management fields. Grant awardees will be informed by 15th February, 2012.
