Rocket Learning Foundation, one of the eight organisations in 100x Impact Accelerator’s inaugural cohort, has won Google’s AI for Global Goals award. They will receive $1.5 million (about £1.2m) in grant funding and additional support from Google’s philanthropic arm – Google.org. This support is meant to supercharge their mission of ensuring pre-literacy and pre-numeracy skills for 50 million children in the next five years. Using cutting-edge AI, Rocket Learning Foundation is gearing up to pioneer a game-changing AI and machine learning model that is primed to drive behaviour change among parents and educators in low-income communities, leading to effective learning for children.

Vishal Sunil, Co-Founder and CTO of Rocket Learning Foundation, said; “Teaming up with Google is a game-changer for us. With Google’s strategic support, we’ll be able to turn our big dream of helping 50 million low-income Indian children become school and life-ready in five years into reality. Using AI, we’re transforming the ed-tech landscape from content generation to impact tracking.”

Rocket Learning Foundation has leveraged India’s increasing smartphone and internet penetration to develop an innovative approach that uses technology, media, and social influence techniques to connect the government education system with parents and communities. Through 200,000 digital classrooms, they deliver tailored, supplementary academic content to 1.7 million children across eight states in India.

With this strategic funding and partnership, Rocket Learning Foundation will be able to provide enhanced educational materials, revolutionise homework grading, and personalise learning experiences based on individual needs and interests, making education more efficient, engaging, and enjoyable.

Nell Lemaistre, Head of Programme at 100x Impact Accelerator, said; “This is an incredible achievement for Rocket Learning, and it’s a testament to their huge potential to unlock quality education at scale, using technology. Reaching 50 million children and transforming millions of low-income households through this partnership will be a huge milestone in Rocket Learning’s journey towards becoming a social unicorn, and we are honoured to be part of it.”

Google.org’s AI for the Global Goals Impact Challenge is part of Google’s commitment to help accelerate progress towards the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Rocket Learning Foundation is one of 15 organisations receiving support through the $25 million (about £20m) philanthropy challenge for projects that use artificial intelligence (AI) to accelerate progress towards these goals. Out of many submitted proposals, 15 were selected for funding. Importantly, all the projects will be open source so that other organisations can build upon their work.

James Manyika, Google’s SVP of Research, Technology & Society said; “Each of the 15 selected organisations share our vision for using AI to accelerate progress on the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, and each organisation brings their own expertise to help move the needle. We are inspired by the possibilities they see for how AI can be harnessed to help people solve societal problems and are excited about the collective impact they will have over the next three years.”