In 2020, Octava Foundation extended its vision and impact to include the Asia region. The Octava Social Innovation Fund is an index initiative under this mandate, focusing on supporting social innovation within the foundation’s two key domains:
Education and Student Finance
Addressing the Disadvantage Gap in Education as aligned to the UN Sustainable Development Goal for Education (SDG4) – ‘ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning for all’
Octava Social Innovation Challenge |
Solve is an initiative of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with a mission to solve world challenges. Solve is a marketplace for social impact innovation. Through open innovation Challenges, Solve finds incredible tech-based social entrepreneurs all around the world. Solve then brings together MIT’s innovation ecosystem and a community of Members to fund and support these entrepreneurs to help them drive lasting, transformational impact.
To find out more about Solve, please click here.
Vietnam – The OneSky Approach For Children of Migrants |
For most low-salaried working parents in Vietnam, the best option for childcare has long been home-based daycare providers. Often overcrowded, under-resourced, with poor facilities and little training – horror-stories regularly appear in the Vietnamese media.
OneSky aims to improve quality of care and educational outcomes for the young children of factory workers in Vietnam’s industrial zones. They operate a Early Learning Center located in Da Nang’s Hoa Khanh Industrial Park, providing early learning programs for children as well as parenting skills and early child development, responsive care and nurture training for adults.
The ELC currently serves 250 children a year with 55 teachers and 6 trainers managed by a local team. In addition to providing direct service, the center functions as a base for daycare provider training, parenting skills training, and the development of an e-learning platform dedicated to supporting the professional development of child care givers throughout the country.
Octava Foundation in partnership with Lorinet Foundation is supporting OneSky to pilot Home Based Care providers’ training, parenting classes, and online learning platform over the next 3 years to ensure that the curriculum, training methods and program structure are all perfected for optimum benefit of child outcomes and ease of replication.
80 home-based daycare providers in Da Nang had completed the OneSky 20-week training program by early 2019, reaching a total of 2,595 children and another 240 home based daycare providers are scheduled to complete the program by 2020.
Based on the success of the ELC and Da Nang training program, the Vietnamese government has requested OneSky to scale the training to Vietnam’s burgeoning industrial zones in 4 additional priority provinces over the next 3 years.
To find out more about OneSky, please click here.
Vision Unlimited |
Vision Unlimited provides access to learning and enrichment support for out-of-school children in Gurgram, India integrating the children into school system and providing after school learning support to ensure children continue to attend and attain at school.
Supporting solutions that ensure finance is accessible, affordable and available for students to complete their tertiary education.
Wedu |
Octava Foundation is proud to partner Wedu which is a women leadership development organisation whose goal is to build a world where half of all leaders are women.
Wedu supports women from Asia who demonstrate leadership potential and are committed to their personal and professional development. Wedu provides lifelong leadership development support and access to education financing through their flagship programmes: Introduction to Leadership, Global Mentorship Programme and access to student finance. Their programmes provide access to knowledge, opportunities, and support networks that the women need to build and develop leadership skills, achieve their goals, and fulfil their aspirations in the long run.
Through Octava’s partnership with Wedu over 3 years from 2021 to 2024, we hope to expand their reach from 1,000 to 1,500 in terms of Rising Stars, enable up to 30 women’s access to funding to complete their education, and expand their reach to 7 target countries (Vietnam, Cambodia, Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar). Wedu and Octava Foundation are united by a shared commitment to supporting education, enhancing employability and increasing social mobility.
If you are a professional looking for opportunities to enable young women to unlock their potential, you can sign up to be a mentor for Rising Stars here.
If you are a woman looking for leadership opportunities and mentors to support you in your education and career journey, you may find more information and sign up for the Introduction to Leadership program here.
VietSeeds Foundation |
VietSeeds is a non-profit organization committed to bringing equal access to college education for ALL students in Vietnam, regardless of socio-economics, geography, or background. They call themselves VietSeeds because their graduates are the seeds who are breaking the cycle of poverty within their own families to change their lives, serving their communities, providing a new generation of employees and leaders from diverse backgrounds, and accelerating positive change.
VietSeeds invests in high potential, underprivileged students who have demonstrated a deep commitment to education and strength of character in overcoming tremendous odds of poverty, hardship and neglect. They help each student realize his or her full potential by providing the scholarships, training and mentoring they need to succeed throughout their college years and beyond.
Octava Foundation has sponsored scholarships for 5 students with Vietseeds, and has supported a number of Vietseeds scholars with emergency grants as they faced financial difficulties during the Covid pandemic.
For more information about Vietseeds, please click on this link.