World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE)

The inaugural Prize was announced in Doha, Qatar, with the $500,000 (£310,000) award being given to Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, whose work has brought education to millions of children in impoverished families.

Sir Fazle, the first education "laureate", has worked across decades and continents to help communities to escape the quicksand of poverty and to gain skills and self-reliance.

Created in Bangladesh in 1972, his BRAC project - formerly the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee - is now claimed as the biggest non-governmental organisation in the world.

An estimated 10 million primary pupils have been taught in schools set up by Brac across 10 countries, in such tough territories as South Sudan and Afghanistan.

It's a vast operation, running more schools in Bangladesh than the entire English school system, and it is claimed to be the "largest private, secular education system in the world".

This WISE summit wants to be a kind of Davos for education, bringing together the great and the good to hear about innovation in schools and universities.

It's supported by the Qatar Foundation, which has the succinct ambition to "convert the country's current, but temporary, mineral wealth into durable human capital". This translates as investing heavily in education and becoming a knowledge hub so that there's something of value left when the oil revenue eventually runs out.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15546976