The Aga Khan Foundation and the Atlassian Foundation partner through Schools2030 to increase support for teacher-driven innovations and peer-to-peer learning

07 October 2022
By Sarah James

The Aga Khan Foundation (AKF) is pleased to announce a new strategic partnership with the Atlassian Foundation, who will provide financial support as well as technical expertise to the Schools2030 programme over the next three years. The Atlassian Foundation seeks to improve educational opportunities for disadvantaged young people around the world so that they can achieve their potential and be well-prepared for the future of work. The Atlassian Foundation and AKF share a strong belief in the importance of holistic learning and in equipping young people with the knowledge, skills, attitudes and values they need to thrive and to be contributing members of society.

“To thrive in the future, young people will not only need strong foundational skills but also a broad set of skills and competencies ranging from social-emotional to technical. Young people today must be mentally and emotionally prepared for life-long learning and frequent adaptation to technological changes.”

Michelle Holmes, Atlassian Foundation Director, Educate 

The Atlassian Foundation is joining a consortium of funders who together make up the Schools2030 Donor Steering Committee, including LEGO Foundation, Jacobs Foundation, Wellspring Philanthropic Fund, Oak Foundation, USAID, Education Cannot Wait, Itau Social, Dubai Cares and Porticus. This dynamic group of partners share a common goal of raising holistic learning outcomes by supporting school-based, teacher-driven education innovation. The Atlassian Foundation is providing 500,000 USD annually to support two crucial workstreams for the Schools2030 programme:

  • Support for the design, testing and implementation of context-driven, holistic education innovations across 1000 government schools and youth centres across Schools2030’s ten countries
  • Support for the further development of Faved.org, an interactive repository of holistic learning innovations that allows teacher-to-teacher knowledge sharing across the ten programme countries

Schools2030 supports educators – teachers, school leaders and youth centre facilitators– to create context-relevant “micro-innovations” to improve core academic, social-emotional and 21st century skills. These innovations are created through human-centred design (HCD), the heart of Schools2030’s participatory approach to educational change. These innovations are funded through a flexible model of targeted funds that ensures educators have the resources they need quickly to support genuine improvement in learning and skill acquisition for children and youth, as well as for replicating the most promising innovations and taking them to scale.

The Atlassian Foundation’s support ensures that Schools2030 can continue to provide targeted support to education innovation across its programme countries. This also includes support for youth development partners, who focus on ensuring young women and men (age 15+) outside of formal education systems are equipped with the knowledge and skills they need to secure meaningful employment and establish positive livelihoods. Schools2030 works with approximately ten youth development partners in each programme country.

The Faved platform will transform how teachers easily share ideas for classroom improvements across borders and across a variety of contexts.

The Atlassian Foundation will also support the development and refinement of the Faved.org portal, an online/offline interactive repository of educator-designed holistic learning innovations, developed Schools2030’s technical partner, HundrED. Faved.org offers simple step-by-step guidance to help Schools2030 educators share their innovations and best practices, along with photos and instructions, so that other teachers can draw inspiration and learning from their peers across the world. The Faved.org database is searchable by skill, learning domain, age group and country so that educators and youth development leaders can search out, share and comment on innovations; in this way Faved.org will help nurture a growing community of practice among and beyond the Schools2030 network of educators.

It is hugely exciting that AKF and the Atlassian Foundation are partnering at a time when global education systems are working to recover from the setbacks of the pandemic and the various issues that have hampered the sector in recent times. The commitment will allow the Schools2030 programme to work towards strengthening these systems at this crucial time. Moreover, it will ensure an educator workforce that is more innovative, more adaptive and more resilient who can rise to the educational challenges of the 21st century.


Schools2030 is a ten-year participatory learning improvement programme based in 1,000 government schools across ten countries. Schools2030 supports teachers and students to design and implement education micro-innovations. These low-cost and scaleable innovations will inform and transform education systems to improve holistic learning outcomes for the most marginalised learners worldwide. Join the movement on TwitterFacebook, and LinkedIn.

The Atlassian Foundation focuses on maximising its impact through global education at scale to equip young people with the skills they need to thrive in the 21st century. The Foundation brings the best of Atlassian – funding, people and product – to unleash the potential of the world’s most impactful education innovators.