“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” ― Mahatma Gandhi

Education is definitely the most empowering force in the world. It creates knowledge, builds confidence and breaks down barriers to opportunity. For children, it is their key to open the door to a better, fulfilled life. However, it is a sad reality of our world today that millions of children never receive this key. They are destined to stay locked in cycles of disadvantages and poverty.

Malala described this heart-wrenching situation best when she said: “In some parts of the world, students are going to school every day. It’s their normal life. But in other parts of the world, we are starving for education … its like a precious gift. Its like a diamond”.

While poverty is a major reason for children's inaccessibility to education, other factors such as teaching methods, learning challenges and related matters continue to obstruct a child's education. This cannot go on.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is making a huge impact to make this world a better place to live in. The Gates Foundation, along with Chan Zuckerberg Initiative have announced a joint initiative to explore how accelerated research and development might advance transformative solutions for improving education.

The goal is to break down the walls between education research and schools to create a more transparent path for new ideas to reach teachers and students. This initiative will pay specific attention to students facing learning challenges, early childhood trauma and dislocation. It will also focus on poverty and under-resourced schools. Teaching methods for math and writing will be focused on to improve while also gaining a better understanding of how a child’s brain functions.

"We know that many ideas and new approaches for improving student learning already exist among universities, schools, curriculum developers, teaching communities and entrepreneurs," the initiative's overview states. "Learning is complex and requires many ways to support every student and their teachers and families along their path. Our goal is to uncover these ideas and bring the right groups of researchers, developers and practitioners together to pursue their development and validation."

“The reason our two philanthropies have decided to join hands in this effort is simple: We believe the scope and importance of this work exceeds what any single organization can or should undertake alone,” Jim Shelton of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and Bob Hughes of the Gates Foundation said in a joint statement. “There’s so much unrealized potential to accelerate student learning and we hope many others will be inspired to collaborate toward this same goal alongside us.”

The initiative is in its exploratory stage and is yet to start any projects. It is seeking information from all sectors, including technology, medicine, educations, academia and business.