Qatar Launches New Global Award to Promote Education

"The Qatar Foundation, presided over by the country's First Lady Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, has stepped in to create the world's first major international prize for education - one of the highest priorities of the U.N.'s eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which call for universal primary education by 2015. The new prize will reward an individual - or a team of up to six individuals working together - for an outstanding contribution in the field of education in a world dominated by digital technology - and inhabited by nearly 800 million illiterate people....While the Nobel prize winners receive a gold medal, plus 1.0 million to 1.4 million dollars (depending on the annual income of the Nobel Foundation), the Qatari award amounts to half a million dollars in prize money and a gold medal...."