Vicky Colbert
Vicky Colbert is founder and director of Fundación Escuela Nueva and co- author of the Escuela Nueva educational model, worldwide known for its proven effectiveness in improving the quality of education. She has developed, expanded and sustained this innovation from different organizational spheres: as the first Escuela Nueva National Coordinator, Director of Distance Education in Javeriana University, ViceMinister of Education of Colombia, UNICEF’s Regional Education Adviser for the LAC region and now, from Fundación Escuela Nueva, a nonprofit she founded in 1987 to ensure the quality and sustainability of the Escuela Nueva model in Colombia and abroad, and to further adapt its proven, cutting-edge pedagogy to new contexts and populations. Under her leadership, FEN has adapted the Escuela Nueva model to urban settings (1987) and for migrant, displaced populations in emergency situations (2001) and recently was ranked 42nd by The Global Journal among the Top 100 Best NGOs worldwide.
She has been recognized as an Outstanding Social Entrepreneur by Schwab Foundation and by Ashoka. She received the World Technology Award in Social Entrepreneurship (2005), the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship (2006), the first version of the Clinton Global Citizenship Award (2007). In 2009 she was awarded with the Qatar Foundation ́s WISE Award for her efforts in education for pluralism and in 2011 received the Kravis Prize in Leadership. She was honored as the 2013 WISE Prize for Education Laureate from the Qatar Foundation.
She completed her undergraduate Sociology degree in Javeriana University in Colombia and earned two M.A. ́s in Sociology of Education and Comparative International Education from Stanford University in the United States.
