Vicky Colbert is an internationally renowned innovator in the education field, and the founder and co-author of the Escuela Nueva program. While working with rural teachers and the National Ministry of Education in the 1970's, Vicky became acutely aware of the challenges and frequent neglect facing schools in the Colombian countryside. In 1975, she founded Escuela Nueva as a way to build a stronger relationship between schools and the communities they're a part of, using proven pedagogical techniques to facilitate the formation of values, democratic attitudes and participation. Following the spectacular results of the pilot programs, the EN model was adopted as national policy that reached about 20,000 of Colombia's rural schools. Over the following decades, the success of the model inspired further implementation in countries throughout Latin America, and other parts of the developing world, and has served as a model for education reform efforts in more than 35 countries. An Ashoka Senior Fellow, she also has been recognized as an Outstanding Social Entrepreneur by the Schwab Foundation, and is a winner of the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship. She received the first-ever Clinton Global Citizenship award, and has been selected as one of the 100 most influential women of Colombia’s history. Colbert completed her undergraduate at Javeriana University in Colombia, and a dual-master’s in Sociology of Education and Comparative International Education from Stanford University.
