HOUSE OVERSIGHT 019431 Calestous Juma, international development professor at the Kennedy school of government and a nominator, judge and promoter of new types of prizes, sees awards as part of a complex ecology of financing innovation that includes many other instruments. He believes there should be more prizes for humanitarian work and development. "Doing humanitarian work may look like a thankless job. Yet it is driven by the instinct of empathy that makes us human," said Juma, author of The New Harvest: Agricultural Innovation in Africa. "Honouring, rewarding, celebrating and inspiring work in this area is more needed today than ever. This is an area that can use more societal recognition, especially at a time when the whole aid industry is under scrutiny." However, Juma says prizes need to be carefully thought out. "Many organisations are launching them without thinking carefully about what prizes can do or cannot do." The AidEx challenge's lead judge, Michael Pritchard, inventor of the Lifesaver water bottle, says the award is not so much about the money— £2,000 — as validation, although the publicity can be a much-needed boost. "The validation goes an awfully long way to get the product developed and provides a big leg-up into getting it into the market," he said. "It gets written up all over the world and gets the oxygen of publicity." As for Thakkar, he says winning the AidEx award has been a positive experience: "Winning the award made a huge difference, it increased publicity. People look more favourably on us and [that] gives us an extra edge. We don't have to sell it as much. But we don't want to be just appreciated, we want the lamp to be used extensively." Back to top Education — Full text articles A Chance at Learning Ginia Bellafante — New York Times This year, a study administered by researchers at Harvard and Stanford drew significant attention for what it revealed about how inadequately low-income students are represented a