They Had A Million Dollar Idea About Better Day Care In Urban Slums

You can't blame Taylor Scobbie for being nervous. His team was a finalist for the $1 million Hult Prize.

The challenge — issued by the Clinton Global Initiative and the Hult Prize Foundationlast September — was for undergraduates or MBA students to design a project that would provide quality education to 10 million children under age six in urban slums by 2020. There were six teams that made it through to the last round, chosen from more than 20,000 applicants.

Each team had eight minutes to present its project to a panel of judges that included Nobel Laureate Muhammed Yunus and the former prime minister of Australia, Julia Gillard.

The ideas were impressive: a laundry center that doubles as a library where parents and children in South Africa can learn together while their washing is done; or"talking stickers" to put on household items so a low-cost hand-held electronic scanning device can make the objects talk, sing and read to children.

Team IMPCT's idea is to find investors who can help improve informal day care centers in urban slums, adding more educational efforts and increasing enrollment. The process will also turn local caregivers into small business owners who operate a franchise of sorts.

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