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The world today has many problems.

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And they're all very complicated[br]and interconnected and difficult.

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But there is something we can do.

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I believe

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that girls' education is the closest thing[br]we have to a silver bullet

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to help solve some of the world's[br]most difficult problems.

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But you don't have to take my word for it.

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The World Bank says

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that girls' education[br]is one of the best investments

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that a country can make.

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It helps to positively impact

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nine of the 17 Sustainable[br]Development Goals.

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Everything from health,[br]nutrition, employment --

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all of these are positively impacted[br]when girls are educated.

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Additionally, climate scientists[br]have recently rated girls' education

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at number six out of 80 actions[br]to reverse global warming.

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At number six, it's rated higher[br]than solar panels and electric cars.

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And that's because[br]when girls are educated,

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they have smaller families,

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and the resulting reduction in population

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reduces carbon emissions significantly.

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But more than that, you know,[br]it's a problem we have to solve once.

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Because an educated mother[br]is more than twice as likely

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to educate her children.

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Which means that by doing it once,

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we can close the gender[br]and literacy gap forever.

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I work in India,

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which has made incredible progress

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in bringing elementary education for all.

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However, we still have[br]four million out-of-school girls,

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one of the highest in the world.

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And girls are out of school[br]because of, obviously poverty,

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social, cultural factors.

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But there's also this[br]underlying factor of mindset.

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I have met a girl[br]whose name was Naraaz Nath.

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Naaraaz means angry.

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And when I asked her,[br]"Why is your name 'angry'?"

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she said, "Because everybody[br]was so angry when a girl was born."

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Another girl called Antim Bala,

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which means the last girl.

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Because everybody hoped[br]that would be the last girl to be born.

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A girl called Aachuki.

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It means somebody who has arrived.

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Not wanted, but arrived.

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And it is this mindset

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that keeps girls from school[br]or completing their education.

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It's this belief that a goat is an asset

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and a girl is a liability.

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My organization Educate Girls[br]works to change this.

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And we work in some[br]of the most difficult, rural,

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remote and tribal villages.

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And how do we do it?

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We first and foremost find

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young, passionate, educated youth[br]from the same villages.

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Both men and women.

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And we call them Team Balika,

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balika just means the girl child,

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so this is a team that we are creating[br]for the girl child.

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And so once we recruit[br]our community volunteers,

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we train them, we mentor them,[br]we hand-hold them.

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That's when our work starts.

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And the first piece we do[br]is about identifying every single girl

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who's not going to school.

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But the way we do it[br]is a little different and high-tech,

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at least in my view.

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Each of our frontline staff[br]have a smartphone.

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It has its own Educate Girls app.

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And this app has everything[br]that our team needs.

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It has digital maps of where[br]they're going to be conducting the survey,

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it has the survey in it,[br]all the questions,

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little guides on how best[br]to conduct the survey,

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so that the data that comes to us[br]is in real time and is of good quality.

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So armed with this,

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our teams and our volunteers[br]go door-to-door

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to every single household[br]to find every single girl

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who may either we never enrolled[br]or dropped out of school.

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And because we have this data[br]and technology piece,

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very quickly we can figure out[br]who the girls are and where they are.

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Because each of our[br]villages are geotagged,

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and we can actually[br]build that information out

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very, very quickly.

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And so once we know where the girls are,

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we actually start the process[br]of bringing them back into school.

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And that actually is just[br]our community mobilization process,

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it starts with village meetings,[br]neighborhood meetings,

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and as you see, individual counseling[br]of parents and families,

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to be able to bring the girls[br]back into school.

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And this can take anything[br]from a few weeks to a few months.

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And once we bring the girls[br]into the school system,

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we also work with the schools

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to make sure that schools[br]have all the basic infrastructure

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so that the girls will be able to stay.

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And this would include[br]a separate toilet for girls,

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drinking water,

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things that will help them to be retained.

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But all of this would be useless[br]if our children weren't learning.

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So we actually run a learning program.

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And this is a supplementary[br]learning program,

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and it's very, very important,

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because most of our children[br]are first-generation learners.

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That means there's nobody at home[br]to help them with homework,

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there's nobody who can support[br]their education.

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Their parents can't read and write.

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So it's really, really key

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that we do the support[br]of the learning in the classrooms.

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So this is essentially our model,

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in terms of finding,[br]bringing the girls in,

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making sure that[br]they're staying and learning.

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And we know that our model works.

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And we know this because

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a most recent randomized[br]control evaluation

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confirms its efficacy.

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Our evaluator found[br]that over a three-year period

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Educate Girls was able to bring back[br]92 percent of all out-of-school girls

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back into school.

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(Applause)

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And in terms of learning,

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our children's learning[br]went up significantly

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as compared to control schools.

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So much so, that it was[br]like an additional year of schooling

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for the average student.

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And that's enormous,

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when you think about a tribal child[br]who's entering the school system

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for the first time.

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So here we have a model that works;

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we know it's scalable,

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because we are already functioning[br]at 13,000 villages.

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We know it's smart,

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because of the use of data and technology.

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We know that it's[br]sustainable and systemic,

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because we work in partnership[br]with the community,

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it's actually led by the community.

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And we work in partnership[br]with the government,

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so there's no creation[br]of a parallel delivery system.

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And so because we have[br]this innovative partnership

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with the community,[br]the government, this smart model,

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we have this big, audacious dream today.

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And that is to solve[br]a full 40 percent of the problem

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of out-of-school girls in India[br]in the next five years.

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(Applause)

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And you're thinking, that's a little ...

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You know, how am I even thinking[br]about doing that,

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because India is not a small place,[br]it's a huge country.

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It's a country of over a billion people.

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We have 650,000 villages.

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How is it that I'm standing here,

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saying that one small organization

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is going to solve a full[br]40 percent of the problem?

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And that's because we have a key insight.

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And that is,

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because of our entire approach,[br]with data and with technology,

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that five percent of villages in India

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have 40 percent[br]of the out-of-school girls.

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And this is a big,[br]big piece of the puzzle.

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Which means, I don't have to work[br]across the entire country.

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I have to work in those[br]five percent of the villages,

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about 35,000 villages,

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to actually be able to solve[br]a large piece of the problem.

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And that's really key,

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because these villages

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not only have high burden[br]of out-of-school girls,

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but also a lot of[br]related indicators, right,

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like malnutrition, stunting,[br]poverty, infant mortality,

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child marriage.

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So by working and focusing here,

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you can actually create[br]a large multiplier effect

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across all of these indicators.

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And it would mean

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that we would be able to bring back[br]1.6 million girls back into school.

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(Applause)

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I have to say, I have been[br]doing this for over a decade,

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and I have never met a girl[br]who said to me,

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you know, "I want to stay at home,"

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"I want to graze the cattle,"

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"I want to look after the siblings,"

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"I want to be a child bride."

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Every single girl I meet[br]wants to go to school.

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And that's what we really want to do.

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We want to be able to fulfill[br]those 1.6 million dreams.

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And it doesn't take much.

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To find and enroll a girl[br]with our model is about 20 dollars.

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To make sure that she is learning[br]and providing a learning program,

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it's another 40 dollars.

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But today is the time to do it.

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Because she is truly[br]the biggest asset we have.

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I am Safeena Husain, and I educate girls.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)