It’s not surprising, then, that when Carlos Rodríguez-Pastor Persivale, the billionaire son of an elite Peruvian banking family, decided to expand his empire of restaurants and movie theaters by buying up a chain of for-profit English-language elementary schools, his first step was to contact IDEO and commission them to design everything: the buildings, the budget, the curriculum, professional development opportunities for teachers. The network is called Innova, and it’s on its way to becoming the largest private school system in Peru.
According to “ed tech community” edSurge, Innova is “more than just an example of how first-world ideas about blended learning and design thinking can be adapted in a developing country.” It aims to close the achievement gap, build Peru’s next generation of leaders, “and make a profit while doing so.”
Innova students use computer tutoring programs designed by Pearson and Sal Khan, a Gates Foundation protégé. (By now, Khan’s story is canonical among readers of the Harvard Business Review: in 2005, the former hedge-fund analyst created a simple computer program for practicing math problems and some instructional videos to help tutor his cousins remotely. These went viral on YouTube among parents looking for after-school enrichment activities for their children, including Bill Gates.)