page_title: Sunny Varkey
section_title: Varkey Foundation
hierarchical_section_title: Sunny Varkey / Career / Varkey Foundation
caption_attribution_description: Español: El presidente Mauricio Macri se reunió en Davos con Sunny Varkey, fundador de GEMS Education, una de las redes educativas más importantes del mundo. English: Sunny Varkey, founder of GEMS Education with Argentina's president Mauricio Macri
context_page_description: Sunny Varkey is a non-resident Indian, Dubai-based education entrepreneur and education philanthropist. He is the founder and chairman of the global advisory and educational management firm GEMS Education, which is the largest operator of private kindergarten-to-grade-12 schools in the world, with a network of over 130 schools in over a dozen countries. He is also the chairman of the umbrella business organisation the Varkey Group, and the founder and trustee of the philanthropic Varkey Foundation. As of 2012, Varkey is also a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador. And in June 2015, Varkey committed to The Giving Pledge, vowing to donate at least half of his money to philanthropic causes over his lifetime. He is the first education entrepreneur to join the pledge.
context_section_description: Varkey developed a habit of philanthropy from the example of his father and from his own strong spiritual values. In December 2010, he consolidated and structured his various donations and charitable initiatives by creating the Varkey Foundation (initially the Varkey GEMS Foundation) as the philanthropic arm of GEMS. The foundation intends to impact 100 impoverished children for every child enrolled at GEMS schools, via enrolment and education-access initiatives, worldwide teacher training programs, advocacy campaigns, and physical projects such as building classrooms, schools, and learning centres. Bill Clinton launched the foundation.
  In March 2011, the foundation partnered with UNESCO for girls' education in Lesotho and Kenya, and donated $1,000,000 to the effort. In September 2011, a further $1 million was pledged with UNESCO to train 10,000 school principals in India, Ghana, and Kenya. In 2014, the foundation's Teacher Training Programme committed to train 250,000 teachers within 10 years in under-served communities across the world.
  In 2013, the Varkey Foundation helped launch the annual Global Education and Skills Forum, in partnership with UNESCO and the U.A.E. Ministry of Education. Bill Clinton gave the inaugural keynote address. Varkey hopes the annual forum will become the "Davos of education". At the second annual forum in March 2014, Varkey announced the Global Teacher Prize, a $1 million award to an exceptional teacher who has made an outstanding contribution to the profession, to be presented at the third annual GESF in 2015.
caption: Argentine president Mauricio Macri met with Varkey (third from left) at the World Economic Forum in 2016.[39][40]
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