Founded in 2007 by Shannon May and Jay Kimmelman, Bridge International Academies is one of the largest educational providers in Africa and India. With over two thousand schools that, depending on the context, operate as low-cost private schools or publicly funded - privately operated schools. Since it began operations, Bridge has educated over one million children.
The organization strives "to be the global leader in providing education to families who live on US$2 a day per person or less" and to address the education gap that, according to the Education Commission, affects over 260 million children worldwide who are not in school, and the 600 million children who are in school but are not learning.

Bridge's massively scalable educational solution is grounded on technology. With teachers using handheld learning devices - akin to Kindles - that provide them with pre-planned lessons and teaching guides designed based on national curricula. These devices also track children's progress and based on this, adjust to the needs of the class, to best support a learning environment for all students.

They have adapted their model from an initial low-cost private school approach - with monthly costs per student averaging $7 - to now mostly running public schools, which are funded through blended finance models or by national or local governments. These public-private partnership schools offer free high-quality education to students and an opportunity for countries to strengthen their public education systems.