Worldreader

Worldreader

Founded	2010
Founder	David Risher, Colin McElwee
Type	Non-governmental organization
Focus	Creating education opportunities and reading cultures in Africa and Asia.
Location	San Francisco, California Barcelona, Spain Accra, Ghana Nairobi, Kenya
Area served	Africa, Asia, South America
Key people	David Risher, Colin McElwee
Slogan	Books for all
Mission	To unlock the potential of millions of people through the use of digital books in places where access to reading material is very limited.
Website	http://www.worldreader.org

Worldreader is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization with the mission of providing e-books to children and families in the developing world.^[1] The organization uses e-readers, mobile phones and other digital technology to reach readers in 53 countries, providing them with over 37,000 book titles in 43 languages. It works with 180 publishers to acquire and digitize compelling and relevant content for readers. Since 2010, Worldreader has reached nearly four million readers with e-books and has over 400 thousand monthly readers. It also works with donors, organizations, communities and governments to develop and digitize local and international books;^[2] it has digitized more than 5,000 titles from African and Indian publishers.

The organization is headquartered in San Francisco, California and has offices in Spain and two in Africa.

Impact

In its first five years, Worldreader has reached over 3 million readers in 53 countries with a digital library of over 37,000 local and international e-books via e-readers and mobile phones. Through an internet-connected mobile device, children and families can read e-books with the organization's reading application, called Worldreader Mobile. For schools and libraries in the e-reader program, the Kindles received give them direct access to materials, ranging from hundreds of local African textbooks and storybooks to world newspapers, and classic literature from around the world.

History

A student in a Ghana classroom reading from a Kindle with Worldreader co-founder David Risher.^[3]

Early in 2010, Colin McElwee and David Risher founded Worldreader and conducted a small trial in a 12th grade English class at Barcelona's Benjamin Franklin International School.^[4]

In March 2010, the team conducted a trial with 20 Kindles in Ghana.^[5] Shortly thereafter, Ghana's Ministry of Education granted permission to permit the organization to extend its work across the country.^[6]

In late 2010, the nonprofit secured several agreements with publishers in Ghana to digitize and ensure that local reading material be provided for students and teachers in the Worldreader programs. The non-profit also signed its first agreement with an international publisher, Random House, at the end of 2010.

On November 21, 2010, the organization received official approval from the US Agency for International Development (USAID) funding the evaluation of the Worldreader iREAD project. The agreement was made possible as part of USAID’s innovative Global Development Alliance program, enabling Worldreader to deliver 500 e-readers to six schools and conduct measurement and evaluation of its work of putting e-readers into kids' hands in Ghana.

The organization was incorporated as a Washington State non-profit corporation in March, 2010.^[7] The same month, it opened its first office in Barcelona. In 2012, the non-profit shared office space with the Internet Archive and in October 2012 opened its San Francisco branch.

Programs

Kindles and African Schools and Libraries

The nonprofit claims to have distributed 1.3 million digital books on 8,308 Kindle e-readers to children, families and communities in 12 sub-Saharan African countries including Ghana, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, South Africa, Zambia, Sierra Leone, Malawi and Zimbabwe. These Kindles have been distributed to 133 schools and libraries.

It distributes e-readers preloaded with books through partnering schools and libraries, using a program called a Worldreader BLUE Box. The organization provides technical and pedagogical training for local project managers and teachers and e-reader repair training for local businesses. They manage logistics and support in partnership with local governments, school systems, and related businesses.^[8]

For schools or libraries without access to electricity, the nonprofit has a solar product, called BB17, that gives schools and libraries the ability to charge and use e-readers. It can charge up to 200 e-readers and includes solar panels, USB hubs, LED lighting and adapters for mobile phones.

Mobile phones as digital libraries

Worldreader Mobile is a mobile reading application providing access to books, educational resources and health information to people with mobile phones.^[9] The nonprofit launched Worldreader Mobile in April 2012.^[10] The prevalence of mobile phone devices and cellular networks globally has helped Worldreader Mobile expand.^[11] There are 7.5 billion mobile subscriptions and 3.7 billion people in the world with a mobile phone; cellular networks reach more than 95 percent of the world's population.^[12]

Mobile phone users in nearly 70 countries use Worldreader Mobile^[13] and as of June 2015 Worldreader Mobile had more than 3 millions readers worldwide thanks its partnership with Opera Software,^[14] which promotes the mobile app on the Opera Mini browser in 34 African countries.^[15] The app is also available on Microsoft Windows Store, in Mozilla's Firefox Marketplace and Google's Play Store.

Worldreader Mobile’s library of over 37,000 e-book titles in 43 languages provide material for those learning to read, for students and teachers accessing educational materials and for those reading for pleasure. The Research from a 2013 Report by UNESCO,^[16] found that reading on a mobile phone increased reading time across all media. There were also benefits for children that were not of reading age, as one-third of readers in the developing world use their phones to read stories to children.

Digital Publishing in Africa

In 2010, the organization began collaborating with Sub-Saharan publishers EPP, Woeli and Sam Woode to offer content to students in their pilot study alongside public domain works and ebooks donated by publishers such as Random House. Building on the success of that project, it currently works with over 20 African publishers.

The nonprofit contends that their mission is two-fold: increasing access to books while spring boarding local publishers and authors into an international market. It makes content available in English and an array of local languages such as Kiswahili, Gikuya, Dholuo, Igbo, Luganda, isiXhosa, Twi, Kinyarwanda, Hindi and Marathi and this is possible without the high costs and other limitations with print. The nonprofit defrays digital start-up costs for local publishers, giving readers better access to relevant content, while simultaneously introducing publishers to new markets.^[17][18]

Partnerships

Clinton Foundation

In September 2014, the Clinton Foundation committed to providing more than five million people with access to digital books through mobile technology as part of the Clinton Global Initiative Commitment to Action.^[19] It has achieved this goal through its partnerships with biNu, Opera and Worldreader Mobile. It continues to work towards reaching more readers through key partnerships with Microsoft Mobile, Pratham Books, Kenya's Longhorn Publishing, and Penguin Random House.

The UN Refugee Agency (UNCHR)

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) conducted a Global Education Review in 2011, identifying limited supply of textbooks, teaching resources, and reading materials as a significant factor negatively impacting the provision of quality education in refugee contexts. In 2014, the UNHCR implemented a pilot focused on addressing educational resource needs in two refugee settlements of Tanzania.

UNESCO

Worldreader, in partnership with UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) and Nokia, completed a one-year research project that is one of the first, large-scale scientific studies of mobile reading in the developing world. The goal of this study was to understand mobile readers and determine key success factors for mobile reading initiatives to further the advancement of literacy. The study found that reading on mobile phones is convenient and affordable, that users are reading more and that they have improved attitudes toward reading.^[20]

Opera

Opera Software is promoting Worldreader's reading application to users in 34 sub-Saharan African countries. Since this partnership in May 2015, the number of Worldreader Mobile users increased to 5.6 million.

USAID

PRIMR is a study in cooperation with RTI International and USAID to assess the effectiveness of e-readers within the Primary Math and Reading (PRIMR) program in Kisumu, Kenya.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

In 2014, Worldreader, with the support of the Global Libraries Initiative at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, began researching the use of Kindles in libraries in the developing countries. The one year pilot, called Project LEAP, tested the use, function and adoption of e-readers in eight selected public libraries to determine how e-readers affect library patronage, communities, staff, policies and procedures. The primary impacts of the program included an almost threefold increase in library visits, from 10,442 to 29,023 patrons per month, 254 library-initiated community events and 84% of patrons reported reading more.^[21]

Amazon.com

On August 24, 2016, Amazon.com announced the Kindle Reading Fund that includes donating thousands of Kindle e-readers and supporting Worldreader's LEAP 2.0 library partnership in Kenya.^[22]

Governance

Worldreader is organized as a 501c3 charitable organization in the United States, and has received a Guidestar Transparency Seal. Its U.S. Board of Directors^[23] consists of: Peter Spiro, David Risher, Colin McElwee, Charles Brighton, Harrison Miller, Jim Bildner, Kartik Raghavan and Sue Sanderson. In Spain, the organization operates as a registered non-profit foundation validated by the Ministry of Education with the registration number 1361.

Co-founders David Risher and Colin McElwee lead the organization from Barcelona, Spain and San Francisco, California. A mix of private social investors, corporate sponsors, and government agencies including USAID funds the organization.^[24]

Studies

The organization conducts monitoring and evaluation for impact assessment, develops reading focused out-of-classroom activities and teacher workshops by working directly with communities and partner organizations. Its research shows that students in the e-reader programs improved 94% in mother tongue oral reading fluency after just 5 months, and girls in the e-reader programs improved twice as fast in oral reading fluency as girls in neighboring schools, closing an existing gender gap.^[25] The Worldreader iREAD 2 project was funded by an All Children Reading grant from USAID, World Vision and AusAid, aimed to improve early grade reading skills for students in Ghana. The project’s final repor,^[26] in November 2014, showed significant improvements in oral reading fluency, reading comprehension gains, significant impact among low-performing students and development of positive reading habits. Reading on Worldreader Mobile is particularly popular with women, who spend on average 207 minutes reading per month, compared to 32 minutes for men.^[27]

Project LEAP, a pilot program implemented by the organization in partnership with eight public and community libraries in western Kenya, and funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, examined the use of e-readers in selected libraries to determine how e-readers affect library patronage, communities, staff, policies and procedures. The primary impacts included a threefold increase in library visits, from 10,442 to 29,023 patrons per month, 254 library-initiated community events and 84% of patrons reported increased reading.^[28]

References