by Zev Lowe Part 2 of the Dr. Robert Ouko Memorial Community Library launch at the Menara Primary School in Kenya that includes the Worldreader Kit of 46 Kindles. Prior to the successful community launch and the following day, Worldreader kicked off our teacher training program. In addition to showing teachers how to use e-readers in … Continue Reading →
by Zev Lowe Background: This is a Worldreader Kit of 46 Kindles in a school in Kenya that we are launching with the Dr. Robert Ouko Memorial Community Library at the Menara Primary School. It is funded by the Gordons and their family/friends. The launch event was pretty grand. They had erected tents for the occasion (which they also … Continue Reading →
By Zev Lowe The iREAD launch marked the culmination of months of planning and preparation and it was very satisfying to watch everything come together. Many of the difficulties that we foresaw turned out not to be issues after all. We thought that the Primary students, who are just beginning to learn English, would have … Continue Reading →
Our iREAD project kicks off in less than 3 weeks! In the middle of next month, over 350 Ghanaian kids at three grade levels (Primary 4, Junior High 1 and Senior High 1) will get virtually unlimited access to books. Continue Reading →
A guest blog post by Christianna Pierce While many people enjoy portable e-readers as a convenient luxury, I believe e-readers have the potential to transform lives on an unprecedented scale. Here’s why: One of the greatest assets of the e-reader is the near-instant access it provides to thousands of books. Available topics range from … Continue Reading →
We’re looking to bring on a few high-level interns this summer. We have been spreading the word at a few business schools, and have received applications from a number of very promising candidates. With the deadline coming up in a week, we thought we’d also extend the opportunity to apply to readers of our blog. … Continue Reading →
by Zev Lowe We just posted a new video in which we discuss the challenges that we face moving forward — specifically, the need for electricity, the durability of e-readers, creating a mechanism of paying for content (without credit cards), and the ever important human component of developing a culture of reading. Big thanks go … Continue Reading →
by Zev Lowe A recent article in the New York Times mentions Kentaro Toyama, a research fellow at the University of California – Berkeley’s School of Information. Formerly of the Technology for Emerging Markets Group at Microsoft, Mr. Toyama speaks at U.S. universities about “technological utopianism” which lies on the myth that “technology is the … Continue Reading →
by David Risher On our third day of e-reader classroom trials here in Ayenyah, Ghana, we arrived at school to find that about one-third of the Kindles were down to very little remaining battery life— some had the little exclamation mark next to the battery indicator, while others had the dreaded “Critical Battery” message on … Continue Reading →
by Colin McElwee Today we started in earnest the first ever trials of e-readers in schools in Africa, and it is already clear that the acutely economically poor and humble children here in Ayenyah, are as ready to absorb this new technology as the kids we have worked with in Europe. And the reason is … Continue Reading →