Worldreader

Kindles and African Schools and Libraries

Worldreader distributes e-readers preloaded with books through partnering schools and libraries, using the non-profit's e-reading solutions. The organization provides technical and pedagogical training for local project managers and teachers and e-reader repair training for local businesses. They also manage logistics and support in partnership with local governments, school systems, and related businesses.

For schools or libraries without access to electricity, the non-profit has a solar product, called BB17, that gives schools and libraries the ability to charge and use e-readers.

As of September 2016, the non-profit has distributed 24,725 Kindle e-readers to 159,817 people including children, families and communities in 12 sub-Saharan African countries.

Mobile phones as digital libraries

The Worldreader Open Library is Worldreader's mobile reading application providing worldwide access to books, educational resources and health information to people with mobile phones. The non-profit launched Worldreader Open Library in April 2012.

As of December 2016 the Worldreader Open Library had more than 4.5 million readers worldwide, largely due to its partnership with Opera Software, which promotes the mobile app on the Opera Mini browser in 34 African countries. The app is also available on Microsoft Windows Store, in Mozilla's Firefox Marketplace and Google's Play Store.

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 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.

Studies

The organization conducts monitoring and evaluation for impact assessment, develops reading focused out-of-classroom activities and teacher workshops by working with communities and partner organizations. Its research shows that students in the e-reader programs improved 94% in mother tongue oral reading fluency after 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. 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 report, 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. Worldreader has shown that reading from the Worldreader Open Library is particularly popular with women, who spend on average 207 minutes reading per month, compared to 32 minutes for men.

Project LEAP, a pilot program implemented by Worldreader 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.