This project will create a portable reading device – MyReadingTablet (MRT) – equipped with breakthrough WordSwitch technology, which will allow diverse learners to successfully navigate complex texts despite limited reading proficiencies. The hundreds of e-books pre-loaded on MRT will feature a variety of topics/genres to spark curiosity and maintain young children’s reading motivation. The most innovative aspect of the solar-power enhanced MRT is the reader’s ability to adjust the reading level of the e-books. Currently, most reading tablets offer unknown words to be clicked on and defined using an online dictionary, which is helpful for adult readers but somewhat impractical for beginning readers. Presently, there is no existing technology that provides for unknown words to be switched for another word, let alone a word of an easier readability with the same meaning. This aspect of MRT sets it apart from other devices and will revolutionize digital reading for beginning readers. (Note: This project originally won in the Big Ideas “Mobiles for Reading” category)
PINVoice is a communication platform that tackles the problem of wage arrears experienced by construction workers in China with an Interactive Voice Response system. By acting as a virtual intermediary between labor supplier subcontractors and construction workers, PINVoice allows labor supplier subcontractors to reach a much wider range of workers beyond current geographic constraints, and allows workers to connect with many more labor supplier subcontractors. The platform allows workers to diversify their employment options and not be limited to labor supplier subcontractors serving large contractors; through the platform, workers will also have access to small construction or renovation jobs with higher and more timely pay. Also, as a proxy though not a substitute for a written labor contract, the system will allow workers and subcontractors to use the IVR system to record a verbal agreement about terms of employment, which PINVoice will store on the platform for later review should disagreements about salary terms occur.
This project employs local teachers to create and teach reading materials that integrate Haiti’s mother-tongue language and native culture. At its core, it is a software application that enables writers to create books for beginning readers using a systematic phonics approach. Based on customized wordlists for sequential texts that start with the most basic letter-sound patterns and build to more complex ones, the app recommends or discourages words based on the level of reader the teacher is writing for. The books will be stored digitally on a server that students access with laptops. The project has selected Lascahobas, Haiti as its pilot location because several elementary schools there have already received laptops that are going unused. Teachers at three schools will use the app to produce books for a reading intervention program that they will then conduct over the summer. The process of creating books for their own classroom based on sound literacy acquisition principles will make them more capable of using these principles in their own classroom. (Note: This project originally won in the Big Ideas “Mobiles for Reading” category)
This project seeks to create a set of electronic training modules that can be taken by individuals who work with LGBT refugees and asylum-seekers anywhere in the world. These trainings would help eliminate inherent bias, misinterpretation, and discrimination present in these systems toward LGBT individuals. The modules would be made available in a variety of formats to ensure that compatibility issues do not hinder these efforts. The project would focus on NGO’s and government agencies in Texas and in Nairobi, Kenya because of the overwhelming need that has developed due to the political climate in that region. By establishing a non-profit in the U.S. with the sole purpose of developing this training program and getting it into the right hands, this project ensures that anyone working with refugees has the proper level of education to complete their jobs effectively. The program would serve the additional purpose of identifying those who are overtly discriminatory toward this population, and allow officials to steer LGBT refugees toward safer and more accepting environments. (Note: This project originally won in the Big Ideas “Conflict & Development” Category)
The urban arts centers of Nairobi, Kigali, Dar-es-Salaam, and Kampala are hubs for thousands of young and established visual artists, many of whom work in collectives or group studio spaces. The work coming out of East Africa is radiant and intelligent — it reveals slices of contemporary life from incisive, humorous and optimistic perspectives. It also varies widely in form; from painting, sculpture, and assemblage, to installation, photography, and digital media. Through on-the-ground fieldwork, this project plans to launch a one-month intensive documentation project in Summer 2015 to collect stories from the East African urban arts centers of Nairobi, Kigali, Dar-es-Salaam, and Kampala. These materials will be used to produce a series of short videos. The videos, photographs, and interviews will be presented together on the AfroArt East Africa website (www.afroart.us). An expansion of this project in the future will be used to assemble the short videos into a feature-length documentary, which will be presented in the United States, film festivals and other relevant venues.
Gyaan is an ecosystem for collaborative, inquiry-based, leveled reading that merges task-based and storytelling approaches to increase reading comprehension in early-stage readers. To build reading comprehension for early readers in an informal, collaborative, accessible way, the project will create a system that levels texts from existing mobile libraries and recommends them based on the reader’s ability. Within the reading experience, the system will model a Guided Reading lesson with various tasks that check comprehension and encourage collaboration and conversation. These tasks and the comprehension skills and strategies, which they seek to strengthen, will align to one or two sub-tasks tested in the Early Grade Reading System (EGRA), and the system will have the option to integrate with existing mobile assessment technologies for continuous monitoring of performance on these tasks. (Note: This project originally won in the Big Ideas “Mobiles for Reading” category)
The ubiquitous presence of mobile phones in Uganda presents an enormous potential to transform the lives of small-scale farmers if well leveraged. m-Omumilisa is a mobile and web based platform that allows farmers to interact with extension officers in their local languages effectively and efficiently. This platform allows a farmer to type text messages about any agricultural problem and sends it to a telephone short code. Then, the message will be delivered to a web-based database, where registered extension workers can reply correspondingly. Once the questions are answered, the answers will be instantly sent back to the farmer’s mobile phones.
