Children empowered to teach themselves thanks to innovative software prize winners
Currently, more than 250 million children around the world cannot read or write, and about one in every five children are out school.
Two joint prize winners of the Global Learning XPRIZE have been announced who want to change that. They have created scalable software that enables children to teach themselves reading, writing and arithmetic. One of the prize was tied to Kitkit School which is a game-based learning program aimed at helping children independently learn, irrespective of their knowledge, skills, and environment.
During the development process, Good Neighbours Tanzania piloted the programme with 3 primary schools, giving crucial feedback for improvement. Good Neighbours Rwanda introduced the learning console to primary schools in 2018 for further testing.
The Global Learning XPRIZE challenged innovators around the globe to develop scalable solutions that enable children to teach themselves basic reading, writing and arithmetic within 15 months. Five teams of selected finalists each received $1M to field test their education technology solution in Swahili, reaching nearly 3,000 children across 170 villages in Tanzania.
To help ensure anyone, anywhere can literate, improve upon, and deploy the learning solutions in their own community, all five finalists’ software are open source.
Anousheh Ansari, CEO of XPRIZE said
“Education is a fundamental human right, and we are so proud of all the teams and their dedication and hard work to ensure every single child has the opportunity to take learning into their own hands,”
“Learning how to read, write and demonstrate basic math are essential building blocks for those who want to live free from poverty and its limitations, and we believe that this competition clearly demonstrated the accelerated learning made possible through the educational applications developed by our teams, and ultimately hope that this movement spurs a revolution in education, worldwide.”
