The philanthropic organization WorldReader.org, whose aim is “to put a library of books in the hands of families worldwide, using e-reader technology,” just shared a very cool video with us. Enjoy.
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Helping Kids Around the World to Read, One Kindle at a Time
If you’re interested in helping to spread the magic of the Kindle Revolution around the world, you might be interested in this relatively new non-profit organization.
Worldreader.org is a Barcelona-based not-for-profit devoted to making digital books available to children in developing countries. Using emerging e-book/reader technology, the organization’s mission is to improve children’s lives. (Here’s a link to a short video, courtesy of YouTube, showing the children’s excitement.) Their promotional materials stress that e-book technology is “sharply reducing the cost and complexity of delivering reading material everywhere”.
The end-goal: to stimulate under-served youth internationally with “life-changing and power-creating ideas” in books published across the globe. Former Amazon.com executive David Risher is behind the project. His former boss, CEO Jeff Bezos, has praised Risher’s innovative philanthropic work.
The project has received attention from CNN, The Wall Street Journal, and The Huffington Post. In the July 5 article published by the Journal, Risher said that Worldreader.org is embracing the “long-term idea is that technology will ultimately help create a real culture of reading in parts of the world where that’s not been possible before.”
Risher and his colleagues are preparing for a year-long trial in Ghana, where the Ministry of Education has offered support, to determine the effects of e-book technology on the literacy of children. As they wage this e-campaign, Worldreader.org is underway building relationships with local African publishers and authors to digitize relevant content for Ghanaian communities.
For more information, visit Worldreader.org or go straight to the organization’s Donation Page.
Kindle Nation Daily Readers’ Alert for Saturday, May 22: The Editor’s Pick of the Week from Paul K. Biba at Teleread
For all who enjoy keeping up with the Kindle revolution and its various offshoots and tributaries, here’s our weekly portion of the top posts and insights as chosen by colleague Paul K. Biba, editor over at Teleread:
- Lunar Conspiracies and This Old BBS: Ancient Files Equals Good Reading! by Tony Bandy
- An Old-fashioned Book Drive! Please help make the Open Library Book collection even bigger.
- Good books that almost nobody has read; The Neglected Books Page
- Kindle software update 2.5 progress report by Andrys Basten
- Mom vs. Kobo, Week 1: Love! Threats! Evangelism! by Joanna
- The advantage of the Kindle platform (typed on my iPad)
- AmazonCrossing to publish translated foreign-language books by Andrys Basten
- iPhone/iPad e-book app review: iSilo
- How hungry is Japan for the Kindle? Perhaps there’s a clue here by Stephen Windwalker
- What I have on my iPad: an app by app review
- British children’s writer sells e-stories for Nintendo DS
The Kindle Reader
The Kindle Reader is just the kind of thing we need more, much more, of. It’s an intelligent, thoughtful, well-written blog maintained by Jan, a retired librarian and Kindle owner. She offers reviews on a wide variety of Kindle Edition books. My own preference would be for a few more indie and small-press titles, but Jan’s blog is well worth checking out. After all, I’m just glad she’s reading and sharing her findings. God knows she doesn’t need me or anyone else telling her what to read!