WorldReader Kindle initiative: Update

As I promised earlier .. I followed the Worldreader.org  initiative to distribute Kindles to children in rural schools in Africa. And I have to say I was impressed by their triall report and impact measurement.

Here is what went great:

• In the pilot study in Ghana, the organization used wind energy to generate the internet. Using satellite internet connection they were able to download books in 45 seconds 
• Students were very used to using cell-phones that they easily adapted to the new device
• To charge the Kindles, WR used solar-powered car batteries

Here are the challenges

• Durability! the device is quite delicate and can easily break in a harsh environment. I noticed in their videos that they started providing students with Kindle protective sleeves, which i'm sure is helpful in the short-run. But in order for this to be sustainable going forward, WR has to form some partnership with Amazon to provide a special version of the device
• Lack of local content providers 
• In my opinion, scalability will be an issue going forward as well. WR has been doing a good job in slowly implementing and learning from the experience. Just because this process worked in Ghana doesn't necessarily mean it will work the same somewhere else. They have to be strategic in their expansion and adapt to the different environments. And most importantly, learn from the training and implementation challenges of One Laptop Per Child going forward.

To read the full trial report go here, progress report here

Here is a short video of their trial in the village of Ayenyah, Ghana