Latest / WHAT I'VE LEARNT / Beyond Words - March Episode Highlights (2023)

Transcript

Beyond Words - March Episode Highlights (2023) · WHAT I'VE LEARNT

• 0:05
  SPEAKER_03: The driving force behind Literacy Planet is motivating students to discover the joy of learning through the power of great storytelling and gamified learning experiences.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_03: Just as the world's most popular films and games are driven by compelling narratives, Literacy Planet's storybooks emerge created in a captivating world of fun, fantasy, and wonder.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_03: This is where learning becomes meaningful and memorable, inspiring children to connect with their own writing in imaginative and creative ways.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_03: Well, Tom, welcome to the Beyond Words World Literacy Podcast.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_03: I'm so happy to talk to you because I think, other than a wonderful name that you have for your brand, I think it's a really interesting concept.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_03: And you have 247,000 students using it in 900 schools in 80 countries.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_03: That's pretty impressive.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_03: Talk to me about how this came to be and where this um concept emerged from.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_02: Sure, sure.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_02: Look, thanks for the question.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_02: Dick, I can't take the credit for starting this business.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um this is a brainchild of Shane and started a business 10, 12 years ago.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_02: And it was um really, I mean, the whole drive was very much a personal drive that the the way children will learn and literacy could be done so much better and made and much more equitable and accessible.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um to all of those um children who may not be in traditional schools, may not have access to um great teachers, and may not have access to great, but still didn't want to be disadvantaged.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_02: So that's where the drive started from.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_02: And I think the the key was to put the classic literacy curriculum to make it a rile, but make it fun.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_02: Make it fun.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_03: And kids love fun, yeah.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, they need fun, they love fun, and it engages them.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_03: And that's what I love about this, is that it's because literacy sometimes feels very daunting to young people who haven't had access to it.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_03: It's it's you know, it's a little scary.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_03: So what you try yeah, you you you've this this concept demystifies a little bit and makes it enjoyable.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_02: You see, you take the scaffolding of um of literacy and then it does look scary, right?
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_02: And it's strand and phonics and grammar of punctuation and spelling, when you and then you put a big curriculum together and then but they're all laddered, and it does look overwhelming.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_02: So, how do I take that structure and that discipline but wrap it into something that kids love, particularly kids age four to fourteen?
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_02: And kids age four to fourteen and their attention span, I think we all know what that's like.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_02: That's not getting any better.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_02: And you're also competing a lot more now.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_02: Those four to fourteen-year-olds, as you know, um, have got a lot of demand on their attention, devices and and it's shortened.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_02: It's colorful and it's narrated.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_02: And if you can't capture their attention and their imagination, you're gonna struggle to really help develop underlying skills.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_02: So that's where you try and strike that balance of being fun and being engaging, but also delivering outcomes against national people.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_02: That's the balance.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_03: I think that's interesting what you just said, but the notion of competing, how do you do that?
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, well, I think it there's a couple of different ways, but you've got to keep up with the things that the other things that they're doing.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_02: The kids for 14, then they're playing games online.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_02: They socialize in online, they're using TikTok, they're using um a variety of different technologies to flavor over people to learn.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_02: And if you don't keep up with that, and the experience doesn't keep up with that, then you lose the competition, you lose their attention because they'll so easy to flick to something else.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I I know I've got children myself, much older now, but I know what you're talking about.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_03: It's a very it's a really interesting space because maybe 20 years ago that wasn't a challenge for literacy, but now it's become completely um embedded in our cultural and the way that we operate.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_03: All the schools, the kids, they all have their phones, they have access to everything.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_02: For us in the game, it's a movie type.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's um it gets the experiences and and the even if you talk about the UI and the UX and the design and that and that customer centricity of the imagery that's used, um, even that is progressing day by day by day by day.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_02: And you have pretty large Silicon Valley-based organizations who are disrupt or investing billions of dollars into software.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_02: That's what kids are using.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_02: And if that is if your the experience that you're providing is not with that, you're gonna lose them really quickly.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_02: Now, the extreme case of that is kids get bored at school.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_02: They're just bored.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_02: Things don't happen fast enough, it's not engaging enough, there's no narrative, there's no gamification on board and they check out.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_02: If you build software that looks old, looks ugly, that doesn't have gamification, and you're trying to get a child who's 10 years of age to engage with it when they've got all this shiny stuff happening out here.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_02: I reckon you're gonna be pushing it pretty hard.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um, particularly if it didn't smell like it's got a structure behind it with pushing that.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, they're just gonna repel that because it's it looks too scary, daunting, and serious, and they don't want to uh look like a teacher.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_03: Uh they don't want to get don't want to be taught or structured in that way.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_02: And you can't and you also can't design something that you and I would like to use necessarily.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_02: Because it's we're not the type of audience.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_02: So we if we designed it for us, it wouldn't be cool and it wouldn't be engaging for kids.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_02: So the key is how do you put a four or fourteen-year-olds lens on and design and build environments and characters and narration and leaderboards and interactions and even the the way that you engage with the the system and the way that you've slid things and move things, it's all going to be conducive to a child.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_02: But also not just a child, any child.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_02: So it depends on whether they're colourblind or whether they've got any kind of other auditory issues or whatever, whatever it might be, trying to make it so it's equitable and fair, no matter what the child is and where they are, um, so they can access it.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_02: And then depending on you know what device they use.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_03: Because they don't all have yeah, they don't all have access to certain things.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_03: So that's also so there's also i issues of economic status and whether they've got access to certain things and how you can reach them and give them opportunity no matter what their economic position.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_02: So in the game we talk about being accessible, right?
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_02: Which essentially any child should better use it, but also agnostic, agnostic to any browser, any device.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_02: So there's no reason why uh a child ends living in poverty in the middle of Delhi or in either in rural uh China shouldn't be able to have the same opportunity to learn literacy as uh a high class student in New York in a private school, yeah.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_02: There's should be a difference in arduo.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_02: So we try and make it um the opportunity available and equitable to anyone in Manuel.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_03: So the universality of what you're offering is is sort of really the linchpin in that you make it so that it is accessible across the globe to all different types of of children.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_03: Do you find that so so from a logistics perspective, can you just take me through, walk us through the design concepts?
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_03: Where do they come from?
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_03: How do you do you use existing curriculums as a base for the literature, yeah, for the story verse?
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_03: Or I love the term too, storyverse.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_03: It's just wonderful.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_03: It's such a it's really it's got a sense as if you're sort of maybe watching a Disney movie, but actually not.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_02: So I sort of like the well then again, all credit goes to the creative team, the education team.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_02: They um they they need to uh think about ways to present you know what is really the way the information is presented and communicated, it's really sits in their world.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_02: So um yeah, they've done certainly take the credit for that.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_02: But as far as your question goes, um and there's just one thing I'm really excited about.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it uh the business started here in the Gold Coast in Australia.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_02: And could have been designed with a lens of let's just serve the Australian market.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_02: Could have been designed that would have been simpler.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_02: But again, full credit to teens before me where their aspirations were much larger.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_02: And also their design principles were much larger than their intent was equitable flowing.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_02: So what that means then is that you need to be able to think about design in such a way that if you're in the US you have a different curriculum.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_02: Or curriculum call it.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_02: If you're in the UK, you have a different curriculum.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_02: If you're in international schools in Singapore again, depending, you may have a US, you may have a UK, you may have a blend.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_02: So the first thing is to really mat all the curriculum around the world that really addresses the main education systems that children will be required to fully.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_03: So sorry, is that is that just to understand that, so does that mean they are often universal concepts that you can present, or do you need to tap each one?
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_02: Tap each one.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_02: So you have four pieces, and there's core elements, but then you have to map it to curriculum structures which relate to the country in which you're in.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_02: And then some countries they even have different ones by state.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_02: Like in the US, it's different by some of the states are different, right?
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_02: So the one of the big jolles is to say want to break literacy down in little pieces and then map those little pieces to the curriculum.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_02: Because a year two in the US will will have different ways of talking about literacy and structuring it, and then year two in UK.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_03: Very it's extraordinarily um bold and innovative because that must be uh quite a challenge, just even without the animation, without the all the layering of technology.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_03: The notion like just getting that that correct.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_03: So do you work with the local with the governments or do you work with private?
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_03: How does that yeah?
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_02: So there's a couple of these, because not just getting correct once, it's every piece of new content that needs to be mapped.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, that's huge.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_02: So it's a periodic process.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_02: So we work with independent bodies, and yeah, it's not this is an inexpensive thing to do.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_02: We organizations, depending on the country, we provide independent audits and reviews to make sure that we're mapping appropriately, and that when someone completes a mission or an activity or a task in the R platform and it gives them a level of proficiency rating, that lines up and corresponds to that proficiency rating in the national curriculum.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_02: So we can say hand on heart that if you have done this and you have and you've successfully completed an X, you will be proficient in that element of the curriculum that you will be assessed against.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_02: When we do, like in Australia, we do a NAPLAN, there's NAPLANs all around the world, just call different things, that you'll be aligned to your national diagnostics.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_02: So again, not an insignificant piece of word, but the key there too is to make that invisible.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_02: Kids don't want to see that.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_03: No, they don't.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_03: And in fact, you know, just say the word NAPLAN, a lot of them run it mile.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_03: They you know, I mean, uh even though I know that's not what it is, is it?
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_03: But conceptually, I know it that's what you're saying.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_02: They had fun, but at the end of the day, they're they're being assessed.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_02: Their class and their school, and it's got to be going up on the next response.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_03: And so, in terms of the logistics of that, two questions.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_03: How is that funded?
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_03: Because that must be very expensive to run, and and I'm assuming that there's private and government support.
• 13:12
  unknown: Yep.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_03: If that's correct, yeah.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so we we actually fund it ourselves, so we pay for that.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um that service of the individual organizations that do the audits.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_02: It's pretty a ticket to play, is you have to have that.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_03: The country has to have that.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and then as a product of rule, we have to have that endorsement because schools won't waste their time and teachers won't waste their time or their money, provided the those that live with the outcomes.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_02: And they've got limited budgets, yeah, very limited.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_02: And time.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe the main problem and teachers is time.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_02: They actually they can't waste time with products that don't have demonstrable outcomes that can be proven against the curriculum in which that teacher and that school is being assessed.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_02: They just don't have time.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_02: If it's a if it's considered a game that doesn't have those outcomes, so I'm gonna know about it.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_02: I want to start off.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_02: This is the job I need to do.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_02: How can your platform help me do it?
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_02: But at the same time, how can we have it so that kids love it?
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_02: So they ask for it, so I'm not having thoughts and dead music.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_03: So getting it into the schools in the first place, all the countries, let alone, I'm assuming it started in Australia initially, is that good?
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's been pretty lot of shoe leather, really, to start with.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's start the I mean the way that this is changing over time, but how it started was literally door to door, door to school.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_02: Teacher to teach it, check it out, what do you think?
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_02: Have a trial, have a demo, see how it works, if you're happy with it.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, then we'll try and negotiate something commercial that makes sense so that we can pay for the content, we can pay for things we have to pay for.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_02: That's how it grew.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_02: And it literally started close to where the business started because it was easier to walk down the road.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_02: So Queensland, you know, Gold Coast, Queensland, Boom Bong, and then some of those teachers would go overseas, so the world would go out overseas, or we'd use some marketing overseas.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_02: Nah, many then what it Google ad or something.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then people further searching for because I mean the need is massive.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_03: Massive.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, just the statistics are just quite alarming and overwhelming.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_03: And the problem is so big.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_03: And one of the things I was reading about is how critical collaborative connectivity is to dealing with this literacy issue.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_03: That is, that countries and people working universally, it's critical to really try and maximize outcomes because it's just so monolithic that people can't tackle it like without support.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_03: So logistically, can I just understand something?
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_03: So let's say, and I I love that expression, you know, the way you describe it goes out door to door and it just built organically, but clearly moving into new countries took on a new um challenge, I have no doubt.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_03: So once you had credibility here and you got support, then moving into other countries, how difficult was that?
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_03: And was it like you give them a prototype and does it dovetail with their existing curriculum?
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, good person.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_02: So, yeah, so the expanding um internationally for an Australian ed tech company isn't east, right?
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_02: It's not where we are a long, long away and we're on an island, and it's um where and we're from a small population.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_02: And we're not seeing necessarily vote was Darwin's the harbor of ed tech activities.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_02: So working with you know Australia and Garriott's partners and again just trying anything possible to get the word out because we know that the needs everywhere, right?
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_02: I think you know the World Literacy Foundation saying that 750 million people are still illiterate, right?
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_02: It's a massive number.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_02: Massive.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so we know that to have a meaningful impact, um, we've got to get outside of Australia.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um, there's 10,000 schools in Australia.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_02: For us, you know, we're we know there's 200,000 schools in the US and the UK, right?
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_02: So so it's the scale is somewhat bigger.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_02: So really focusing in on on at the moment, we are focusing on those two um geographies, the US and the UK.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_02: How can we um via what we do and look growing and build Australian dog credibility on how can we now export that effectively um by one, making sure it absolutely aligns to the group joints?
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_02: Check with that.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_02: Two making sure it's all the audio and the language is all aligned, then you've got to have the wrong accents and you've got to add Z's and the S's all stops.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, the Z's and the S's.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, that used to, yeah, we'll look at the strain.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we can't all that sort of ruin.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_02: And then there's a whole lot of um technically stuff behind the scenes around the security standards.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_02: Again, children need to be really careful about security.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_02: There's there's hosting services.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_02: We need to host the addict to that.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_02: Again, there's a heap of stuff.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_02: So we're just trying to do what we can to grow that.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_02: And I think at the moment now, um about 45% of our revenue comes outside Australia and down.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_03: That's incredible.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_03: What an extraordinary story.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_03: And and so so, do you think the success has been that the alignment of technology obviously online facilitates a lot of growth because you you know that's just for you in that particular arena, it must be a huge bonus for your organization.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_03: But also, do you think they the creatives in in your hub must be doing a good job of communicating to that that target group because they're getting the resonance, yeah?
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, exactly.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, look, I think I'm gonna reflect a little on our our whole brand on this sort of three thing where we say kids will love it, it's gonna be really easy to use, and teachers will save time.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_02: I think the one that we've done the best on is the kids will love it.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_03: Well, that's the key.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_02: You know, that's that's the key for us.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, then that's why it's growing.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_02: Probably the reason why it hasn't grown as you know, as fast as we would like, is still have to make it easier to use.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_02: I mean that's as we said before, that's a moving target.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_02: You've got to keep adapting, particularly to teachers.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_02: You just gotta keep evolving and making it simpler and simpler and more streamlined and yeah, so that's that's sort of our path for getting better is to make it easier to teach it.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_03: Well, the world has experienced a shift since the pandemic broke out.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_03: Now, self-education has taken a stronger stand than ever.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_03: With remote learning and parents actively being core teachers' assistance.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_03: This has, however, enabled poor quality learning and reading.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_03: To fix the situation, Carl Walgren got the idea to build a new communication and reading application called Edsoma.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_03: Edsoma was designed to get children back in the reading culture and help them bond better with the authority figures in their lives.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_03: The app has been on the trajectory to become every family's favourite reading application with its numerous features and functionalities that encourage bonding while learning.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_03: One remarkable thing about Edsoma is that parents and guardians do not need to be physically present with their children to read with them.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_03: Instead, they can do the reading from any part of the world and still achieve the same.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_03: Talk to me about what you see, and clearly your mission is to find ways to ensure that everyone can read when they want, how they want.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_03: I think it's a very innovative idea.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_03: So talk to us about how that came to be.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I like I said, I moved to the United States about six years ago uh after getting divorced, and I was uh divorced with two kids, and then obviously the whole world went through a pandemic and the shutdown.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: And for me, that meant that I went a year and a half without seeing two of my kids that were located in Canada because of the border restrictions.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and one night my daughter, who was six at that time, asked me if I could read her a bedtime story.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I felt like with it being 2020, that the technology had to exist for like, you know, story sharing Zoom for kids kind of thing.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_01: And when I started looking for it, uh Um, there was a platform that would allow me to connect, but what I realized is that I wasn't as strong at reading as I thought I was, and all of a sudden, at this crucial time, teaching your kids to read was so much more important because they weren't going to school.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: So I started looking for something that could do that, and the technology just wasn't there.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: So after my own experiences, uh, I decided that I would build it out.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, ended up selling a business um to my other partners at that time.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: And we jumped into this two feet uh about two years ago now.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I think it's a really moving story, actually, literally, because you're right, it's a very intimate thing, isn't it, to read to your kids.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_03: And no matter what your circumstances are, it's something that you connect with children.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_03: They learn a lot by having that quality time with that parent.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_03: And so the idea that, which I really find quite innovative, that you can read to your child wherever you are, as you point out, whether it's traveling or whether you've been forced by circumstance to live in another country, that which would have been very difficult too for you.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_03: That's a long time with the pandemic separating you for a year and a half.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_03: And there you have this great resource to encourage kids to say, you know, you can connect with dad, we can still read together.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_03: So tell me how that came.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's really interesting.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: I remember um some of the like my fondest memories.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: I I grew up a lot spending a lot of time with my grandparents.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, I remember, you know, laying in bed and having my grandmother read to me, and that's like some of my most cherished moments.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: And and I just felt like we needed to like go back to the basics.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_01: I think the world's uh taking a turn, you know, almost for the worst, and and quality quality time isn't as important as it used to be.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we're all stuck, and I say this that we're stuck to devices, even though we use a device, but I felt like we weren't gonna get around being stuck to those devices.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: So, how do we put those quality moments back onto a device?
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, during this, what was going on with the world, it just made sense to be able to tie people together through a video streaming platform uh in a way that we could make lasting memories.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, one of the big deciding factors for me were thinking about like families that were or military families that, you know, go away and fight for your country, you know, how how much more engaged with being away could you be knowing that you're still making an impact on the learning aspect of your child's life, even though you're, you know, halfway around the world in a situation that you'd rather not be in.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and doing something for our country and and for your country.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_03: It's a very good point.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I don't think we've ever really, in a way, the pandemic, as you mentioned, it sort of shifted everybody's viewpoint so that suddenly distance took on a whole new meaning.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_03: And I think what you're doing is you've flipped that idea and that notion on its head and said, well, we're sort of faced with that reality anyway, whether it's even though the pandemic seems to have settled now, it actually brought to light some of these other times of distance, such as you mentioned with the military.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_03: And I also think what you've highlighted is the intimacy of literacy, which is actually critical.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_03: And it's something that you you and I grew up similarly.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_03: I grew up, you know, it was always like, and my kids sit on my parents' knees and you know, read read books.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_03: And it's a time of sharing.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_03: So what sort of resonance, first of all, the logistics of creating this and making it a point of difference.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_03: How how did that come to be?
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't have a technology background at all.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_01: So I can hardly, as you were experiencing with uh Lauren, uh, I can hardly send an email.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: So um there was a major hurdle to climb in understanding what I was trying to build, but I've always been a person to like build the airplane as we're taking off the ground kind of thing.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_01: So um I I fell in love with podcasts uh because I wasn't a great reader.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um and it just like all the podcasts that I continue to listen surrounding around entrepreneurship, just kind of said, you know, surround yourself with people that are smarter than you, and you're always gonna be in good hands.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_01: So I just continue to try and do that while we were building this out.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: And we've, you know, I've been blessed with uh a fellow by the name of Tom Realey who was in publishing.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_01: I pitched the idea at him early on to see if we could even get content for our platform because I felt like that was gonna be our biggest roadblock.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: And he's like, Oh yeah, great idea, but it's not gonna work.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_01: And uh so I had like really smart people early on, you know, guide me through the journey.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and then our mistakes became our like strongest moments.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_01: I hired a third-party developing company thinking that they could build it for me.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_01: And after a year, they came back and they're like, we just can't do this.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_01: So uh, not being a person that likes to give up very easily, I just decided that I'd hire my own developers, take off the restraints uh due to contracts of like third-party contracts, and just put a room of creative people together and figure out how to do it.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_01: And that's ultimately how we've got to where we're at now.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_03: So the greatest challenge are you saying was the technology?
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_03: Because, in a sense, as you said, I mean, I love obviously I'm a podcast, you know, that's my thing.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_03: And I I think you point out a very important um fact, which is podcasts are a way for people who can't read to access information and to hear stories.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_03: So you've sort of taken that notion and made that very accessible.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_03: So can you just talk to me about one, what were the challenges?
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_03: And two, how logistically, if somebody wants to use Ed Soma, what does that involve and how does that app work?
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so it we've we've gotten Ed Soma to the point where it's fairly easy.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_01: You can go into your um favorite app store and download it.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_01: Now we're in the iOS and Google Play Store.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and we can use it on any device.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_01: So as long as you have service or Wi-Fi, um, you can actually do a video streaming call with your uh reader of choice or your child or grandparent or whoever you're wanting to connect with.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, depending on the model, students can connect with their other classmates.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_01: But uh ultimately what it is is it's a voice recognition software.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_01: So as you read out loud, the words will highlight green to give you that instant gratification of knowing that you're getting it right.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_01: And then as we track your voice, we identify patterns uh with our technology to identify if you're starting to struggle.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: If you start to struggle, the word will break down into syllables.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, if you continue to struggle, you can select it, it'll enunciate the word.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and then we put those words into work buckets, and our AI back end starts providing content surrounding those word structures uh that you're having troubles with.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_01: So we're constantly providing content that uh inspires kids to continue reading instead of content that intimidates them.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, being somebody that suffered with uh literacy issues my whole life growing up, that was one of my biggest challenges as a kid.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_01: I understand uh almost like the shame or the fear of coming out and and telling somebody that you can't read or that you're not understanding uh what the task is that you're trying to accomplish.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: So knowing that firsthand and actually diving into this brought those emotions back like very vividly, that that was what I wanted to get away with or get away from.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_01: So we made sure that while while we were building this, that we could give those kids those moments of strength back where they don't have to feel intimidated anymore.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_03: That's really powerful.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_03: And one of the things I really hear from you, which I think resonates and will resonate with our listeners, is the emotionality from the place that you come from.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_03: It's from the heart.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_03: There's a very strong sense of whether it's as a father feeling detached and distanced from their kids, finding a way to connect, or whether it's from your, you know, empathy for the military and people who are traveling or, you know, removed from their families, or your own struggles with literacy in those early days and the shame that often unexplicably but understandably, some people feel when they can't read.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_03: And when we look at the figures of 750 million illiterate people that we are aware of statistically through the World Literacy Foundation, that's a hell of a lot of people that are struggling.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_03: So it's ultimately what you're you're trying to target some of these issues.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_03: So talk to me on that.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_01: That that number that you said was ultimately like one of the deciding factors.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_01: So, like in America, there's 56 million American adults that suffer from literacy to the issue where they can't read a menu, a basic menu at a restaurant.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_01: So the more I started diving into those numbers, the thoughts of, you know, what are these kids doing at home during this time?
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_01: Which I don't like to refer back past tense to the pandemic just because it was a crappy time in our existence, I feel like.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_01: But those kids ultimately are around parents that suffer from these issues.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they're most likely um in positions where the parents can't afford tutoring or extra services for them.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_01: So they just stay in that circle.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_01: And we we took we went through the pandemic talking about equity and you know, how to be able to provide equity, but I wanted a solution in literacy to be able to bring that to the forefront.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_01: So it was really important to us early on.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_01: And actually, because of our mission, I think all great doors seemed to open.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_01: Uh early on, we got to um get involved with one of our now uh owning partners, Shaquille O'Neal, uh, and his team.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and it was really important to him to make sure that we can make a platform that would be useful to inner city communities that couldn't afford these extra resources and make it affordable so everybody would have a chance to use it, not just you know, the more fortunate in a better financial position, but people that actually needed it the most.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_01: So um that's kind of what we focused on was building it affordable, you know, the reality, or at least in America, we did have our governments issued devices, tablets, computers um during that time to everybody that was going to school, and they'd offered Wi-Fi to everybody who needed it.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_01: So it was just like that perfect timing to try and catch them up to speed.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_01: And we realized, you know, that literacy affected people more than just how I thought about it from the day to day.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_01: If you look at you know, people that are uh incarcerated, their literacy rates, you know, the majority of them read it a below grade or grade two reading level.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_01: So uh when you think of incarceration, and we read some studies that if you can teach somebody to read while incarcerated, just two grade levels, increasing them two grade levels, they go from like an 87% chance of returning down to an 18% chance of returning.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_01: So just be extraordinary figures, aren't they?
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's can make a very strong impact on how an economy functions, how parents can come back into the home, just so much stuff is is supported when you can read, um, you know, even at just a grade forward reading level.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_03: And and that also shows, I'm sure, the proportion of people who are incarcerated, how much that will have also impacted their journey.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_03: Like to that's why they often end up, I mean, they're ill-equipped to to cope with the world.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, even as you say, whether it's read a menu or read a street sign, or and we've talked about, or even a medic medical bottle, like the basic things that like if you take it like one step further, you know, and I'm not promoting any criminal activities when I say this, but if you look at the vast majority of people, they're usually in there because they've done something wrong, trying to make a living of some sort.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_01: They were trying to put food on the table or, you know, find a place to stay.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_01: And in that nature, you know, these people are willing to take great risks just to feed themselves for their families.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_01: So if you could give them the tools to take those same risks in a legitimate field, the opportunities that they could bring, you know what I mean?
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_01: Those people are some of the best, you know, for lack of better words, entrepreneurs there is.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_01: And if we could just make it around a good movement, you know, they could really make an impact, I believe.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_03: Well, you know, I talk about um the literacy revolution, which I think has become quite a movement.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_03: You mentioned Shaquille O'Neal.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_03: Talk to me.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_03: I know he and also LeBron James, they're they're all very, very active in this area, doing some extraordinary work.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_03: How did you get Shaquille on board and what sort of uh what have you learned from him?
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_01: So Shaquille's like, you know, obviously larger in life and not just his presence, but in his you know, person as well.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_01: The guy um has a heart bigger than himself, I'm sure.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_01: But we literally my VP of sales uh was a huge basketball fan and uh made a comment that if anybody could help us get to the people that needed this most, it would be Shaquille.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_01: And all of a sudden, on LinkedIn, you know, our devices that listen to us um popped up Shaquille's agent.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, what the hell?
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_01: I'll just send him a called email, uh, see, you know, where that takes us.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_01: And Perry said, you know, uh, this is interesting.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_01: I'd love to see if it can actually work.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I flew out and met with Shaquille's agent, Perry.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and he's like, Wow, this is amazing.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I want you to come back and and show it to Shaquille's.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, when I met with Shaquille, I'm five foot eight, I'm very much smaller than Shaquille.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_01: When I passed it, that's quite a lot smaller.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_01: The device to test it out, it dawned on me that we had never done any testing with somebody as deep a voice as what he had.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_01: And because he's so much taller than me, he was holding the device over my head.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_01: So I couldn't even see if it was working.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_01: But by the you know, sheer look on his face um of excitement, we realized that it was working, and he just said, How can I help?
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, so they've been a great team to work with, they're very helpful.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_01: They, you know, have a huge network, obviously, from you know, Shaquille playing basketball, but he's a hell of a business person as well.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_01: People don't realize the amount of businesses that he actually owns and his foundation, you know, that supports groups like the Boys and Girls Clubs.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_01: And um he's just got a really big heart, and everybody involved with his team comes from the right place.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_01: So some of the updates are the favorite updates that we like giving, especially when we get to call Shaquille's office, is you know, getting involved with the World Literacy Task Force and the approval of our platform as a preferred product to help stomp out literacy, e-literacy around the world, you know, it aligns with, you know, Shaquille's mission and uh quite a few of the other celebrities that we're working with.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_01: And they just love hearing that resa or that you know that we're getting uh identified by great um platforms like the World Literacy Foundation.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, for you, it's an extraordinary thing that you cold called him.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_03: And it shows also, you know, that a passion for a mission, yours and I suppose his, when they align, look what you can do.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_03: And I suppose that's something that you should be very proud of because it's not easy to do that.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_03: And it's also hard to make uh, and you mentioned there were challenges along the way, but when you have somebody come into your corner and go, you know what, I get this.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_03: How did that feel for you?
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_01: Validated, you know.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's about persistence, uh and not being scared to ask.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the worst thing you can hear is no.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm gonna say it in two parts.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_01: The worst thing you can hear is no.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, ultimately, the worst thing you can hear is nothing back in return because it motivates you to ask again.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_01: But when you get the word no, you know, at least to move on.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, with Shaquille, it just showed me that it's the right time.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_01: People care about this now.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's on the forefront.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we all can identify that there's parts of education that are old and broken, and it's time for a change.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_01: The technology's at a point now where we can make that impact.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_01: We can help give time back to teachers who are, you know, hugely underpaid.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah, we can allow them more resources.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_01: And if we just, you know, get strategic with our partnerships and and creative with the opportunities that we can provide a value back.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_01: Because kids are ultimately our future, right?
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_01: And if you look at during the pandemic, those kids lost two of the most important years of their life.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, statistically, that shows that if you can't read at par by grade three, you're never gonna catch up.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_03: So that's quite terrifying.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_01: They've got a long, steep hill to climb, and we just wanted to give them the best shot we can.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_01: And there's great people getting involved in the literacy mission now, especially across the United States for sure.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_03: With almost a million beneficiaries in 17 states of India, the Tata Adult Literacy Program is truly transformative.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_03: The adult literacy program was set up to help the Governor of India improve adult literacy rates using the computer-based functional literacy solution.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_03: Using the CBFL model, non-literate adult learners can achieve functional literacy like reading, writing, and arithmetic within 50 hours over a period of three months, which is about a sixth of the time demanded by conventional learning methods.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_03: How was how have you emotionally found this journey?
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_00: And and it's been two years you've worked there, yeah?
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, between 2009 and 11, I taught as a primary school teacher.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_00: But being a teacher of these students, I realized that how their families uh are ill-equipped.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_00: And uh the focus is the academic journey or uh rather holistic well-being, holistic growth uh of that kid.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_00: But uh the time that he's spending in the classroom is limited, maybe say five to six hours a day, uh about 150 to 100, 180 days a year.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it's like you know, less than 30 percent, about 30 to 40 percent time that he's spending in the school, or even less, like if I consider 24 hours and I do calculation for 12 hours, right?
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_00: Most of the time that he's spending is in his community and with his family, particularly during the formative time until the kid is going through some primary schooling, right?
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and that's where I realize that like while my focus was absolutely in the classroom, which ought to be, if I am a teacher, that's where I should pour my energy in.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_00: But when I would see the spectrum of where the kids are coming from, what is the education level background of their parents, particularly of all the other social cultural, economic aspects that these old kids are coming from.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_00: But when I saw this relational aspect of the education of their parents or literacy level of their parents and their growth vis-a-vis in the classroom, while the potential that they have, that as a teacher, I would have a close eye on all the 39, 40 kids that I had.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_00: So I could relate that if we are to accelerate their academic journey and holistic well-being as well, it is paramount that in the back end, how do we serve their parents, particularly mothers?
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_00: Again, as I share, that's as well.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_00: When the women, you since you asked the emotional aspect, so there has like in last about a decade or more interacting with thousands of women, I heard so many stories wherein you know, these women would work hard uh and would earn about three, two to three dollars a day so that they can have bread and butter.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, when there is a parent teacher meeting uh in the school, and this kid whom she is putting in through the education would come home and tell that mom, there is a parent-teacher meeting, but I don't want you to be there in my classroom because you would put a thumbprint and I would be ashamed.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, that's it.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_00: It shattered my heart.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_00: That how come this, you know, um, this mother who is putting everything that she has so that this kid can go to the best of the school, and that kid is not in a way, I would not say that the kid is not right or wrong, but he's listening from the society and comparing that hey, how my friends would think or feel when you would be non-ledge, or for that matter, the husband who would say, despite she is the one who is taking care of all household chores, that hey, you are of no use because you don't know how to read, how you can't go independently to the bus, you don't know what your right is, you don't know uh you know what what medicine to get, what is the expectation, such simple basic aspects, but that shatters the respect of that woman.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, of course it would.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_03: And I mean, the other thing is that as you say, I mean, there is just it's just an all-pervasive uh it filters through the whole family.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, a child then, you know, how does he respect?
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_03: He might respect his mother is doing certain things, but then the issue of shame and and and how do we so is there a way that the school system or the way that you are actually uh you've got access to these children, is there a way to filter it back into the family?
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_03: Or is it too challenging to try and do that through the school system?
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_03: Or you know what can be done, or is it just focusing on getting these kids as literate as possible?
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_03: And that's the priority.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so there are two problem pieces here.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to make it very clear again.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_00: One is the student, the child, right?
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_00: And uh behind the child is the mother or the father, mother particularly, or the whole ecosystem who is at his home.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_00: Now I was teaching in slums, right?
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and slums are the places where usually uh people uh who would people would migrate from different parts of the country, and those who are daring or courageous would come out largely, right?
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's not like uh uh not everyone would come.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_00: But when I go back and see in these villages or the uh the parts where these parents are coming from, their the literacy rate is a huge challenge, right?
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_00: So the teaching experience that I had was an eye-opener for me to see how this is really an important problem statement, and gratefully, Tata Consultancy Services of all the other corporates in the country were addressing it.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_00: And when I learned about that solution, I felt that hey, let me try it.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_00: And first thing that I did when I joined back TCS in central India, our Lucknow office, there we had these uh housekeeping staff, and uh they had been to school, but it'd been it's been quite some time, grade two, three level, and they've forgotten almost everything.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_00: And there was this male here.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, this person, we we empowered him with literacy, and he shared that post-literacy when I went back.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_00: So, pre-literacy, pre-being neoliterate, when I would go to my hometown, which is again from Lucknow, Central India, 250 kilometers.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_00: My when my daughter would come to me and she would ask for help that, hey Papa, would you please help me in reading me or solving this problem or you know, unlocking what my teacher is asking me to do?
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_00: And because I don't know, I would first avoid her.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_00: But she would come back because she's my daughter.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_00: And two three times to hide my own shame, I would shoo her away.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_00: Teaching in the slums, and I come came back to the corporate, joining corporate social responsibility team, and knowing that we have a solution, first I need to try it firsthand.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I'm not sure.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_00: So that's where in my own vicinity where I was working, I realized there are non-literate males as well.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_00: They come from again further distant places, far more deeper parts of the country.
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_00: India is a huge country, and uh, right?
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_00: So, there when I was I was interacting, and we we realized that few people uh would require either refresher or absolute uh literacy.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_00: There, uh, this story came to me that how this person's life transformed.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_00: Once he became literate, this daughter would come to him.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_00: He it's not that he became master of everything, it's like yeah, I understood.
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, three months program, 55 hours of teaching, learning through using you know, uh theory of cognition, laws of perception and audiovisuals, the multimedia and uh pedagogical aspects are also being you know kept intact so that an a person with 15 plus years of age group who has the basic knowledge of the language but doesn't know how to read and write can be empowered with functional literacy which comprises of reading, writing, and arithmetic.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_00: And that changed his life.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_00: Not that he became master, but he started interacting with her that it's okay, we have a problem.
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_00: I know this bit, but let's go and ask someone, let's explore together.
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_00: That opened his own learning capabilities because this blot that hey, you are of no use because you don't know how to read and write and do basic arithmetic, right?
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_03: So he would not even attempt so it liberated him and and it also probably empowered him to feel confident, and that's a really good story.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_03: I was going to actually ask you that, and that's a very good example.
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_03: Um, do you think that?
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_03: So that's one anecdote, and I'm sure there are many.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_03: And as you say, it's a very emotional thing to watch people, you know, so vulnerable when you know there's a solution that's actually quite simple.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_03: And I mean, I've been looking at some of the research, and actually it's incredible as you just referred to.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_03: It doesn't take, I think you mentioned here, I was reading, that it's, you know, it can be 50 hours over a period of three months, which is about a sixth the time demanded by conventional learning methods.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_03: But it's it's incredible that you could get what you're what I'm seeing is that what you're doing at Tata Services is you can actually get quite quick traction, yeah.
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_03: That people are so talk to me about that.
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_03: You're starting to streamline it so that it's not like, oh, you have to spend two years studying in order to be literate.
• 49:04
  SPEAKER_03: You're trying to make it as as efficient and effective as possible.
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, absolutely right.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_00: So, see, the the uh I'm not a pedagogical expert here, but what I know for sure is the power of the program and the scientific research that we poured in.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_00: And we started it, our first chairperson, Dr.
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_00: Epsi Curly, he and we saw that hey, we are moving ahead with technology while India is leading information technology organized uh country, and TCS certainly is a pioneering one.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_00: How do we leverage this to solve this problem of addressing non-literate people?
• 49:45
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where a researchers team from Tata Consultancy Services sat together, studied the pedagogical perspectives and aspects, and how would an adult learn?
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_00: And some of the aspects, like you know, the person would have a knowledge of the language, right?
• 50:01
  SPEAKER_00: And uh then we also partnered with National Literacy Mission Authority of India in understanding what their content is, and then leveraging technology, our research, and content.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_00: We came up with this solution now known as Literacy as a service, and it's available in nine Indian languages and uh even uh three foreign languages, wherein we are working actively in Burkina Faso as well.
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_00: But in India, Hindi is a belt which is spoken language, Hindi language is spoken in many states, eight to ten states.
• 50:34
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the kind of you know primary chunk, uh our focus, where how do we enable uh various organizations, uh corporates, individuals, and now governments?
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_00: You would be happy to know that yesterday only, uh, with one of the major stakes, Madhya Pradesh in India, which which hosts about 14, more than a little more than 14 million non-literates, we are partnering with them and uh in a very consultative uh manner, leveraging the technology and the know-how that we have.
• 51:08
  SPEAKER_00: How do we address this problem at scale so that the individuals who are going to teach, right?
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_00: So I am not a teacher by qualification as well, right?
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 51:20
  SPEAKER_00: But my passion might teach me something.
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_00: But if I want you or someone else to leverage this content, the content should be structured in a manner that it takes care of 80 to 90 percent of the key deliverables.
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_00: Then my role is just a catalyst as a kind of I understand, yeah.
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_03: So to engage.
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_00: So your role is to engage them, yeah, to hire, engage, to facilitate, to assist where there is a struggle, and and and and it also doesn't start from you know, starting from the scratch, which is alphabetic, right?
• 51:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like the way how English is taught, it's it doesn't start in good schools with A, B, C, D, right?
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_00: Starts in phonics.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_00: The kids would relate with the sound, would relate with the letter, and then you know, different words would be formed.
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_00: The similar, thankfully, Indian languages are very strong at phonics.
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_00: There are rare exceptions, unlike English, right?
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_00: And that really helps in unlocking the language within a day.
• 52:22
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, like your name is Deborah Blasky Marks, right?
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, correct.
• 52:27
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Kishan.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_00: Within a day for Hindi, the first chapter comprises of three words and one phonetical sound, m ka na.
• 52:37
  SPEAKER_00: Two letters from my name, k and n, are addressed.
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_00: And in your name, k and m, blaskis k and marks m are addressed, right?
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_00: With common sense.
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_00: If this person is able to relate, and that's what how the pedagogical in our consumers are.
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, that's interesting.
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_03: So there's a strong order.
• 52:55
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_00: She would, yeah, there is an audio and visual, and then we are also leveraging the puppet theater model that how you know uh on screen different letters are coming, they're what they are voiced out, and the formation of these different letters make new words, right?
• 53:11
  SPEAKER_00: So the focus is just on three letters and one phonetical sound, and then the in emphasis on identifying and relating with that.
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_00: So they would be able to relate that hey, Mark's Ma, I know, right?
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_00: Kishan's I know, and with common sense, would be able to know if it is written in Hindi, they would see ah, k, it starts with, it must be kishan, even though they might not know what is you know, Sher or what is Deborah.
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_00: So that's common sense.
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's there's an element of uh it gives them the confidence to access.
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_00: Would give them a sense that hey, this is not that difficult.
• 53:49
  SPEAKER_00: This is another challenge for these people, particularly those uh who who are in in day-to-day work and those either dropped out for unforeseen reasons who started the schooling grade one, two, and couldn't complete, they have a notion, or they have seen people who are going to school and studying through a typical chalk and board methodology, right?
• 54:10
  SPEAKER_00: Where in a teacher is standing uh with an authority, authoritative way.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's don't really sense of fear.
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_00: I am not young now, I might not be able to grasp what is being conveyed, communicated, or taught.
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_00: So there is that inherent fear, and with that, that also holds them to start something new to learn, right?
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_00: So that is another uh important factor.
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's an important factor.
• 54:41
  SPEAKER_03: Well, at the World Literacy Foundation, we believe in literacy is the foundation of lifelong learning and education.
• 54:47
  SPEAKER_03: People who cannot read or write experience difficulties with simple everyday tasks, such as reading the label of a medicine bottle, filling in a job application, or understanding a traffic sign.
• 54:57
  SPEAKER_03: When we help someone to acquire literacy skills, we're empowering them to access to better opportunities in life to break the poverty cycle.
• 55:06
  SPEAKER_03: It's a global organization in Africa, Latin America, the United States, United Kingdom, and in Australia.
• 55:13
  SPEAKER_03: The World Literacy Foundation is on a mission to ensure that every child, regardless of geographic location, has the opportunity to acquire literacy skills and books to reach their full potential.
• 55:24
  SPEAKER_03: We're striving to eradicate illiteracy by 2040.
• 55:27
  SPEAKER_03: Reading and writing should just be a basic right, not a privilege.
• 55:32
  SPEAKER_03: So please, if you're interested, head to our website at the World Literacy Foundation to see what is happening globally, this extraordinary organisation, when we realise that there are 750 million people who cannot read and write.
• 55:46
  SPEAKER_03: So see if you can contribute and make a difference.