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Transcript

Beyond Words - Tom Richardson · WHAT I'VE LEARNT

• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: 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_01: Just as the world's most popular films and games are driven by compelling narratives, Literacy Planet's storybirds immerses readers in a captivating world of fun, fantasy, and wonder.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: This is where learning becomes meaningful and memorable, inspiring children to connect with their own writing in imaginative and creative ways.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: Literacy Planet uses the psychology of gameplay to encourage, motivate, and reward children as they move from one curriculum outcome to the next.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: It is an enabler, building confidence and determination within a safe and nurturing environment.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Tom, welcome to the Beyond Words World Literacy Podcast.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: 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.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: And you have 247,000 students using it in 900 schools in 80 countries.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: That's pretty impressive.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: Talk to me about how this came to be and where this um concept emerged from.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_02: Look, thanks for the question.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_02: I can't take the credit for starting this business.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um this is a brainchild of Shane and started a business 10, 12 years ago.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_02: And it was um really, I mean, the whole drive was very much a personal drive that the the way children were learning literacy could be done so much better and made and much more equitable and accessible.
• 1:42
  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.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_02: That was where the drive started from.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_02: And I think the the key was to put the classic literacy curriculum to make it a rile, but make it fun.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_02: Make it fun.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: And kids love fun, yeah.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, they need fun, they love fun, and it engages them.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: 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.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's you know, it's a little scary.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: So what you try yeah, you you you've this this concept demystifies a little bit and makes it enjoyable.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_02: You see, you take the scaffolding of literacy and it does look scary, right?
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_02: And it's strand and phonics and grammar of punctuation and spelling, when you and then it's put a big curriculum together and then but they're all laddered and it does look overwhelming.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_02: So how do I take that in the structure and that discipline but wrap it into something that kids love, particularly kids age four to fourteen.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_02: And kids age four to fourteen and their attention span, I think we all know what that's like.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_02: That's not getting any better.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_02: And they're also competing a lot more now.
• 3:02
  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.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_02: It's colourful and it's narrated.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_02: And if you can't capture their attention and their imagination, you're gonna struggle to really help develop underlying skills.
• 3:22
  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.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_02: That's the balance.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's interesting what you just said, but the notion of competing, how do you do that?
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, well, I think 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.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_02: The kids for 14 and they're playing games online.
• 3:51
  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.
• 4:02
  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 it's so easy to flick to something else.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I I know I've got children myself, much older now, but I know what you're talking about.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: 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.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: All the schools, the kids, they all have their phones, they have access to everything.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_02: For us in the game, it's a movie type.
• 4:42
  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.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_02: And you have pretty large Silicon Valley-based organizations who are disrupt, are investing billions of dollars into software.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_02: That's what kids are using.
• 5:11
  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.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_02: Now, the extreme case of that is kids get bored at school.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_02: They're just bored.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_02: Things don't happen fast enough, it's not engaging enough, there's no narrative, there's no gamification.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_02: I'm bored and they check out.
• 5:32
  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.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_02: I reckon you're gonna be pushing it pretty hard.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um, particularly if it didn't smell like it's got a structure behind it with pushing that.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: 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.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: Uh they don't want to get don't want to be taught or structured in that way.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_02: And you can't and you also can't design something that you and I would like to use necessarily.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_02: Because we're not the type of wound.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_02: So we if we designed it for us, it wouldn't be cool and it wouldn't be engaging for kids.
• 6:23
  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 slide things and things, it's all going to be conducive to a child.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_02: But also not just a child, any child.
• 6:51
  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.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_02: And then depending on you know what device they use.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: Because they don't all have yeah, they don't all have access to certain things.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: 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.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_02: So in the game we talk about being accessible, right?
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_02: Which essentially any child should better use it, but also agnostic, agnostic to any browser, any device.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_02: So there's no reason why uh a child ends living in poverty in the middle of Del 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.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_02: There's no reason why there should be a difference in arduo.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_02: So we try and make it um the opportunity available and equitable to anyone in the middle.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: 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.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: Do you find that so so from a logistics perspective, can you just take me through, walk us through the design concepts?
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: Where do they come from?
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: How do you do you use existing curriculums as a base for the literature, yeah, for the story verse?
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_01: Or I love the term too, storyverse.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's just wonderful.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: 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.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_02: So I sort of like the well, then again, all credit goes to the creative team, the education team.
• 9:08
  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.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_02: So um yeah, they've certainly taken credit for that.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_02: But as far as your question goes, um and there's just one thing I'm really excited about.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it uh the business started here in the Gold Coast in Australia.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_02: And could have been designed with a lens of let's just serve the Australian market.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_02: Could have been designed that would have been simpler.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_02: But again, full credit to teens before me where their aspirations were much larger.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_02: And also their design principles were much larger than their intent was equitable flow-loading.
• 9:58
  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.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_02: Or curriculum call it.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_02: If you're in the UK, you have a different curriculum.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_02: If you're in international schools in Singapore, again, depending, you may have a US, you may have UK, you may have a blend.
• 10:19
  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.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: 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?
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_02: Tap each one.
• 10:41
  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.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_02: And then some countries they even have different ones by state.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_02: Like in the US, it's different by some of the states are different, right?
• 10:59
  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.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_02: Because a year two in the US will will have different ways of talking about literacy and structuring it, and in year two in UK.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: Very it's extraordinarily um bold and innovative because that must be a quite a challenge, just even without the animation, without the all the layering of technology.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: The notion like just getting that that correct.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: So do you work with the local with the governments or do you work with private?
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: How does that yeah?
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_02: So there's a couple of things, because it's not just getting correct once, it's every piece of new content that needs to be mapped.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, that's huge.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_02: So it's a periodic process.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_02: So we work with independent bodies, and yeah, it's not this is an inexpensive thing to do.
• 11:55
  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.
• 12:20
  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.
• 12:32
  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.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_02: So again, not an insignificant piece of word, but the key there too is to make that invisible.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_02: Kids don't want to see that.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: No, they don't.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: And in fact, you know, just say the word NAPLAN, a lot of them run it mile.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: They you know, I mean, uh even though I know that's not what it is, is it?
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: But conceptually, I know that's what you're saying.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_02: They had fun, but at the end of the day, they're they're being assessed.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_02: Their class and their school, and it's got to be going up on the next response.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: And so, in terms of the logistics of that, two questions.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: How is that funded?
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: Because that must be very expensive to run, and and I'm assuming that there's private and government support.
• 13:24
  unknown: Yep.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: If that's correct, yeah.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so we we actually fund it ourselves, so we pay for that.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um that service of the individual organizations that do the audits.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_02: It's pretty a ticket to play, is you have to have that.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: The country has to have that.
• 13:42
  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, provide the those that live with the outcomes.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_02: And they've got limited budgets, yeah, very limited budget.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_02: And time.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe the main problem and teachers is time.
• 14:04
  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.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_02: They just don't have time.
• 14:17
  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.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_02: I want style from this is the job I need to do.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_02: How can your platform help me do it?
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_02: But at the same time, how can we have it so that kids love it?
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_02: So they ask for it, so I'm not having thoughts and dead music.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: 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?
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's been through a lot of shoe leather, really, to start with.
• 14:49
  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, school to school.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_02: Teacher to teach it, check it out, what do you think?
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_02: Have a trial, have a demo, see how it works, if you're happy with it.
• 15:08
  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.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_02: That's how it grew.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_02: And it literally started close to where the business started because it was easier to walk down the road.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_02: So Queensland, great, gold coast, Queensland, boom boom, and then some of those teachers would go overseas, so the world would go out overseas, or we'd use some marketing overseas.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_02: Nah, many then what it Google ad or something.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then people further searching for because I mean the need is massive.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: Massive.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, just the statistics are just quite alarming and overwhelming.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: And the problem is so big.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the things I was reading about is how critical collaborative connectivity is to dealing with this literacy issue.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: 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.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: So logistically, can I just understand something?
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: 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.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_01: So once you had credibility here and you got support, then moving into other countries, how difficult was that?
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: And was it like you give them a prototype and does it dovetail with their existing curriculum?
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, good person.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_02: So, yeah, so the expanding um internationally for an Australian ed tech company isn't east, right?
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_02: It's not where we are a long, long away and we're on an island, and it's um we're and we're from a small population.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_02: And we're not seeing necessarily vote was Darwin's the harbor of ed tech activity.
• 17:07
  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?
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_02: I think you know the World Literacy Foundation saying that 750 million people are still illiterate, right?
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_02: It's a massive number.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_02: Massive.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so we know that to have a meaningful impact, um, we've got to get outside of Australia.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um, there's 10,000 schools in Australia.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_02: For us, you know, we're we know there's 200,000 schools in the US and the UK, right?
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_02: So so it's the scale is somewhat bigger.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_02: So really focusing in on on at the moment, we are focusing on those two um geographies, the US and the UK.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_02: How can we um provide 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 curriculum check with that?
• 18:10
  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.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the Z's and the S's.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that used to, yeah, we'll look at the all that sort of ruin.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_02: And then there's a whole lot of um technically stuff behind the scenes around the security standards.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_02: Again, children need to be really careful about security.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_02: There's there's hosting services.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_02: We need to host the data and add it to that.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_02: Again, there's a heap of stuff.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_02: So we're just trying to do what we can to grow that.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_02: And I think at the moment now, um New York about 45% of our revenue comes outside Australia and down.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: That's incredible.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: What an extraordinary story.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: 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.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: 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?
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, look, I think I'm gonna reflect a little on our whole brand on this sort of street thing where we say kids will love it, it's gonna be really easy to use, and teachers will save time.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_02: I think the one that we've done the best on is the kids will love it.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's the key.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_02: You know, that's that's the key for us.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, and that's why it's growing.
• 19:56
  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.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_02: I mean that's as we said before, that's a moving target.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_02: You've got to keep adapting, particularly for teachers.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_02: You just gotta keep evolving and making it simpler and simpler and more extreme lined.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, so that's that's sort of our path for getting better is to make it easier to teach it.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_01: So can I just just logistically, I just want to understand.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_01: So, how on a weekly basis does this integrate into the educational platform?
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_02: So uh teachers, there's a number of ways in which teachers integrate into their learning, right?
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_02: Some some will actually use it in the classroom, so it's made for the big whiteboards that they have now, and they can have it there, they can assign learning to the to the um children in the class, um, which essentially means you can assign a certain task book within the product aligned to what their individual student needs.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_02: So, with the technology, one of the benefits of technology is you don't have to teach to the clients.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_02: You don't have to teach the same thing to the all class.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_02: You can personalize the teaching pretty well.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_01: Big benefit.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_02: Huge benefit.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_02: Oh no, little Billy's got some he's struggling with um grammar, but Julie, her her main issues around punctuation.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so I can set tasks and assign particular missions specifically to those areas individual needs at the right level.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_02: I could run my operating a year below or a year above the calendar level.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_02: So you can pick the year level on the strand and make it sort of fit.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_02: And then you get all that summarized and nice report so the teachers can see how almost like a traffic light, which students are tracking raw and which ones aren't.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_02: That's brilliant.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it helps.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it also looks sometimes that's a bit invisible, right?
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_02: In the old days of sitting in host school, I'm pretty sure the teacher would have to use a bit of judgment about.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: which kids were getting which weren't, but they always had to teach the lowest of so smart kids were getting bored.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_01: So true.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, to now being able to sh personalize them more.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_02: And also not really, you know, kids sometimes learn on the bus, they learn on the couch, they learn lying on their bed in the phone.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_02: It's not all just that little window where you're half an hour where you're sitting in the class in front of the teacher.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_02: Leather can happen in all kinds of places.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_02: Some people that happens in the cracks in your day, you know, when you're waiting for your swimming lesson.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_02: You're waiting in the car for your big brother to finish soccer.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_02: You can play fine you can get up to up to whatever their punctuation, your literature grammar, and have fun doing it and some clients and get some communication with your mates and they have the leaderboards and it's just such a different way of learning, but you have to be available to provide the opportunity to kids to go whenever, however, whatever device so that no one's disadvantaged.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: And that really meets that that is why Literacy Planet's so clever because I can see that I mean this is where the world's going anyway.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_01: I mean compared to when you and I are at school, you know, um even my kids are a little older and and you know not dissimilar to universities, but as we know it's we're we're tackling really that under 19 age group and I'm or you're saying four to fourteen.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: Four to fourteen is a sweet spot, yeah.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_01: And there's such critical times of learning and what you're saying is it's you're sort of giving those kids permission to say, listen, you know what?
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: If it takes you a week and you don't you know meet that target or that I don't know how it's registered, but I'm assuming you know you deem certain things and then it you go up a level.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah um then come back on the Friday and make sure you've met those at some point during your week.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: Is that sort of how it works?
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah it gives flexibility right so kids can operate when they want at the speed they want as well and and it really means that you really are the putting the control back in the the learner's hands.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_02: So it's centered.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_02: Well I think that's a pretty important place to be and I think you touched on um yeah we're clearly literacy planet right literacy is our baby.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_02: But we know that literacy underpins a lot of education.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_02: So if you can read effectively and write effectively and communicate effectively that actually drives into all the other parts of schooling and drives into outs once you finish school, outside of school particularly now even just surfing the web, right?
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_02: And in interpret what it is, whether it's fake news, good news requires a lot of fun in writing emails, reading I zoom out, looking at the World Literacy Foundation, they're taking simple things like you know reading the label of a medicine book filling it up.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah I know.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_01: I mean that's stuff you're okay filling out a job application, checking the you know yeah what the prescription that you've been given is got the right name on it and details and all of that.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_02: So it's in the end it's not so much about whether you get an A or a B really.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_02: It's more about are these kids going to have fulfilling successful lives or reach their potential outside of the school.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: If they haven't got literacy they're going to stroke and a lot of them are and a lot of them don't even get the opportunity to go and you know get through to the next level or to go to uni or to even get employment.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: So I think Literacy Planet's driving a really important mission and I think it must be incredibly fulfilling for you how have you found the journey thus far how long have you been involved yourself?
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_02: I've been just a couple of years now so I've been in CO for two years.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um and literally the opportunity for me was to come in and scale the business.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_02: I think yeah when you've got a great product based in Australia um you always feel like you're scratching the surface.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_02: And that's what it felt like to me.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_02: And I just I mean luckily fortunate to have traveled a lot as a as a youngster um and just saw just how small we were in comparison to the rest of the world.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_02: So the passion I suppose comes from taking something that's awesome, Australian and then being able to share that with the rest of the world um to really have an impact from move the needle and that I mean it would be great to connect with the World Literacy Foundation and work with the team.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_02: Because I think that that organization what they do um is unbelievable.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_02: And I think being able to supercharge what they're doing using these kind of products and this kind of technology can only be a win.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_01: They've got their ability to have the influence and and the global imprint yeah they they've also got I mean they're in seven countries you know there's a there's a sense of us being that's that sort of concept in fact LeBron James who's very you know very um supportive and powerful in the literacy space it you know that he talks about how important it is for us to treat this like a universal problem you know in so many different countries.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what the World Literacy Foundation has really created and we've got the summit coming up at the end of March which I'm sure you you're you know you'll be present at and that your organization will have great traction because it's already getting extraordinary traction really.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah no well I think we're just starting with just starting um so I mean it's that that's the thing I think the key is you know working with organizations like World Literacy Foundation but also individuals.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_02: I think in the end and sometimes individual key individuals who really care about literacy and can then be able to work with the foundation and us to be able to get our technology into places where where we've committed um to provide our product free.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_02: And so we've said to World D foundation any child in the world that wants that access literacy they can have our product free and they can have a free literacy check.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_02: So they can find out where they sit and how they currently sit.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_02: And it's absolutely available anywhere in the world.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: So that is an incredible like that's an incredible uh offer and clearly it shows that you're coming from the right place.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_02: Well then it's it's only a new thing that we're brief on that one thing that's blocking some people is just don't have the money, right?
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_02: So we said well you can have it free and have it free for life.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_02: Not free for a day or a week and we're gonna hit you with a bill free for life.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_02: So that and that's a commitment that the board's made and that the management team leadership team made and so the that's all we're hoping with the World Literacy Foundation that message out there that hey world class product available for free and I can do a check and find out what I need which bits I should focus on.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_02: It's taking right on the reasons people say no.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_01: Well all I can say is it's an absolute honour to have you and this extraordinary organization on the Beyond Words Literacy podcast because this is going out to the world and it will just give some people an insight into the extraordinary mission and the organization that you've created and I look forward to seeing um more traction for this wonderful literacy planet.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_01: But um I really want to thank you for your time.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's been so informative I could talk for another hour with you because there's just so many layers and hopefully you'll come back on the Beyond Words podcast maybe in a few months and you can give us a little update on how everything's going and any new items that I have no doubt will emerge after the summit.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_02: I love Tick Devin look I really appreciate your time and opportunity to listen appreciate it taking a take time to listen in it's been a real pleasure and hopefully we can we can really demonstrate the real impact and growing style with a little product that came out Dog cults Australia.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_01: Oh I love it.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_01: I love everything you're doing thank you for your time Tom have a great day.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_01: Well at the World Literacy Foundation we believe in literacy is the foundation of lifelong learning and education.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_01: 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.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_01: When we help someone to acquire literacy skills we're empowering them to access to better opportunities in life to break the poverty cycle it's a global organization in Africa, Latin America, the United States, United Kingdom and in Australia.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: 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.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_01: We're striving to eradicate the literacy by 2040 reading and writing should just be a basic right not a privilege.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: So please if you're interested head to our website at the World Literacy Foundation to see what is happening globally this extraordinary organization when we realize that there are 750 million people who cannot read and write see if you can contribute and make a difference