Causes: International, International Relief

Mission: Literacy Bridge empowers children and adults with affordable tools for knowledge sharing and literacy learning, as an effective means towards advancing education, health, economic development, democracy, and human rights.

Programs: Literacy bridge saves lives and improves the livelihoods of impoverished families through comprehensive programs that provide on-demand access to locally relevant knowledge. At the heart of the program is the talking book - an innovative low-cost audio computer designed for the learning needs of illiterate populations living in the poorest areas in the world. In 2014 we developed content campaigns with unicef for behavior objectives and conducted community level research to ensure the selection of 49 communities matched our community criteria. We launched programs in all 49 communities with critical agriculture and health content. In 2014 we also hired a full time marketing manager and a full time program manager at our us headquarters, and deployed a short-term u. S. Field advisor to live and work in jirapa, ghana. We also hired community agents to serve as individual community liaisons for each community and trained them on how to execute our household rotation distribution model. We held public meetings in each community to explain the talking book program and increase awareness and interest in our program. Farmers day is a national holiday in ghana that celebrates the accomplishments of the country's best farmers and fishers. Talking book users won six out of eight farmer's day awards. One of our biggest highlights in 2014 was announcing our partnership with unicef and arm. We received media coverage from bbc news, geekwire, business weekly, and others.