August 26, 2023
All Children Reading: A Grand Challenge for Development (ACR GCD) is pleased to announce the winners of our final prizes–Digital Books in Action Prize and Sign Language Storybooks in Action Prize–designed to encourage the expansion and utilization of EdTech solutions among our collaborators and awardees.
Over the last 11 years, ACR GCD has funded innovators who have developed over 10,000 digital children’s books in underserved local and sign languages. These books are available on free, open-source platforms like Global Digital Library, eKitabu and Deaf World Around You. Yet, the challenge remains in ensuring these books find their way into the hands of children both at home and in schools.
The two prizes were crafted to incentivize innovators to develop ambitious scaling and sustainable use strategies. With these strategies in place, ACR GCD will ensure that families, communities and teachers use available digital books to help children learn to read in languages they use and understand.
Among five organizations competing in the Digital Books in Action Prize, two organizations emerged as winners:
- Curious Learning, based in South Africa, for their work expanding the use and scale of the award-winning literacy app, Feed the Monster, which was developed during the EduApp4Syria competition.
- SIL International, based in the U.S., for their work scaling up the use of the Bloom Library. The organization has been an ACR GCD awardee multiple times.
The Sign Language Storybooks in Action Prize had two winners from a pool of four local disabled persons organizations that proposed and implemented approaches to distribute, promote and increase the use of sign language storybooks:
- Malawi National Association of the Deaf (MANAD) for their work expanding the use of sign language books in Malawian Sign Language.
- Deaf Boholanos Society, based in the Philippines, for their work expanding the use of storybooks in Filipino Sign Language.
“All Children Reading is proud to recognize these leading organizations as winners and congratulate them on their prizes,” says ACR GCD Chief of Party Sergio Ramirez-Mena.
Learn more about these prizes in an earlier news release.
