Latest News Updates on our work in Ghana and around the world.

Live in the Seattle metropolitan area? Think about spending a day or part of a day helping us assemble Talking Books that will serve thousands of people with critical information on health, education and best practices in agriculture.

We would like to thank each of the volunteers who participated in the November, December and January parties, including Mark Huck, Forrest Carman, Melissa Murray, Jennifer Handley, Melissa Hauf, Arthur Tao, Matt Nichols, Krysta Strasbaugh, Trina Gorman, Maria Bianchi, Val Wells, Emily Rodawalt, and Cliodhna Dill.

Thank you also to a contingent of CityYear volunteers, including Autumn Martin, John Wolfe, Malia Makowski, Cori Hyde, Andrew McGrath, Alie MacWilliams, Grace Dwomoh, Kate Harrison, Rebeca Juarez, Anessa Amerem, and Denise Taylor.

The Talking Book assembly parties are held in Literacy Bridge’s Seattle office.

If you would like to participate in an upcoming party, please contact lidija@literacybridge.org. Our next one will be held on February 19, 9:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

Cliff Schmidt reflects on Lessons Out Loud in a feature article about the Talking Book for the February 2011 issue of ICT Update, a bi-monthly magazine and website which share stories that show how technology can help the development process in rural areas of African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries. ICT Update is published in French and English and distributed worldwide by CTA (Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation), which was established in 1984 through funding from the European Union (EU), an economic and political union of 27 member states which are located primarily in Europe.

In November 2009, Cliff was among the 26 international experts invited to CTA’s ICT Observatory, which explored the use of “mobile services” for agricultural and rural development. The four-day think tank session provided CTA with information on how to promote the adoption and dissemination among EU’s development partners and agents of appropriate policies, and strategies for service delivery using mobile hardware and local wireless connectivity.

By Arthur Tao

On November 18th,  Bill and Melinda Gates honored Cliff Schmidt with a Integral Fellows award at the 2010 Microsoft Alumni Foundation (MSAF) celebration held in The Westin Seattle.

The award was established by the MSAF to recognize Microsoft alums who have dedicated themselves to helping solve some of the world’s most challenging problems.

“The results from our Talking Book project are very encouraging, and receiving recognition from Bill and Melinda Gates is incredibly rewarding,” said Cliff Schmidt, founder of Literacy Bridge.  “This award will help us expand Literacy Bridge’s Talking Book project into new communities.”

Literacy Bridge receives a $25K financial award and will have significant support from the Microsoft Alumni Foundation and from Cliff’s fellow Microsoft alumni in the coming year.

Read the Seattle Times article for details on the MSAF 2010 Integral Fellows Awards celebration.

Microsoft Alumni Foundation produced a wonderful video about Cliff and Literacy Bridge. Watch it and see Cliff’s passion and the tremendous potential of the Talking Book to help the world’s poorest, and you will get an idea of why the Foundation bestowed him with the Integral Fellows award.

This blog post is from Andy Bayor:

As you may recall from the last newsletter, Cliff Schmidt, Trina Gorman and I were invited to present the findings of our research paper, “Impact of Low-Cost, On-Demand, Information Access in a Remote Ghanaian Village” at the 2010 International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development(ICTD) in London on December 13-16, 2010. I am happy to say that the presentation was well-received by participants who attended, including researchers, practitioners, NGOs and all those interested in the latest research advances for the use of information and communication technologies in development practice.

Aside from our presentation, we attended various sessions at the conference, including open discussions, which I found very interesting because diverse ideas seem to converge as a single point. We also sat in on other research paper presentations and participated in workshops, demos and panel discussions. Most of the keynote speeches were centered on designing ICTs for development for the world’s poorest, and getting the users to participate in the design process. Additionally, we made many very useful contacts and had a few press interviews
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCYcQXJZ3FI, during our time at the conference.

I had the rare opportunity of meeting organizations and individuals working on similar projects in the developing world—though most of them were using mobile technologies. I also for the first time met a lot of people that I had communicated with over email. It was fun and interesting sitting together with Cliff and Trina in a coffee shop to discuss our projects in Ghana.

It was a wonderful experience personally, and as a group. Wonderful experience for me because first of all it was my first time on a plane! You can’t imagine how I felt at takeoff and when I peep through the window to see how far I was from the ground!! I had the rare opportunity to see with my own eyes what snow looks like, but without Doris’s coat that Trina carried for me, I might have frozen. It looked like everyone was a natural smoker because whether you were smoking or not, vapor comes from your mouth when you speak and when you look at that from afar, it looks like the person were smoking cigarette. Then it was food, usually the appearance looked very enticing to me but the taste was usually very strange to me. The closest Ghanaian meal I had was the rice dishes, and then I remembered how it has always been for Cliff and Trina anytime they are here in Ghana eating nothing close to anything in the US. At a personal level everything looked organized with the trains and buses because you could get the exact time to get a bus or a train online. The buildings and infrastructure was splendid and this makes me feel like we still have a lot of work to do in Africa.

This post is from Arthur Tao:

Cliff, our founder and Executive Director, has been selected by Microsoft Alumni Foundation as 1 of the 5 finalists of its Integral Fellows Award.

The purpose of the Fellows program is to recognize and support Microsoft alumni who have made a meaningful difference to others by using their talents, time and resources to change the world for the better. The Foundation seeks and identifies nominees who embody the values of entrepreneurship, innovation, collaboration, and integrity, and have achieved extraordinary results in their chosen endeavors.

As a finalist, Cliff is in very good company. The other 4 finalists are:

• - Peter Bladin, Founding Director, Executive Vice President for Programs and Regions, Grameen Technology Center, Grameen Foundation
• - Richard Gold, Founder, Pongo Publishing, Inc
• - Gary Malkasian, Founder and President, Foster Care Justice Alliance
• - Frank Schott, Global Program Director, NetHope

Up to four winners will be selected by a prestigious panel of judges:

- Tom Brokaw, journalist and author
- Bill Drayton, Chairman and CEO, Ashoka
- William H. Gates, Sr., Co-chair, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
- Pierre Omidyar, Chairman and founder, eBay, Inc. and founding partner, Omidyar Network
- Judith Rodin, President, Rockefeller Foundation
- Thomas J. Tierney, Chairman and co-founder, Bridgespan Group.

The nominees, finalists and winners will be recognized and honored at the 2010 Microsoft Alumni Foundation Celebration this November 18, where Bill and Melinda Gates will announce the winners of this year’s award.

The selection of Cliff as a finalist helps Literacy Bridge gain visibility of its work and impressive results. As Cliff said in his interview by Microsoft Alumni Foundation: “It’s time for us to scale up, and this nomination is a great way to help build awareness”.

Here is a post from Andy Bayor:

The Ghana Graduates Conference is annual forum for undergraduate and postgraduate scholars to present findings from their seminal dissertations. The objective is to provide an opportunity for debate and discourse which contributes to policy development, informing practice, and/or the development of sustainable projects that have a commercial or socio-economic development focus.

The conference took place 23rd -24th September, 2010 and over thirty papers were presented by participants from South Africa, Nigeria, Uganda and Ghana. Graduates and scholars made presentations from ICT4Ds, Web security, commerce and business.

I presented the results from our pilot village, VingVing; my presentation was titled “Impact of low Cost, On-Demand, Information Access in a Remote Ghanaian Village”. Participants were very impressed with the potential of the Talking Book and asked several questions about the cost, durability, and procurement.

I made several contacts with participants from Nigeria and Uganda. The representative of the Ghana Mathematics Society, Mr. Gavor described the Talking Book as a timely intervention for the adoption of ICT into the education curriculum. He promised me avenues for further presentations that will draw the attention of policy makers to its potential. Doctor Alonge from Nigeria was also very interested and explored many applications of the Talking Book in agriculture in Nigeria. Albert Mucunguzi, PC Tech’s Executive Director (An ICT magazine that featured an interview with Cliff) was in attendance and told me two organizations in Uganda had contacted him after he featured the interview on his magazine.

For those who are interested, you can download all of the presentations from the conference here.