The 21st century’s educational foundation isn’t a pile of books--it’s a jumble of fiber optic cables. Library For All is using those cables to stream a digital library to Haiti, helping school children jump-start their education.
Library For All is a small organization by any standard; a staff of nine work on the top floor of a small, brick office building--the kind of office that gets swallowed up in the glittering gray glass-and-steel skyscrapers of New York City. However, the organization’s real work is 1,534 miles away, in Gressier, Haiti.
Gressier is a small, dusty coastal town 14 miles west of Port-au-Prince, and just two miles east of the epicenter of the 2010 earthquake that devastated Haiti. Like many nearby towns, almost half of Gressier’s buildings were shaken to tangled rubble on that Jan. 12 afternoon. It was at a small school filled with former child slaves and orphans, that Library For All began its mission to educate developing nations’ youth, using mobile technology and digital libraries.
Library For All strives to provide a rounded educational archive for young users. The digital library holds “linguistically and culturally relevant texts for students living in poverty in developing communities,” as well as standard core educational texts, such as textbooks of math, science, and literature.
Library For All's Beginnings
Library For All was founded in early 2012 as the brainchild of Rebecca McDonald and Tanyella Evans. McDonald had moved to Haiti to help rebuild after the 2010 earthquake, and Evans had spent a year in Uganda teaching children.
Rebecca McDonald quickly noticed a theme when she peered into classrooms in Haiti; most schools had only a small stack of books for the students to share. She mulled over how to make texts accessible in similar classrooms around the developing world. McDonald and Evans realized that the digital library could be part of the solution.
But funding an education revolution is expensive work.
Library For All grew quickly, building partnerships with the Mobile Alliance for Global Good, Global Campaign for Education, and the NYU Stern School of Business. Partners provide funding, as well as donate digital content; they see the importance of Library For All’s goal and ensure it has the resources for growth that many startups lack.
McDonald and Evans set their sights high this year and competed against a host of other organizations in the Knight Foundation’s Knight News Challenge for a share of the $3 million pot. In January, they split 1st place with seven other projects and took home $265,000.
Why It's a Game Changer
Library For All recognized that technology has already begun to transform education in the developed world. Tablets and laptops are becoming standard classroom fixtures in schools, from which students stream books and lessons. However the people that desperately need innovation in education are in the developing world.
Library For All’s magic is that the digital archive solves the overwhelming task of procuring, transporting, and maintaining educational texts in developing countries. To solve that problem, Library For All uses a “device-agnostic” cloud that is compatible with any of Google’s android devices; cell phone, tablet, computer or otherwise. A low bandwidth internet connection paired with a pre-installed app ensures that these devices work in internet-poor regions.
But digital reading devices are expensive. Through Library For All, schools can register to have their mobile devices sponsored. Fortunately, mobile phones are becoming ubiquitous in the developing world; of the 7 billion people on Earth, 6 billion own a mobile phone.
Similar Initiatives in Development
The UN champions youth education as one of the most important areas for focusing on development. Youth education has a long-term uplifting effect on every aspect of society. If every student in low income countries learned basic reading skills, according to the UN, 171 million people could escape the rut of poverty, resulting in a 12 percent reduction in poverty worldwide.
Library For All is not the only organization to see the light of the digital cloud. Across the world, digital libraries are streaming into the hands of school children as giants of international development throw their weight behind this issue.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Clinton Global Initiative have been huge proponents of the digital library movement, sponsoring the Access to Learning Award (ATLA) and the prolific World Reader, respectively.
On a smaller scale, startups such as Librii plan to take the digital library field one step further, opening small libraries throughout Africa in shipping containers stocked with modified low-bandwidth computers that access a digital library.
Library For All's Future
Library For All is poised to sprout hundreds of enriched minds in Haiti, educated young people who will go on to increase the standard of living for thousands more. Education, in short, is exponential. By equipping their library a with both culturally relevant and core educational texts, Library For All ensures children receive a comprehensive education network that is specially designed to be streamed directly to their portable reading devices, wherever they are.
The internet is a tide that raises all boats of knowledge. Library For All’s digital library is now streaming the flow of information to children in Haiti, but they are not even close to being done. “We want to reach 5 million kids by the end of 2017,” says McDonald. “We’re crazy ambitious.”
