| literacybridge.org | info@literacybridge.org | +1 425 780 5669 |

“In our Ghana pilot program, farmers using Literacy Bridge’s Talking Books learned to pro-duce crops worth nearly $3000 in the first year alone. Surpluses were sold to pay for fertil-izer, health insurance, and school fees. Our partners can implement this program for $1000today.” - Cliff Schmidt, Executive Director

Problem Statement:

For hundreds of millions of rural people, learning new health practices and agriculture techniques can drastically reduce poverty, malnutrition, and child mortality. But vital knowledge like this is not reaching them due to illiteracy (774 million adults) and lack of electricity (1.5 billion people). Outreach to remote villages is costly and ineffective; people often forget what they’ve heard when it finally comes time to apply it—particularly when illiteracy prevents them from taking notes.

Theory of Change:Local experts understand the prob-lems, context, and practical solutions for the regions in which they work; they also speak the local languages. Literacy Bridge allows them to record and distribute their health and agriculture knowledge to allow easy, on-demand access by people with no formal education or exposure to technology. This leads to learning and behavior change that saves lives and raises income.

No Intervention Intervention

Headquarters: Seattle, WA, United States

Established: 2007

Impact Areas: Ghana, Expanding to Nigeria in 2011

Type: Non-Profit/NGO

Sectors: Economic Development, Information & Communications

Technology (ICT)

Staff Size: 4 and 240 volunteers

Annual Budget: $130,000

Major Funders: Amazon.com, Yahoo Employee Foundation, Seattle International Foundation

Awards: 2009 UN Global Alliance for ICT and Development, 2010 International Conference on ICT and Development

Literacy Bridge - GSBI™ Class of 2010

IMPROVING THE HEALTH AND INCOME OF IMPOVERISHED RURAL FAMILIES THROUGH

KNOWLEDGE

Solution:Literacy Bridge improves the health and income of impoverished rural families by providing easy, on-demand access to locally relevant knowledge. We accomplish this today using our “Talking Book”—a low-cost audio device designed for the learning needs of oral cultures. This allows local expertise to reach more people, more effectively, so they can learn and adopt practices to fight poverty and disease. When provided with such on-demand infor-mation, 91% of farmers learn and apply the new practices.

This profile was developed during the 2010 Global Social Benefit Incubator™, the signature program of Santa Clara University’s Center for Science, Technology and Society. Updated 8/26/2010. www.scu.edu/sts/gsbi

Investment Required:Grants and/or debt totaling $500,000 will allow us to reduce device-manufacturing costs below $9/unit and grow sales to create self-sustainable earned income in four years.

Cost per Successful Outcome:

Annual Budget vs. Outcomes:

(health and income)

Growth Plan:

2011: Sell 11,000 Talking Books; im-pact 330,000 people; complete devel-opment of custom microprocessor

2012: Decrease cost of goods from $25 to $9; expand sales to 40,000 units; impact 1,200,000 people

2013: Sell 100,000 units; impact 3,000,000 people

2014: Sell 200,000 units; impact 6,000,000 people; earned income fully supports expenses

$14

Impact to Date:

• Farmers with access to Talking Books increased crop pro-duction by 48% compared with non-users decrease of 5%

• A farmer’s use of a Talking Book led to an extra $89 of crops (controlling for other likely factors)

• Health clinics report that people waiting in line listen to the recommendations recorded on Talking Books by their nurses

Milestones Achieved:

2007: Studied problem in Ghana

2008: Built Talking Book prototype, re-turned to Ghana for feedback, finished v1.0 with less $80,000

2009: Strong pilot results; UN Under-Secretary General calls Talking Book a “real opportunity for developing countries.”

2010: The Government of Ghana be-comes first major customer. 47 NGOs/govts request Talking Books.

| literacybridge.org | info@literacybridge.org | +1 425 780 5669 |

“A great thing about this device is the amount of corn its lessons enabled me to harvest. I’ve never harvested even ¼ bag from that piece of land, but this year I got more than a full bag from the same piece of land.” - Anthony Dery, Ghanaian farmer

IMPROVING THE HEALTH AND INCOME OF IMPOVERISHED RURAL FAMILIES THROUGH

KNOWLEDGE