杏吧原创

What is the ?
It鈥檚 a $15 million prize to develop software that takes children from illiteracy to literacy and numeracy in 18 months. In 2016 five finalist teams will each win $1 million and we鈥檒l load their software on to tablet computers, distribute them to different sites in East Africa and test them out. It鈥檚 probably going to be in Tanzania, and teams will develop software in both Swahili and English. Kids have to learn in their native tongue because that鈥檚 how you learn how to read. Based on the field tests, in 2019 we鈥檒l announce the winning team, which gets $10 million.

What inspired the competition?
There are around 300 million kids around the world who can鈥檛 read or write a word after going to school. The enormity of the problem is such that you cannot possibly build enough schools and train enough teachers to teach these kids. Software is the future of learning. It can let kids teach themselves without a grown-up in the equation. The competing teams in will need to come up with something that鈥檚 independent not only of schools but of adults too.

Can kids really teach themselves?
I鈥檓 not a tech utopian, but tablets are so intuitive. When I hand those things to kids, within minutes they turn them on and begin to manipulate the apps, even if they have never seen anything like it. You can envision the day when you give this to a kid and that鈥檚 her mentor as she goes through primary school 鈥� or doesn鈥檛. This is what she will learn with. There is going to be an AI-based system that anticipates learning curves and understands what the child doesn鈥檛 know. And it will allow the child to teach the machine in a way that helps her learn, because teaching is a great way of learning. Forget grown-ups!

Does the hold any lessons?
We had great successes and great failures. The biggest mistake, I think, was that we never spent any time with teachers. They were scared and would lock the laptops away. They didn鈥檛 want the kids to know more than they did. But where teachers embraced it, the kids took off like rockets. This time we鈥檒l work with the local ministry of education and hand the tablets out in villages rather than schools. We鈥檒l also talk to every single parent of every kid. I think we鈥檒l have 4000 kids in the test group.

What happens after the competition ends?
I think somebody else will develop a learning ecosystem for all ages up to 11 or 12. We鈥檒l provide the hardware and build solar charging stations and all that. The big thing is that in four years the cost of a tablet will be close to zero.

What difference will it make, ultimately?
If 170 million kids can learn to read, there would be a 15 per cent drop in poverty rates. When girls, especially, learn to read and write and do basic maths, the economic status of the community is elevated greatly. Basic literacy helps.

This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淚鈥檇 like to teach the world鈥︹��