3-Minute Video: How 40K PLUS is Fighting Illiteracy

“According to UNESCO, there are more than 250 million children around the world who can’t read, write, or count.” —Clary Castrission, CEO of 40K PLUS

40K PLUS believes that building the workforce of the future has to start with building critical skills in children’s most foundational years.

How are they making that a reality? They’re using a technology system comprised of low-cost tablets and a Raspberry Pi to help deliver education in environments with limited resources, internet connection, and qualified teachers.

40K PLUS finds the needed learning content, matches it to local curriculum needs and languages, and adapts a new curriculum to be culturally sensitive.

Here’s how the process worked in their pilot across 37 villages in India with 1,400 students learning English:

1. To start, 40K PLUS built a cloud-based Learning Management System that maps third-party content against the local curriculum.

2. They have created an offline syncing mechanism. This allowed 40K PLUS to download the learning content and data onto the tablets in their office and move the tablets into the village via motorbike.

3. The students then ran the curriculum on the tablets with the help of a facilitator focused on their motivation, not on direct instruction.

4. 40K PLUS brought the tablets back to the office to download the information and measure student progress.

5. And then, the cycle started all over again.

Watch Clary Castrission, CEO of 40K PLUS, pitch at the Solve Challenge Finals before becoming a Solver and being selected for two prizes from the Atlassian Foundation and the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade:

Read the solution application for 40K PLUS. Interested in partnering with them as they pilot and scale their pitch? Solve wants to hear from you. Reach out at solve@mit.edu.

Clary Castrission pitches 40K PLUS at the Solve Challenge Finals in the Youth, Skills, and the Workforce of the Future Challenge, September 17, 2017. (Photo by Samuel Stuart / MIT Solve)

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