Smart Kidz Club Inc.

Target beneficiaries of our mobile reading application are young children (2-11 years), their parents, and teachers of elementary school. The problem we are solving is helping children and parents build early English reading and literacy skills at home using our mobile app consisting of an exclusive digital library of "read-aloud/read-along" unique books and resources WITHOUT the use of harmful animations or distractions. We follow a paper published by early education researchers on how to put education in educational apps by Kathy Hirsch-Pasek et al. Our app makes it easy for parents to help children learn and practice reading at home. It is research-backed and highly effective by way of its features namely a human-based audio narration, the ability to work offline, an engagement module that rewards and motivates the child to read more, learning quizzes, and activities that support the educational books, two modes of reading, and monitoring and evaluation of the child's activity. The content as well as the technology is owned by Smart Kidz Club.

We have worked with local communities of parents and teachers to understand the challenges they face and help address these while designing our mobile app. The biggest input we received was to include the ability for the app to work offline without the need for data or streaming internet. This was a challenge in most countries where data charges are high and internet connectivity is unreliable. The size of the app was another important input we received from parents which is why we have designed our app to be highly optimized in size. Another input that we received from many non-native English speakers was their inability to help their children with correct pronunciations or definitions/word meanings of many English words. This was included in the app's design framework by incorporating human voice narrations for all books and smart words/glossary definitions within the text. We are very sensitive to customer feedback and incorporate it into our technology for both content and delivery in a highly agile manner. We also gather feedback and customize content by adding new and fresh content in demand. 

263 million children and youth around the world won’t be going to school at all. The world is currently dealing with the largest refugee population on record, with more than 25 million people uprooted from their homes and living abroad in host communities. Of this 25 million, 11 million (according to UNICEF) are children. This number has doubled over the last 10 years. While there are risks and challenges for all refugees, living an uprooted life has unique impacts on children. The number one challenge is LIMITED ACCESS TO QUALITY EDUCATION. According to UNICEF, refugee children are 5 times more likely to be out of school than other children, often due to school safety, language barriers in the classroom, and financial issues. Smart Kidz Club digital app has the ability to go offline and work without the need for internet and WiFi. It utilizes the disruptive potential of mobile technology to make high-quality reading content in English accessible via Android and iOS apps around the world. It was founded with a research-based approach to reading and offers a carefully curated digital library that allows young children, between the ages of 2 to 11 years, easy access to narrated and illustrated ebooks -- in an environment free of ads, and animation, videos, and games. Smart Kidz Club develops original content, deemed by researchers as "just right," with a focus on nonfiction knowledge-based eBooks. It is the only platform containing human-based read-aloud technology with word highlighting and blends human narration and beautiful illustrations with interactive resources, activities, and quizzes. It provides access to an entire library of read-aloud educational books that are categorized by age, grade, and reading levels. This will enable these kids and youth to access education even in the remotest of areas, keep them occupied, continue their learning, and help them integrate more quickly into regular classrooms once they are rehabilitated. Equipping individual families with tablets preloaded with the Smart Kidz Club library or equipping a designated teacher with a tablet pre-loaded with the library can enable continued education for these displaced children and youth.

Our data had shown our users using the app and reading way past the recommended reading times.

Data also evidences the engagement of children with our app. See the below chart.

We also get great reviews on the AppStore directly from the parents.

We are using Google Cloud, Google Firebase as well as Appstore Connect's data to track and measure the impact of our app on our users. Some of the KPIs, among several that we track, are Daily Active Users/Monthly Active Users, Smart Coins being earned, the number of books being read, and badges being earned.

An educational digital library that works offline and inspires reading and learning through human-narrated original content without animations and distractions.

LEAP Fellows will help us quantify the extent of benefit that our solution provides to children in their reading and comprehension skills over a period of time and what would be the best pathways or use-cases to get the maximum outcomes for young readers. Currently, it is the parents or the children themselves who are managing the usage of our app. If there is a specific way that our solution can be used to provide the maximum benefit it could help parents follow the path and use the solution accordingly. 

Additionally, once the evidence of specific outcomes has been demonstrated, it would enable teachers, educational institutions, and schools to be more willing to invest in the solution for beginning, struggling, reluctant or slow readers.