The Children's University by Katha

Children are at a risk of dropping off the economic demographics as a result of an inability to read at grade-level. Independent research and Katha's own interventions have shown that if children are introduced to stories early on, they develop an affinity to reading, and reading stories itself helps develop a multi-faceted brain power, fueled with imagination. Katha is building a portal of its highly acclaimed children's literature for various reading levels. This portal will host these delectable reads, along with community-led activities that have a known impact on perpetuating reading habits. A contextual approach has been taken for children aged 0 to 5, to ensure the product design resembles and encourages the same interactions, but in a digitally engaging model.

Globally, it could provide an option for parents and children to bond over resources that will have a lifelong impact on the cognitive abilities of children.

As per the World Development Report 2018, the apathy of achieving grade-level reading by Grade -2, is a worldwide phenomenon, especially in developing countries and amongst the economically disadvantaged. In Ghana and Malawi, more than four-fifths of students at the end of Grade 2 were unable to read familiar words such as cat. In 2007, less than 50 percent of Grade 6 students in Southern and East Africa were able to go beyond simply deciphering words. Closer home, the acclaimed Annual Status of Education Report 2018 claimed that in India, by Standard III 12.1 percentage of students cannot recognise letters and 20.8 percent students can read letters but not a sentence. Most reports cite that girls are more affected than boys, and education for the girl-child is considered a luxury. Gender-stereotyping, and lack of awareness on the part of parents unconsciously perpetuate poverty.

Even in wealthier households, often parents do not engage children upto age 5 with books and reading. Parents and guardians often resort to keeping the child busy on the mobile, little realizing that the child’s concentration is only being consumed by animations and graphics that make little or no sense to their overall cognition.

There are 300 million children in India enrolled in schools, of which 50% cannot read at grade-level. A first prototype of the product had been developed as an app, called Katha Khazana, and made available through the Google playstore. Launched in 2018, the app won the mBillionth South Asia Award 2018.

For secondary research the focus is on data pertaining to digital literacy, digital penetration in urban, sub-urban and rural areas, usage statistics, reading challenges. For primary research, we are conducting a series of design researches including contextual enquiries, FGDs etc, to deeply understand reading behaviours in the target age groups. These are then being translated into feature designs that will help us build the final MVP product of the portal (MIB of the app). While most of the primary research is being conducted with underserved communities, qualitative inputs are being taken from various representative sections of the population. One of the first and crucial outcomes of the user research has been to convert the app into a mobile-responsive website, to enable universal access. Also the content is now being designed in a mediated environment to closely mimic an actual book reading experience.

Our solution is an AI-enabled website. This solution will house all elements that will enable a reading experience, perpetuating an interest in reading, and ensure assimilation of the reading morals through activities, challenges, gratification etc, that will ensure that the concepts read are also converted into a value-based education. The AI-enabled backend will be created on the principles of the VIBGYOR – a non threatening assessment system that Katha uses to comprehend reading levels in children. The AI will help track the students’ responses to activities, assessing reading levels, and thereby making reading suggestions. The website is being developed in MS Dot Net and SQL server. It will have a read-aloud book in HTML, Video embeds from Youtube, and game-activities. For the teachers / guardians, an interface leading to www.padhopyarse.net will be integrated and updated. For the children to be able to upload videos and pictures as part of the community challenges, an interface will be provided.

In Year 0 and Year 1, the website will be popularized in communities that Katha works with or will develop a relationship with. Using social media, the website will be popularized amongst other, priviledged groups, who can access the mobile through their personal devices. Partnerships will also be forged with doctors, other communities that focus on early childhood needs and information, to advertise our offering. In a highly likely scenario of multiple children and adults sharing a common computer, this website will generate an interest in reading. A responsive backend will help us identify what created product-stickiness and develop upgrades in accordance. Also, by Year 1, Katha will establish a translation hub that will work on the stories, to transliterate and transcommunicate them in different languages, that will provide easier access to communities.

The website will run on a freemium model. Year 2 will link the instructor, guardian and administrator registration page to a payment gateway that will help the website run in a B2B as well as B2C model.

With this website in place, and with continuous agile iterations, we intend to create a reading experience that will a) engage children in reading, b) encourage parents to develop early reading habits for children, c) develop an engagement that will create a high NPS allowing an easy dissemination to the 300 million children in India, and across the world, in need of such a reading programme.

The solution is innovative in creating a kinesthetic reading experience.

Stage 1: The child is exposed to voice-over-text with highlighting, and in the end is prompted to discuss aspects of the story with the parent or guardian. There will also be a screen where the story will be read out by a teacher / parent proxy, in a pre-recorded setting, since children at that age have unanimously mentioned that they like being "read-out" to, by an elder.

Stage 2: The child gets to interact with playful activities, such as colour the elements in the story, hear sounds of the animals you were introduced to etc., to perpetuate the engagement

Stage 3: The child has to complete the activity by correctly positioning two visual flashcards together, much like a jigsaw

Stage 4: The child now has to match a visual element with a written element - for eg, match the visual of a king, with the word "King"

Stage 5: The child will receive multiple flashcards with text, which they will have to put together to coin a word. For eg, "Ki" in one flashcard, and "ng" in another, "nd" in a second, "ty" in a third, and likewise. Once they put the flashcards together, only the one which relates to the story, in this case the King, will be accepted.

To ensure sustainability, the website is being designed to work in a freemium model, with registrations happening in the backend, to capture one-to-many data of users on a shared device.

The Children's University is a website built on MS.net and will use an SQL server. Being SEO enabled, we will ensure a high search ranking. Also, there will be an AI backend in Year 1, that will be built on Katha's VIBGYOR model of assessment to make reading suggestions to the users, while throwing up intuitive data for teachers, governments, funding agencies etc. It will use existing technology such as video embeds, HTML etc to create an innovative learning experience.

Katha's books have a proven impact on improving reading levels as seen through the I Love Reading programmes. To ensure last mile delivery, and reach the reading experiences to many, technology is being used as a lever. There is existing evidence to show how reading affects cognitive changes in the brain, putting children at a lifelong advantage. There is also evidence that shows that in a digital environment, children often resort less to "reading" and more to "watching". In early childhood, when children are just grasping languages and communication, reading habits through caregivers have shown an overall interest in reading. The current proposal is assimilating all of the research, and using the power of its product, and responses from its users, to create a solution that fills the gap in the need for reading in early childhood development, with a technology-enabled, sustained solution.

Current number serving: 1356 downloads of Katha Khazana, users of the padhopyarse.net website, and 8 million readers through intervention programmes

Serving in one year, through the solution alone: 300000

Serving in 5 years, through the solution alone: > 5000000

1. Deploy the MVP product to reach the books to schools, pre-schools. Reading is a focus area for pre-schools as per the draft New Education Policy in India

2. Establish a translation hub to cater to regional languages in India and across the world, to reach reading to more beneficiaries in their language of choice

3. To effectively address the 300 million challenge using the power of technology

4. To build capabilities in the website to host live tutoring, teacher-training etc, to reach remote area and global off-shores

5. To ensure product stickiness by continuously generating user insights and making product modifications

6. To ensure self-sustainability of the website and its programmes

1. Financial - a website of this scale needs significant financial backing, especially to create the AI-backend and meaningful game design for the activities

2. Technical - the product requires a significant server space, which is expensive

3. Legal - In some countries, prior to entry, we will need to include accessibility of content

1. Financial - through creating a consortium of donor partners, to help build out the website with all of its essential elements

2. Technical - we are currently seeking partnerships through CSR activities of donor partners, to receive the server space. To buy, we need financial assistance 

3. Legal - As we build out the product further, we will need to identify countries we wish to operate in and create content in accordance

The solution team is a part of Katha, a registered non-profit and non-governmental organization. In order to achieve Katha's 300 million challenge, using tech as a lever, a small group of employees with product design, content and technology expertise were brought together to replicate Katha's StoryPedagogy into a digital experience. The solution is a white-sleeved Katha product. The idea is to bring children into reading, especially early learners, but also neo-literates, using the power of technology.

Organizational details:

Full-time staff = 129

Part-time staff = 1

Contractors = 2

Volunteers = 2000

Solution details:

Full-time staff = 2

Part-time staff = 1

Contractors = 1 team

Volunteers = 50

Katha has over 30 years of experience in leveraging the power of stories to create reading-level improvement. In the core team working on the digital product are human-centered design researchers, education content specialists, storytellers, product designers, content specialists and technology experts. 

Cumulatively, we have over a 100 years of experience of working with children and stories, and in actually re-creating digital experiences that resemble analog human behaviours.

We are currently supported by British Telecommunication to provide the initial website framework to host Katha's digital repository of content.

In Year 0, we will completely rely on funding to build the platform to serve 300000 users. From Year 1 onwards, the registration to the platform will be converted into a freemium model. We will rely heavily on institutional, B2B deals to safeguard our print publishing products, as well as ensure sustainability of the platform. We will also rely 60% on funding to build out more features, set up the translation hub etc. From Year 2 till Year 4, a 40 - 50% dependence will remain on funding to build out language, accessibility and feature edits.

Considering that reading challenges are experienced most amongst the underpriviledged, an institutional model ensures revenue generation and usage

Fee-for-service model: The fee-for-service model of social enterprise commercializes its social services, and then sells them directly to the target populations or "clients," individuals, firms, communities, or to a third party payer. Here we will be relying on institutions, governments and donor partners to fund and help sustain our service as a solution.

Katha's expertise lies in the content, and in building out the design offering. Where we will stand to benefit from Solve's partnership, outside of the funding, will be to mentor the product development, providing insights about global scalability and preparing the business developmental roadmap. Katha also firmly believes in exploring adjacencies and leveraging on the IP already available. This allows a great platform for Katha to leverage since all solve challenges and winners work towards achieving specialised solutions to problems that Katha believes exists and seeks to address through education. Hence, identifying solutions that closely map to the problem Katha is trying to address can help us forge connections and collaborations and offer a more holistic solution to those in need.

Not Applicable

Amazon - Cloud Computing and Server Space

Nintendo - for game design capabilities

McKinsey - for consultations on design, business strategy, entry into other geographies

MarketingWorks, Inc. / Nielsen - market research, accessibility and entry

Sesame Street - graphics

Google - AI

Tata Trusts - leveraging their goodwill and access across India

Livox & TalkingPoints - additional features for the website

Standardised tests available in India to test the reading abilities of children have been critiqued (Nawani, 2014). Katha's solution is built on the VIBGYOR learning and assessment matrix. The matrix is composed of seven learning levels (corresponding to the letters and colours, with Red/R being the highest level and Violet/V being the lowest level) and spans five language learning arenas, namely Listening, Speaking, Story-telling, Reading and Writing. This matrix assesses holistic language learning across twenty parameters. While word recognition, grammar and syntax are parts of the language learning process – Katha’s VIBGYOR assessment is conducted through the medium of stories and focuses on attentive listening, communication and comprehension as a few of the essential markers of language learning. Thus Katha’s VIBGYOR is directed towards assessing the layered language skills that form language comprehension and not literacy alone. Assessing the child's progress through AI, enabled on the VIBGYOR model, will create one-of-a-kind, non threatening remediation tool, that focuses on strengths. Reports generated through a VIBGYOR enables AI will always help the teacher stay focused on the development, will help make appropriate reading solutions and will provide the caregiver with inputs that will help enhance reading attention.

Thus, we would like to apply for the AI in Innovations Prize, though currently, it is not a part of the platform.

Not Applicable

Not Applicable - solution is not US based