$7M XPRIZE :: 5 Final Teams :: $1M Communities Competition

XPRIZE and Barbara Bush Foundation to Award Finalist Teams in $7M Adult Literacy XPRIZE and Launch $1M Communities Competition to Distribute Winning Apps to One Million Adult Learners

Financial Post: 6.22.2018

Tomorrow, at the 2018 American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference and Exhibition in New Orleans, XPRIZE—the global leader in designing and operating world-changing incentive competitions—and its sponsors, will award $100K to each of the five finalist teams in the $7M Barbara Bush Foundation Adult Literacy XPRIZE, presented by the Dollar General Literacy Foundation. Launched in 2015, the competition challenges teams to develop mobile applications for existing smart devices that result in the greatest increase in literacy skills among participating adult learners.

In addition, XPRIZE, the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy and the Dollar General Literacy Foundation will officially launch the $1M Communities Competition. This 15-month long national competition will challenge organizations, communities and individuals to recruit adults with low literacy skills to download and use the apps developed by the winning team(s), with an aggregate goal of engaging and transforming the lives of one million adult learners in the United States.

“More than 36 million adults in the U.S. lack basic English literacy, yet only five percent have access to educational services,” said Shlomy Kattan, executive director of the Adult Literacy XPRIZE. “With the advancement of our finalist teams and the beginning of this new phase of community involvement, we are one step closer to dramatically increasing access to adult basic education and English language learning for millions of learners, helping individuals and families gain the skills they need to unlock new opportunities and improve their lives.”

═════════►

The Adult Literacy XPRIZE aims to dramatically change the way the United States meets the needs of the 36 million adults across the nation with low literacy skills by tackling the largest obstacles to achieving basic literacy – access, retention and scale.

The following five finalist teams were selected from an original pool of 109 teams representing 15 countries:

AmritaCREATE, Amrita University (Amritapuri, Kerala, India) – Inspired by Amrita University’s Chancellor AMMA and led by Dr. Prema Nedungadi, this team of educators and developers have created a personalized learning app along with engaging, culturally appropriate e-content linked to life skills.

AutoCognita (Hong Kong, China) – Led by Frank Ho, the team applies the constructivist learning approach to engage learners through action. Adult learners effectively acquire basic literacy, numeracy and life skills through a comprehensive curriculum and sound pedagogy.

Cell-Ed (Oakland, CA) – Led by Dr. Jessica Rothenberg-Aalami, this team brings more than 20 years of EdTech experience with low income, low-literate adults in the U.S. and worldwide by offering on-demand essential skills, micro-lessons and personalized coaching on any mobile device, without internet.

LearningUpgrade (San Diego, CA) – Led by Vinod Lobo, the team helps students learn English and math the fun way through songs, video, games and rewards.

PeopleForWords (Dallas, TX) – Led by Southern Methodist University’s Simmons School of Education and Human Development, in collaboration with SMU’s Guildhall and Literacy Instruction for Texas, the People ForWords team has developed a mobile game based on an archeological adventure storyline to help adult learners improve their English reading skills.

A $3M grand prize will be awarded to the team with the best performance across all adult learners over a 15-month, 12,000-person field test, currently ongoing in Los Angeles, Dallas and Philadelphia and concluding in October 2018.  READ MORE >>