BraigoShubham Banerjee is 12 years old and lives in Santa Clara, California. When someone left a flyer on his doorstep asking for donations for the visually impaired he began thinking of ways he could help. Once he found out that a Braille printer cost about $2000 and that about 90% of the visually impaired live in developing counties he went to work. He went straight to his Lego's and began building. After lots of experimenting and 7 failed models Banerjee unleashed his new invention, Braigo (a mash up of Braille and Lego), at a science fair. How does it work? Push up pins act...
Reading on the other side of the pond: The Habits of British Book Readers
by Sofia M. via Visually. Over 60% read for 5 or more hours a week. Surprisingly, according to the World Culture Score Index the average american reads almost 5 1/2 hours a week. There is still hope.
Reading at Chipotle: Cultivating Thought at a fast food restaurant
McDonald's has had it occasional kids book in a Happy Meal promotion but Chipotle is going all out with the introduction of a new author series, Cultivating Thought curated by Jonathan Safran Foer. The series of "two-minute reads" presents: the words and whimsy of thought-leaders, authors and comedians through unique, you’ll-only-find-them-here essays, each illustrated by a different artist. We’re hoping this will allow people to connect with the musings of these writers with whom they may or may not be familiar and create a moment of analog pause in a digital world, provoking introspection or inspiration, and maybe a...
The Book Cops of Delaware
Master Cpl. Gary Tabor of the Wilmington, Delaware police department had been in plenty of homes during his time in the major crimes unit and he realized there was at least one common denominator - the lack of books in the home. Then he heard about the correlation between books in the home and higher graduation rates from high school and the light went on and "The Book 'Em Cops and Kids Literacy Initiative" was born. Since the program began almost 6,000 books have been distributed for free and for many of the kids it is the first book they ever...
Reading in the Mobile Era
A student in Kenya with her library of e-books. photo by @NdilaiG Another highlight from this years World Book & Copyright Day was the release of Reading in the Mobile Era by UNESCO. Based on interviews and 4,000 completed surveys in seven developing countries (Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Uganda and Zimbabwe) this landmark report "paints the most detailed picture to date of who reads books and stories on mobile devices and why." We learn that celluar networks reach over 95% of the worlds population and more people have access to cell phones than toilets. Then there is this tragic fact that most people in Sub-Shararan...