We have a bright orange talking book in our office and it is just a simple device to use. Simply brilliant! Have mentioned the talking book a few times on our blog : http://blog.prathambooks.org/2008... , http://blog.prathambooks.org/2008... and http://blog.prathambooks.org/2009... . Keep up the good work! - Pratham Books

Thanks to Rod for the nomination (http://moderator.appspot.com/#11...) and to all the votes of support! Joyce made an excellent point (http://ff.im/4s9wN) about scaling with relevant/local-language information. To give 2-3 billion impoverished people access to crucial knowledge, we must empower the hundreds of thousands of existing local organizations that produce and deliver valued information today. The Talking Book was a product of collaboration with such local organizations. - Cliff Schmidt

My name is Andrew Bayor. I've lived my entire life in the rural northern area of Ghana, and I have been implementing the Talking Book program in Ghana for over one year. It's absolutely great to see rural folks in Vingving, Ghana listening to useful health messages that they need so badly and lacked. Just yesterday, the subsistence rural Vingving farmers told me their success stories from the messages created for them by the agriculture office on some farming practises. It's a great thing that will bridge the information access gap in rural Ghana. It's a very important project. - Bayor Andrew Azaabanye

Hi, My perspective is that of someone that has worked managing projects related to poverty reduction, technology, and disability in NGOs in the US and Brazil, at the UN's International Trade Centre (Latin America and Africa), and at UBS Philanthropy Services in connection with the Visionaris Award and social entrepreneurs from Ashoka. It is clear to me that the typical top-down approach, where we tell those we want to help--what and how to do things--and rely too much on technologies designed for our societies rather than theirs; are two of the most common mistakes made. In this regard the Literacy Bridge concept and device are outstanding innovations: The technology itself is really inexpensive and appropriate, and the content side of the process does not and need not depend on outsiders. People not only consume but also produce and distribute their own content in the areas that they care about in their own languages. This is crucial, although we can certainly help, we cannot afford to ignore local culture and experience. In the interest of full disclosure I should mention that my enthusiasm for Literacy Bridge got me involved with its interface design, as an advisor in general, and presenting LB at the UN-sponsored WSIS and other conferences. - Fernando Botelho

The Talking Book is an inexpensive, high fidelity, peer-to-peer information transmission device. And it helps people learn to read, to boot. It's the most innovative program I've seen in poor, rural information technology -- I knew I had to get involved when Cliff first explained his vision to me. It also seems much more attuned to the needs of the target market than, say, One Laptop Per Child, in my view. I can imagine dozens of applications from distribution of reliable health information to entertainment. The peer-to-peer capabilities have a variety of other nice properties, including robustness to censorship and no reliance on centralized infrastructure. - John Beatty

5 months ago, on the 26 of february 2009, I received a call phone from Seatlle. I was working back home on one of our bright sunny days! The guy said his name was Cliff Schimdt, that he heard about me and my work of disseminating information in rural areas of Burkina Faso, on the Internet. He then told me about the Talking Book. Since that day, we seldom spend two days withouth a skype discussion on the potential uses of the talking book here. On the 8th of june I received the device here. The yellow one ! And I can say that Literacy Bridge is really a "visionnaire". That is exactely the kind of tools we need here. And for me, having a partner that invest his knowledge in software creation for rural users in African countries, is the begining of a big start. The more important is not Literacy Bridge or organisations such as mine. The most important is partnership of strategic stakeholders. relevant fields of knowledge have to work together for the same purpose. Experts in Internet, computers, sofwares working with persons on the fields....ANd that is where I do appreciate the initiative of Cliff and Literacy Bridge : they are developping a device that meet the needs of the users. In fact they are always asking for thoses needs to update the device and to custmize it for the users. They are not imposing a technology that they think is good; Cliff is always asking me : " what do you need". For me there is no doubt that supporting the Talking book will provide obvious results for a country such as Burkina Faso. As a local partner of Literacy Bridge, I've already mentioned and showed the device to journalists, NGo's, women associations, Farmers's organisations. They all ask me how to have access. For all of us the importance of the devices seems obvious. So, please, support the Talking Book initiative if you want to invest in a issue that is at the core of many others : access to appropriate information . - Yennenga KOMPAORE

For a quick overview of what Literacy Bridge is doing, see our new video at http://literacybridge.org. - Cliff Schmidt