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Fighting illiteracy
Only one in ten 10-year-olds in sub-Saharan Africa can read a simple sentence, despite many having completed several years of schooling. This means that around 617 million children and young people do not reach a minimum skill level in reading and mathematics, according to UNESCO estimates.
The Global Digital Library (GDL) is an ambitious project led by Norad and Sopra Steria, who jointly want to combat illiteracy among children by leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI) and cloud solutions to make available a wide range of open learning resources.
It uses technology to solve challenges by translating and creating new educational learning resources in children's native languages.
The project is in line with the UN's Sustainable Development Goal number 4, to ensure inclusive, equitable and quality education for all and improve basic reading, writing and arithmetic.
The goal of the GDL is to provide children with learning resources on a safe, open and inclusive digital platform, translated and accessible in both majority and minority languages.
Value for the world: AI creates new educational resources
The GDL is a collaborative project with global actors such as UNESCO, Unicef, The Global Book Alliance and Creative Commons.
The library contains more than 11,000 reading and math resources, translated into more than 140 languages, because we know that children learn best in their native language. The project gives more children and young people access to learning resources in a language they use and understand.
The content is open-source, accessible to everyone, and made for teachers, parents and publishers, but most importantly, children. It’s available on all mobile devices and can also be used offline.
In addition to children's books, GDL now also has maths games and videos for children aged 6 to 12 based on content from Khan Academy.
The content is created by Sopra Steria employees with educational and mathematical backgrounds. Many of the games have beautiful illustrations that contribute to learning through text and visual elements.
Strategic marketing to raise GDL’s profile
Sopra Steria is also developing a web platform to host all the learning resources, using AI to translate and produce new resources.
Sopra Steria contributes to the library's visibility through strategic marketing, direct contact with key partners and workshops. Our IT specialists have also created interactive games to make learning more fun.
The project team is working on creating reading education resources, including simple interactive books, initially in English, Indonesian and Vietnamese. These will be published in 2024. The project team also works with partners to translate books and maths games into different languages, but also to ensure increased use of the learning resources.
Today, the library has more than 670,000 users, mainly in Africa and Asia, and this is just the beginning.
Cloud technology to create a sustainable digital library
Although the library has content in about 140 languages, it has the capacity to accept content in about 300 languages.
Last year, the translation campaign "Translate a Story" led to more than 700 children's books which was translated into 12 Ghanaian and 29 Indonesian languages. This was done in close cooperation with UNESCO teams in France, Ghana and Indonesia, alongside the governments of the countries.
A pilot school program where resources are tested over a minimum of 6 weeks in close collaboration with teachers, will be launched in South Africa, Ethiopia and Vietnam in 2024. The pilot project will provide additional data and insights on usage, how children learn and how we can improve GDL.
The goal is a sustainable library that can be maintained and operated by partners, schools and teachers. The resources are designed so that they can be used in schools and in children's leisure time, in libraries and at home.
Test-and-learn platform methodology
Regular feedback from teachers and students who use the resources will give us opportunities to continuously improve and develop the resources. Teachers will also be able to create their own resources for the library.
Sopra Steria developers improve the GDL platform, adapt H5P interactivities, and simplify download and sharing solutions. We use a test-and-learn approach where user feedback is the starting point for making the platform as user-friendly as possible for the target audience. This work is done in collaboration with designers and content teams.
Insights, illustrations, and landing pages
Interaction designers create the flow and improve the platform and resources based on regular user tests conducted by children and young people in Africa and Asia. We have contributed thousands of illustrations used on the website, landing pages and social media campaigns.
The target group is far from Norway geographically and in many cases culturally, and being close through conversations, interviews, observation and user testing has provided valuable insight into the development process.
Data-Informed Marketing Strategy
Our marketing specialists have been running data-driven marketing campaigns targeting the markets of Rwanda, Ghana and Kenya for several years. The goal has been to reach parents and teachers to create awareness, traffic and increase usage on the platform. With a data-driven approach, we build strategies based on data and insights.
Sopra Steria has produced videos and dynamic ad content with visuals for campaigns such as "Hello Teacher!" and "Hello Parent", using different formats and ad placements that play on the strengths and characteristics of each location in channels such as Google Ads, Facebook, Instagram, the Display Network, and YouTube.
Numbers and statistics are collected and analysed in Google Looker Studio so that we can adjust Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and assess success based on goals set for each campaign.
In addition, the campaigns are synchronised so that they run together with relevant international education conferences with geo-targeting. For example, dedicated social campaigns were implemented around Digital Learning Week in Paris and MEducation Alliance in Washington, to build brand awareness for the platform with potential future partners.
We also produce content for weekly publication on social media, X (Twitter) and LinkedIn, to spread the content on the platform.
We want more users, more reach and more content, especially games and interactive learning resources. The potential is enormous.
The use of technology is a unique opportunity to democratise education, because at the end of the day, all children deserve the right to learn, regardless of where they live.