New Delhi: The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Center for Knowledge Societies (CKS) announced today the winners of the Read – Engage – Achieve – Dream (READ) Alliance’s second “Early Grade Reading Innovation Challenge.”

The four winners – Agragamee, Educational Initiatives, Humana People to People India, and PlanetRead – will together receive more than Rs 4.3 crore ($645,000)  in funding to develop, pilot and scale innovations to improve the reading skills of more than 64,000 primary school children in India. A total of 101 organizations applied under the Challenge for the coveted award.

Ambassador Jonathan Addleton, USAID Mission Director to India, announced the winners at the “READ Connect 2016” event, noting that education is foundational to human development and is critically linked to broad-based economic growth.

“Improving the early grade reading skills of school children in India will unlock opportunities for them to contribute more meaningfully to their country’s economic growth and development. By supporting the award winners and their innovations, we hope to transform thousands of young children into capable readers and writers,” Ambassador Addleton said.

Across the world, studies have shown the vital importance of reading ability on a child’s future and a country’s economic development. A 2011 UNESCO report found that if all students in low-income countries left primary school with basic reading skills, 171 million people could be lifted out of poverty — that’s the equivalent of a 12 percent drop globally.

Sharing his excitement on the announcement of the winners, Dr. Aditya Dev Sood, Founder and CEO, CKS, said: “It’s an exciting time for us right now as we have joined hands with organizations that are piloting and implementing early reading innovations across the country and we are optimistic about these approaches. We are looking forward to seeing state governments absorbing breakthrough innovations and learning technologies in their school systems.”

The ability to read should not be a privilege but a right for every child, stressed Anurima Chatterjee, Program Director, READ Alliance. “The READ Alliance project strives to spur an early grade reading movement in India by fostering and supporting new approaches and innovative reading solutions that offer scalable reading solutions to solve the reading challenge in India,” she added.  

During the “READ Connect 2016” event, Ambassador Addleton also announced the launch of “READTalk” as a discussion platform to share thoughts and solutions and spark conversations around early grade reading. The first READtalk focused on leveraging technology to transform early grade reading in India.