Reaching children in crisis

Flashback to 2017, we are halfway through localizing our app to 50 languages. All of the languages we had developed so far used the Latin Alphabet. However, we wanted to understand the technological and process differences for languages that use other scripts. By chance, due to the fact that Stephanie was familiar with the Cyrillic alphabet, we created a Ukrainian version as a test and set it aside. 

Fast forward to the beginning of 2022. We have been doing experiments running geographically targeted social media campaigns to see if parents will download our apps and make them available to their children. 

In February 2022, the war in Ukraine broke out. 

Suddenly, everyone was interested in what they could do to help the Ukrainian people as their schools closed and they were forced to take shelter. Here at Curious Learning, we realized that we already had a Ukrainian version of our flagship app ready to hit the ground, as well as an up-and-running process for effective social media campaigns. 

By the end of the first 100 days of the war, there were over 100,000 children playing Feed the Monster. 

Other campaigns have reached a comparable number of children; however, none have ever reached this many this quickly. Furthermore, no other cohort group has made as much learning progress in the app as quickly as the children of Ukraine. Although this is exceptional, it is also no surprise as they found their world turned upside down and were unable to attend school. Their parents were looking for positive ways to support their continued education as well as distract them from the chaos surrounding them. They turned to our app for support. In short, our approach to literacy learning was not only effective but provided much-needed help in a time of crisis. 

In many ways, the pandemic has created a similar need globally. Pre-pandemic, 56% of children were not reaching minimum proficiency levels in literacy. Currently, that number has grown to 70%. Children everywhere, but particularly in low-income countries with high illiteracy rates, have lost years' worth of learning. Couple this with the growing install base of smartphones plus the realization that those phones can be used as an educational tool (another result of the pandemic), and we have both a huge need and a visible solution to economically and effectively scale literacy learning worldwide. 

For 2023 and beyond, we plan to focus on garnering our resources and scaling our programs in order to do everything we can to keep that number from going beyond 70% and hopefully be a part of reducing it. 

Thank you for being a part of it, 

- Tinsley 
CEO, Curious Learning

 
 

Ukraine

After the war broke out in Ukraine, we quickly utilized an already existing Ukrainian version of Feed the Monster and reached 100K Ukrainian learners within the first 100 days of the invasion.

Here is a video of a Ukrainian mother and child using our content. Learn more.

 
 

Literacy League

Deborah Oduman, a technical writing consultant for Curious Learning and Literacy League fellow, organized a ‘contributhon’ that allowed local students and contributors in Uganda to help produce numerous interactive books in various Ugandan languages. In total, 12 contributors created 60 total pieces of localized content in 5 unique languages. 

 
 

Curious Reader

We launched curiousreader.org, which consists of interactive versions of Global Digital Library books. These new activities will provide support to bridge the process from learning letter sounds to reading sentences. As a part of our partnership with NORAD (Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation), 11 GDL pdf books have been turned into Interactive Curious Readers, which have further been adapted into 5 different languages: Bangla, IsiZulu, Yoruba, French, and Swahili. These stories have also been translated into Ukrainian. 

All Children Reading

All Children Reading highlighted Curious Learning in a piece about how the world is beginning to understand the power of smartphones. "Innovators like Curious Learning are shifting perspectives on using devices like smartphones from communication tools to learning tools, especially for hard to reach learners."

 
 

goimagine

Curious Learning partnered with goimagine, an innovative pro-social alternative to Etsy. This new marketplace consists of handmade items and donates 100% of its profits to children’s charities. Curious Learning is one of their featured non-profits. 

Content

  • We have content in 69 different languages

  • We have surpassed 75 learning apps and games between us and our partners

Distribution

  • Our complete content suite has surpassed 3.5 million downloads

  • We have reached 227 countries and territories in the world

  • Ukraine ~ 100 000 learners within 100 days of the invasion starting

  • India ~ 100 000 learners over 2 years @ marketing cost of $0.04 / learner

  • Kenya ~ 25 000 learners over 2 months @ marketing cost of $0.42 / learner

  • 6.567 billion smartphone subscriptions in the world as of 2022

Measurement

  • Paper now published: World Bank study (9000 homes in Northern Nigeria) shows that the use of these apps for early literacy learning was second only to 1-on-1 tutoring

Launch of the Global Literacy League, a group of dedicated, innovative supporters living in countries where children have difficulty becoming literate. Global Literacy League members, like Kamasa, will work with Curious Learning to distribute high-quality literacy apps to parents in their home countries. Kamasa has worked on food security with 140,000 young mothers between the ages of 14-24 with an average of 4-5 children each and has committed to our vision to help them learn to read. It is estimated that 70% of them already have smartphones making Curious Learning’s approach a perfect fit. 

On the heels of the massively successful World Bank study in Northern Nigeria, we are working with the World Bank to study the impact results of a pure online deployment. We will use our online marketing techniques to reach 10s of thousands of learners in multiple countries while integrating new assessment and survey tools, which will allow us to see the social-economic level and learning progress of the populations that we reach. This lays the groundwork for an unprecedented ability to track impact and reach as we scale.   

In 2023 we will start our journey toward scale. With the success we have had in reaching learners, we are starting the process of garnering the resources needed to launch large-scale programs in the 30 countries with the largest illiterate populations. We are very excited about the scale and cost-effectiveness.