StoryWeaver

Hear The Pitch 

The Problem

A lack of reading materials in native languages is linked to children’s inability to read at grade level expectation. In India, and across many emerging economies, young learners are impeded by a shortage of reading materials in their own language. And when these materials are available, they can be prohibitively expensive to many learners.

The Solution

StoryWeaver is an open-source digital platform that provides multilingual storybooks for children to learn and practice reading. On StoryWeaver, users can read, download, and print books for free, as well as translate and create new storybooks using the platform’s simple tools.

The platform can be accessed on desktops, laptops, and mobile devices. Its interface is simple, intuitive, and non-bandwidth intensive—so readers can access content regardless of infrastructure limitations. All content is Unicode compliant, which makes it discoverable, accessible, and interoperable.

By bringing together story readers and creators, StoryWeaver helps catalyse the creation of more content for children.

Market Opportunity

• Most publishers cater to middle- and upper-income urban audiences.
• A lack of appropriate reading material for literacy development is a barrier to opportunity, growth, and poverty reduction.
• Book scarcity due to a shortage of mother-tongue literature impacts more than 1 billion children worldwide.

Organization Highlights

• Grew from digital repository of 800 stories in 24 languages to over 10,000 stories in 124 languages
• 30 percent of languages on the platform are classified as tribal or endangered
• Speaking engagements: Creative Commons Conference, mEducation Alliance Symposium, UNESCO Mobile Learning Week, Comparative and International Education Society (CIES)
• Award: Solve Teachers & Educators Prize
• Media: Live Mint, Hindu Business Line, World Bank, Telegraph India, and more

Existing Partnerships

StoryWeaver currently partners with:

• Publishers like Pratham Books, African Storybook Project, and Book Dash
• The Asia Foundation, Translators Without Borders, Uganda Christian University, Konkani  Bhasha Mandal, and the Rosetta Foundation to make stories available in multiple languages such as Filipino, Swedish, Lusoga, Ateso, Bhojpuri, Khmer, Bengali, Thai, and Konkani

Organization Goals

StoryWeaver seeks to:

• Increase the number of organizations and partners using StoryWeaver and integrate its content into more reading programs
• Raise US $1 million in grant funding by the end of 2020
• Double the number of readers from 1.5 million to 3 million in one year, and have 6 million readers by 2020

Partnership Goals

To reach these goals, StoryWeaver seeks partnerships to:

• Scale distribution efforts, particularly with literacy organizations, ministries of education, and global NGOs
• Make introductions to funders who are invested in helping build a large repository of openly licensed content in local languages
• Attract talent in the fields of analytics, AI, and product development
• Grow exposure at conferences and meetings
• Leverage AI technologies to develop tools that will help scale creation of multilingual stories