A Literacy Tale: The Clinton Global Initiative is recognizing PlanetRead and the Indian Institute of Management (Ahmedabad) for their high-credibility proof that their innovation for mass literacy, Same Language Subtitling (SLS), is having significant impact. The CGI was persuaded to feature Same Language Subtitling after thoroughly grilling the organizations on their claims that 150 million weak-readers in India are becoming fluent readers as a result of applying SLS to popular television shows. Based on independently collected data by Nielsen’s ORG Center for Social Research, President Clinton remarked, “SLS doubles the number of functional readers among primary school children.” Because IIM-A and Nielsen set a baseline in 2002, and have been systematically measuring the impact of SLS right from the beginning, the results are highly credible and have garnered high-profile exposure. Watch the video
PlanetRead and its Director Brij Kothari have also just been selected as winners of the 2009 India Social Entrepreneurs Award! The Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) chose three social enterprises with significant impact in India to recognize. Congratulations to PlanetRead! Read more
Ending Poverty: KickStart’s mission is “to help millions of people out of poverty.” By developing technologies that promote sustainable economic growth and employment all throughout Africa, KickStart helped a record 81,000 people get out of poverty in just this last fiscal year alone. This is a 22% increase in impact compared to the previous year—an incredible feat especially because of the severe budget cuts to the organization. Because KickStart was able to prove their impact and demonstrate progress on their commitments set in 2006, they were invited back to the Clinton Global Initiative. They are being recognized for their accountability. In total, KickStart has helped 439,000 people permanently escape poverty. Check out KickStart’s impact report card