Local literacy trust FunDza has been selected as one of this year's 25 finalists for the Tech Awards in the Microsoft Education Award category. It is the only South African organisation on the shortlist.
The Tech Awards is an international awards programme honouring individuals, non-profit organisations and for-profit companies around the world that use technology to significantly improve human conditions in the categories of environment, education, health and economic development.
Mignon Hardie, managing trustee of FunDza, explains the FunDza Literacy Trust is a non-profit organisation that gives 50 000 young people in SA access to reading material on their mobile phones as a way to help create educated, engaged and empowered communities. It is dedicated to improving the literacy levels of South African youth, aged 13 to 25 years, from under-resourced communities.
"We are delighted FunDza has been named as one of the 2014 Tech Award laureate finalists. Receiving this global recognition is obviously a great accomplishment," says Hardie.
"By using technology already in the hands of young people, we are able to expand access to stories by those who are most under-resourced and have grown a community of dedicated readers. We are very proud to have FunDza's work recognised internationally as contributing to the benefit of humanity."
Hardie says FunDza has a responsive Web site (http://fundza.mobi) and Mxit app (http://mxitapp.com/fundza) that provide a "library on a phone". Every week FunDza commissions a professional southern African writer to write a seven-chapter short story which is released in serialised format over the course of the week ? a new chapter appearing each day.
FunDza's platform is interactive. Each chapter ends with a discussion question and readers are happy to voice their opinions. Every day, stories elicit between 100 and 200 reader comments.
The other finalists in the education category are:
Gooru - US
Maendeleo Foundation - Uganda
Open Green Roads - Chile
Worldreader - US
Other categories include the Intel Environment Award, Katherine M Swanson Young Innovator Award, Nokia Health Award, and the Flextronics Economic Development Award.
Winners will be announced at a gala dinner in San Francisco in early November.
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