Worldreader to digitize thousands of African titles and ship out ereaders

Worldreader.org is a huge non-profit initiative, based out of Barcelona, Spain and founded by David Risher, former renown Amazon executive and Colin McElwee. It aims to use technology in order to bring “Books to All” in developing countries.

Today Worldreader.org announced another cool initiative. With the help of publishers like Ghana-based EPP, Sam Woode, and Woeli and other local and international organizations, including Innodata, to help digitize thousands of titles from African writers, making them available to international readers for $5 or less in the Kindle Store. The twist to the initiative is that proceeds from the sales of thousands of local African titles, will then be split with Worldreader to feed back into and fund it’s program for bring books back into Ghana to promote literacy. Worldreader is funded by several partner organizations and general public.

Relying on e-readers, Worldreader has conducted several successful trials to bring books to children and families in remote regions, including a small village village near Accra, Ghana. It’s a beautiful way to mobilize and put a non-comercial face onto an iPad or Kindle. Where printed materials or even basic PCs can’t reach, e-readers are much easier to bring to rural communities. Distribution is key. An e-reader carries thousands of titles, is durable and mobile. It’s certainly much more cost effective than shipping tonnes of printed books.