Literacy Bridge and the Talking Book Project

  • Cliff Schmidt | President, Board of Directors, Literacy Bridge

Knowledge is power: but most knowledge is tied up in text. How then do one billion illiterate adults in the world access knowledge crucial to preventing disease, creating economic opportunity, and defending their political and human rights? In response to this problem Literacy Bridge was founded to empower children and adults with tools for scalable knowledge sharing and literacy learning. The Talking Book Project is Literacy Bridge’s major program, developing new and affordable digital audio technology to provide vital, locally generated information and literacy training to people with limited access to either. Imagine an affordable MP3 player used to play locally generated podcasts, plus a decentralized, digital content distribution system that reaches villages without electricity but also enables global content sharing. The first testing of this project is currently happening in a remote village in Ghana, and we are now ready to study the results.

Speaker Details

Prior to his work as a grassroots lobbyist for organizations working to end global poverty, Schmidt ran a successful open source software consulting business for clients throughout Europe, the Middle East and North America, specializing in intellectual property issues, privacy policies and community development. He also served on the boards of many nonprofit organizations such as the Eclipse Foundation and The Apache Software Foundation where he served as the Vice President of Legal Affairs. In the 12 years prior to his consulting work Schmidt worked as an industry standards representative for Microsoft, as the open source manager for BEA systems and as a submarine officer for the US Navy. Schmidt received his undergraduate degree from MIT and his MS in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of Washington.

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