Worldreader is shipping Amazon’s single-purpose Kindle reader to schools and communities in sub-Saharan Africa with a near-term goal of providing 1 million e-books to children in the largely English-speaking countries of Ghana, Uganda, and Kenya in the next year.
(It) persuaded Amazon’s hardware engineers to work on reinforcing the casing of the donated devices so they don’t succumb to the harsh environmental conditions of the region. Worldreader also uses special software so that every few weeks free e-books can be wirelessly delivered over cellular networks to kid’s devices.
The U.S. Department of State (announced) in June a pilot program to purchase 2,500 Kindles as part of its own global e-reader program. But the initiative, which had not been opened to other e-reader makers, wilted under criticism that it didn’t take into account the needs of sight-impaired people and the government was playing favorites in the competitive e-reading market.
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