What is the Global Learning X Prize?
It's a $15 million prize to develop software that takes children from illiteracy to literacy and numeracy in 18 months. In 2016 five finalist teams will each win $1 million and we'll load their software on to tablet computers, distribute them to different sites in East Africa and test them out. It's probably going to be in Tanzania, and teams will develop software in both Swahili and English. Kids have to learn in their native tongue because that's how you learn how to read. Based on the field tests, in 2019 we'll announce the winning team, which gets $10 million.
What inspired the competition?
There are around 300 million kids around the world who can't read or write a word after going to school. The enormity of the problem is such that you cannot possibly build enough schools and train enough teachers to teach these kids. Software is the future of learning. It can let kids teach themselves without a grown-up in the equation. The competing teams in this X Prize will need to come up with something that's independent not only of schools but of adults too.