vailable on the most basic version of the device); Users can copy the audio content to/from the device; Users can play back the audio at slow speeds for reading practice of an associated text document; Users can audio-hyperlink to another portion of the program for more detail or a related piece of information; Users can answer multiple-choice questions, enabling interactive learning; The audio program can optionally contain another file containing the content in text form -- this enables future transfer of the textual information to another computer for display, processing, or printing; The device can redirect the sound to an external, loud speaker (uses FM transmission to a nearby radio; The device accepts power from standard, locally available batteries, but also accepts new batteries that can be recharged with solar power at local kiosks; and the device interoperates with the XO computer (also known as the $100 Laptop).
Schmidt said he thinks the devices "can revolutionize the way knowledge is disseminated in the very poorest parts of the world and can drastically improve literacy skills ... I think it's going to be used similarly to the way we use the Internet but applied to the user's world. We're trying to leverage local organizations to provide health care information -- such as how to prevent the spread of HIV and malaria, agricultural information, and economic information, such as how to run a small business."
Schmidt cited studies that say more than 40 percent of adults in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa cannot meet the United Nations' basic definition of literacy, which is to be able to read and write a simple sentence about themselves.
"A device like ours has the power to address illiteracy from another side -- you don't wait until a person is literate to give them help," Schmidt said.
Meanwhile, Schmidt said he took a prototype of the device with him on a recent trip to Ghana to get feedback from the people who will use it. Upon his return his team came up with a new prototype that comes in three colors, bright orange, blue and green, because "in areas where there is no electricity, the bright colors will help people see [the devices] better," he said.
The next step is to do a pilot test with the latest version of the device and take 50 to 100 devices to the Ghanaian villagers who will be using them, Schmidt said.
Moreover, Schmidt said on his last trip to Ghana he took a bunch of digital voice recorders and distributed them to local universities so that they could record content useful for the villagers.
For its part, Literacy Bridge chose Ghana as its first target because it "had the right balance of need versus support" for literacy learning and knowledge sharing, Schmidt said. He acknowledged that the need is probably greater in places like Afghanistan or the Democratic Republic of the Congo, "but there is less support and also more challenges" in those locations. Schmidt said India is the next country Literacy Bridge will go to, followed by Kenya.
Showing his conviction, Schmidt cited former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan as stating in 2003 that the U.N. was kicking off the literacy decade. Back then studies showed there were more than 880 million illiterate people in the world, and yet more recent studies say by 2015 there will still be more than 600 million illiterate people.
"That's two years after the U.N. literacy decade is to end," Schmidt said. "And that's not fast enough for me."
Cliff Schmidt is a determined man. He is certainly a man capable of making this effort a success. I count him among my actual friends in the industry. He is a multifaceted guy -- an MIT graduate who later put in time protecting the free world by serving as an officer on nuclear submarines on missions bordering hostile waters. Or maybe, in fact more likely, he even entered hostile waters. He doesn't give a lot of information about those days. However, Schmidt is not one of those fake-ass "If I told you I'd have to kill you" types who have worked in mostly innocuous military and intelligence situations. He's the rea