Rockstand, READ India Partner to empower 2.5 lakh villagers through m-learning

Driving mobile based learning to the next level, Rural literacy has a new dimension to it, Rockstand, India's mobile learning market place, has tied up with Read India’s initiative to provide access to education across rural areas at the grassroot level.

As part of this initiative, the villagers will get free access to e-books, e-magazines &e-newspapers for relevant content and develop particular skills through the Rockstand application on 100+ library tablets in 16 READ India centers.

M-Library Kiosk has been installed at the centre library where anybody can access eBooks, eMagazines and eNewspaper through Rockstand app on mobile & tablets. Presently, the initiative is piloted only in 3 centers; Delhi, Gurgaon and Jhajar by the end of June and in the rest of 13 centers it will happen over a span of 6 months.

READ India inaugurated its 1st m-library in association with Rockstand, at READ Model Center, Shahbad Mohammadpur village, Dwarka, New Delhi on 22nd May 2015. Rockstand conducted a training program to educate villagers on use of the application and READ India staff on implementation of m-library program at the center.

Interestingly, Rockstand also offered books worth gross merchandising value (GMV) of Rs. 1.5 crores to villagers. The first day saw participation from over 40+ women and students. A process has been put in place to monitor the content viewed/read by the students in order to guide them better and get closer to their dreams.

Commenting on the alliance, Praveen Rajpal, Founder and CEO, Rockstand Digital Pvt. Ltd. said, “The level of illiteracy in India is much higher vis-a-vie our global counterparts and women are the highest impacted, with only 33% literacy rate. This partnership will be a step towards enhancing skill development and empowering women and children across rural areas in India. Our association with READ India will enable us to reach over 2.5 lakh villagers across 8 states through m-libraries over the next 6-8 months, enabling the current and future generations to get literate and minimizing the current literacy gap.”

Speaking on the occasion, Geeta Malhotra, READ India Country Director said, “Technology has always helped bridged the gap between the provider and recipient alongside reducing the time it takes for the service or product to reach out to its target audience. This association will exactly help in minimizing the gap between need and demand for education amongst the rural masses especially among women and children. With increasing mobile penetration in rural areas, this initiative will help us to reach out to more and more rural population and help them not only to access education but also refine their skills and earn a sustainable mode of livelihood for themselves”.

According to a report by the Census of India, the overall literacy rate works out to be 64.8 %, the male literacy rate is 75.3% and that for females is 53.7%, showing a gap of 21.6 percentage points between the sexes at the national level. The data highlights the unavailability of an effective education and skill development system.