Four Indian NGOs receive grants from Google.org
Pratham Books-StoryWeaver, an open-source platform to author, illustrate, and translate free books for children around the world already has 3,000 books in 19 languages and an estimated readership of 50 million. Last week, they were one of the four Indian not-forprofits that received grants from Google.org, Google’s philanthropic arm. The non-profit is now aiming for more than 500,000 active users and 20,000 titles to address the ‘book famine’ in mother tongue languages.
Google.org cited data from the United Nations to say that 220 million of the students learning in a foreign language. Another 74% students have little to no internet access, while 130 million students are not learning basic math and reading after four years in school.
This year Google.org has committed $50 million to bridge the quality education gap globally.
Education is the largest single issue commitment we have made and India is the largest single geography within the portfolio, Nick Cain, program manager, education, Google.org, told Mint.
Google.org quoted ministry of human resources development, government of India’s data to show that there are more than 1.51 million private and government schools across primary and secondary levels in 2016. There are 260 million children enrolled in schools across the