The Awards is a signature project of The Tech Museum of Design, and recognises 25 organisations that use technology to benefit humanity.
The FunDza Literacy Trust is a non-profit organisation dedicated to developing educated, empowered and engaged citizens in South Africa, through boosting literacy and a love of reading and writing amongst the youth. The Trust's Growing Communities of Readers programme provides young people across the country with access to quality, locally-generated reading content via their mobile phones. FunDza's mobi network (responsive website and Mxit app) is accessible to users on smartphones, feature phones, tablets and computers with internet access. The platform is interactive - readers can comment on stories, share content with friends and submit their own writing for publication too.
FunDza's programme is having an impact: each month at least 50,000 unique readers access its content. A recent independent evaluation of the programme, by University of Cape Town's Institute for Monitoring and Evaluation, found that FunDza readers were reading more content more frequently thanks to their engagement with the programme.
Mignon Hardie, Managing Trustee of the FunDza Literacy Trust said: "We are delighted that FunDza has been named as one of the 2014 Tech Award Laureate finalists. By using technology already in the hands of young people we are able to expand access to stories to those who are most under-resourced and have grown a community of dedicated readers. FunDza has started a reading revolution in South Africa. We are buoyed by the hundreds of comments we receive daily from our readers. We are very proud to have FunDza's work recognised internationally as contributing to the benefit of humanity."
Winners will be announced at a gala dinner in San Francisco in early November 2014.
For further information about the Tech Awards and the finalists, please go to http://thetechawards.thetech.org/laureate.
