Our platform transforms any literacy content into an offline mobile app that teaches lessons compatible with an existing curriculum
AutoCognita is a finalist in the Adult Literacy XPRIZE and a semifinalist in the Global Learning XPRIZE
Your literacy content, appified.
The World Literacy Foundation estimates the economic and social cost of Illiteracy at US$ 1 trillion a year.
Pandemics are only exacerbating this problem by cutting off access to schools and community centers.
The world needs a literacy solution that is low-cost, scalable, and accessible in many different languages.
AutoCognita’s literacy learning platform makes it easy for governments and organizations to create localized literacy apps for mobile devices that work offline.
Learners can teach themselves to read in their local language via interactive, engaging and self-checking lessons.
Our mission is to help the nearly one billion illiterate children and adults achieve foundational reading skills so they and their communities can thrive.
MISSION
TEAM
Frank Ho
Co-founder
Hong Kong
Dana Rozier
Co-founder
United States
We met on the XPRIZE portal in 2015 and quickly realized we had a shared mission and complementary skills. Frank’s are in technology and design; Dana’s are in education and curriculum development. We formed a team to compete in the Global Learning XPRIZE and the Adult Literacy XPRIZE and are humbled to say we were selected as one of eleven semi-finalists in the Global Learning XPRIZE and one of five finalists in the Adult Literacy XPRIZE.
SOLUTION
Nearly one billion people around the globe cannot read or write a simple sentence.
To help address this crisis, the world needs a literacy solution that is low-cost, scalable, and accessible in different languages.
AutoCognita has created such a solution — a mobile literacy platform.
Our platform is neutral in terms of language, culture, or age group.
We have developed a set of interactive teaching templates that can accommodate a wide variety of images, text, and audio. Our templates were designed to help teach and reinforce foundational reading skills such as alphabet, phonics, vocabulary, sentences, and comprehension.
We help governments and organizations rapidly and economically create interactive literacy apps in the local language that work offline.
Here's how we do it.
Flexible, Interactive Teaching Screens
Our literacy platform is built on interactive teaching screens that offer a dynamic learning experience for a wide variety of educational needs and ages. Each screen is a template that supports images and content from literacy workbooks in any phonetic language.
Progress Tracking and Gamification
Progress tracking screens keep track of learning progress.
The app is gamified with certificates and badges to keep students engaged and motivated to continue learning.
Platform for Creating Mobile Literacy Apps
We help governments and organizations cost-effectively create engaging, interactive apps from existing literacy content.
Try the demo created from one lesson in this book for Kenyan students.
PARTNERSHIP
We are looking for partners who share our mission of helping children and adults achieve foundational reading skills so they and their communities can thrive.
We look to build coalitions with companies and organizations that can bring the following assets to make pilot projects happen:
Literacy Content
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textbook
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curriculum
- literacy program
Funding
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project grants
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project sponsorship
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charitable donations
Local Presence
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in-country team
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access to students
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government relations
Sounds like your company or organization?
NEWS
January 2021
AutoCognita Accepted into USC Rossier EdVentures Accelerator Program
AutoCognita is honored and excited to be selected as one of fourteen EdTech companies to participate in USC Rossier EdVentures Accelerator Program.
The program provides individual and group support for each of the selected teams and culminates in a pitching event at the ASU/GVS Conference in San Diego, California, August 9-11, 2021.
November 2020
AutoCognita Partners with ProLiteracy
AutoCognita and ProLiteracy teamed together to create a Laubach Way to Reading mobile app in Spanish that will be ready to pilot by summer of 2021.
The collaboration between AutoCognita and ProLiteracy is an excellent example of how two organizations can use their combined expertise to work together to improve literacy levels worldwide.
ProLiteracy’s Laubach Way to Reading (LWR) curriculum has taught millions of adults to learn to read. AutoCognita’s literacy platform will help ProLiteracy amplify its impact by making its curriculum more accessible to low-literate users all over the world via a mobile app that works offline.
June 2020
AutoCognita pitched at the YPO|XPRIZE Impact Engine
AutoCognita was selected as one of five XPRIZE teams to pitch to YPO members during the YPO|XPRIZE Impact Engine. Over two hundred YPO members from around the world attended the virtual event.
After the pitch, several YPO members expressed interest in supporting us. We are currently in discussions with YPO members about running literacy pilots in Africa, India, and Latin America.
We are grateful to YPO and XPRIZE for their support in helping AutoCognita achieve its mission of creating universal literacy.
May 2020
AutoCognita pitched at The EdTech Hub’s Covid-19 Pitch Day
The EdTech Hub’s mission is to accelerate progress toward ending the global learning crisis by increasing the use of evidence to inform decision-making about educational technology. The Hub is funded by the UK Department of International Development, the World Bank, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
The EdTech Hub recognized AutoCognita’s literacy learning platform as a potential solution to the educational crisis brought on by the pandemic and selected us to pitch virtually at the first Covid-19 Pitch Day.
After the event, people from USAID and The Catalyst Foundation reached out to us to explore potential partnerships.
May 2020
AutoCognita presented at Global Digital Development Forum
AutoCognita was selected to present our literacy learning platform at the Global Digital Development Forum, co-organized by USAID, Chemonics, Digital Impact Alliance, IntraHealth International, TechChange, and Save the Children. The forum, held virtually due to Covid-19, brought together stakeholders who were interested in using digital technology to achieve the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.
November 2019
AutoCognita presented at UNESCO’s 5th Annual Asia-Pacific Meeting on Education 2030
We were honored when UNESCO invited AutoCognita to give a presentation about our mobile literacy app at the 5th Annual Asia-Pacific Meeting on Education 2030 (APMED) held in Bangkok, Thailand on Oct 1-4, 2019.
The meeting specifically focused on two targets within Sustainable Development Goal 4:
Target 4.1 - ensure that all girls and boys complete free, equitable and quality primary and secondary education leading to relevant and effective learning outcomes
Target 4.6 - ensure that all youth and a substantial proportion of adults, both men and women, achieve literacy and numeracy
After the four-day meeting, we came away with an even stronger belief that AutoCognita’s solution— providing literacy lessons on mobile devices— was key to reaching SDG 4.6 by 2030. Teachers simply cannot scale to meet the learning needs of 750 million low-literate youth and adults. Teachers can’t scale, but an app can.
Our presentation at UNESCO focused on three core strengths of our literacy app—its pedagogy, design, and modularity. A strong pedagogy is the backbone of our app. We teach reading using a structured, step-by-step method backed by science. A strong pedagogy combined with a flexible, modular design allows our app to be easily localized to other languages.
After our presentation, several organizations contacted us to explore running pilots in Thailand, Mongolia, China, and Pakistan.
If you are interested to learn more about our app or presentation, please contact us to set up a time to talk. We’d love to hear from you.
June 2018
AutoCognita named 1 of 5 finalists in $7M Barbara Bush Foundation Adult Literacy XPRIZE
Tomorrow, at the 2018 American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference and Exhibition in New Orleans, XPRIZE—the global leader in designing and operating world-changing incentive competitions—and its sponsors, will award $100K to each of the five finalist teams in the $7M Barbara Bush Foundation Adult Literacy XPRIZE, presented by the Dollar General Literacy Foundation. Launched in 2015, the competition challenges teams to develop mobile applications for existing smart devices that result in the greatest increase in literacy skills among participating adult learners...
AutoCognita (Hong Kong, China) - Led by Frank Ho, the team applies the constructivist learning approach to engage learners through action. Adult learners effectively acquire basic literacy, numeracy and life skills through a comprehensive curriculum and sound pedagogy.
July 2017
AutoCognita only team in history to reach semifinals in two XPRIZEs
AutoCognita, an EdTech innovator with a mission to change lives by delivering scalable literacy solutions to underserved adults and children around the world, competed in both the Adult Literacy XPRIZE and the Global Learning XPRIZE. It is the only team reaching the semifinals in both competitions, marking the first time in XPRIZE history that a single team has reached this milestone in two separate XPRIZE challenges.
Pictured above:
Left: Dana Rozier - Head of Content
Right: Frank Ho - CEO
