On February 8, the Dollar General Literacy Foundation, in partnership with the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy and XPRIZE, announced two grand prize winners of the Adult Literacy XPRIZE, a multi-year, multi-phase competition focused on transforming the lives of low-literate adults across the nation.
Grand prize winners, Learning Upgrade (San Diego, California) and People ForWords (Dallas, Texas), will divide a $3 million purse and will each receive an additional $1 million achievement prize for having the best performance in two key demographic groups: native English speakers and English language learners.
The $7 million Barbara Bush Foundation Adult Literacy XPRIZE presented by the Dollar General Literacy Foundation challenged teams to develop mobile applications that result in the greatest increase in literacy skills among participating adult learners in just 12 months. The competition aims to accelerate adult education by creating mobile solutions that improve access, encourage persistence, develop relevant learning content, and scale nationwide.
The second phase of the initiative is the upcoming $1 million Barbara Bush Foundation Adult Literacy XPRIZE Communities Competition, a 15-month competition for organizations, communities and individuals to recruit adult learners to download and use the apps developed by the two grand prize-winning teams along with two finalist teams, AmritaCREATE (Amritapuri, Kerala, India) and Cell-Ed (Oakland, California).
Along with Learning Upgrade and People ForWords, AmritaCREATE and Cell-Ed will each receive $125,000 for their participation in the Communities Competition. In the Communities Competition, a total of $1 million will be awarded, with $500,000 available for teams who submit the most innovative, feasible and scalable plans, and $500,000 for teams who recruit the most adult learners to download and consistently use the learning apps.
The Dollar General Literacy Foundation celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2018 and has awarded more than $160 million to literacy initiatives, helping more than ten million individuals learn to read, receive their high school equivalency or learn English. Dollar General’s co-founder, J.L. Turner, was a farmer’s son who dropped out of school in the third grade when his father passed away unexpectedly. In 1993, the Foundation was established by his grandson, Cal Turner Jr, in his honor to help adults and children nationwide gain the literacy and basic education skills they need to pursue their dreams.
To learn more about the Dollar General Literacy Foundation, visit dgliteracy.org. For more information about the $7 million Barbara Bush Foundation Adult Literacy XPRIZE, winning teams and the upcoming $1 million Barbara Bush Foundation Adult Literacy XPRIZE Communities Competition, visit adultliteracy.xprize.org and communities.xprize.org.