Intertrust Partners with Worldreader to Improve Reading Literacy and Access in Uganda

SAN FRANCISCO and KAMPALA, Uganda—January 23, 2020—Intertrust has partnered with digital reading specialist Worldreader in support of the organization’s work to improve literacy in underserved communities throughout the world.

Worldreader, a global NGO, has created BookSmart, an affordable digital reading solution that runs on full-color Android tablets. BookSmart helps students read, develop valuable 21st Century skills, and become life-long learners. The solution includes a subscription to 150 culturally relevant, curricularly aligned supplemental books plus an embedded Children’s Oxford English Dictionary. Through a joint program with Cheshire Services Uganda, Worldreader is working with 20 schools around the Kampala area. The program has provided 1,000 BookSmart subscriptions for these under-resourced students.

“As a part of our program in Uganda, Worldreader sources content from local publishers that is relevant to learners, preserving the local culture and contributing to a strong reading ecosystem,” said Flavia Moroso, director of technology at Worldreader. “Intertrust makes it possible for us to protect this and other content, while remaining true to our vision of creating a world where everyone can be a reader.”

Using Intertrust’s ExpressPlay DRM™ and the ExpressPlay SDK, Intertrust provides Worldreader with the ability to verify the identity of each BookSmart device and let users access the protected content on them, ExpressPlay is a multi-DRM cloud-based service that protects apps and other content such as e-books from piracy and theft by encrypting it. It is based on Marlin DRM, an open-standard content protection system for consumer devices and services which was co-developed by Intertrust, Panasonic, Philips, Samsung and Sony.

Device verification or ‘provisioning’ involves establishing an identity of the device and linking it to the identity of the device owner. During this process the device acquires a unique key that is linked with that identity. A total of 48 books on each BookSmart device require encryption, resulting in 48,000 tokens having been provided by Interturst so far with another 2,000 expected to be used as a part of the program this year.

“It is deeply gratifying to partner with Worldreader and bring the promise of a better life to children in the Kampala region,” said Gadi Ittah, director of product management at Intertrust. “It is a privilege to be a part of the BookSmart program which is not only making a world of readers possible, but placing power and opportunity into the hands of those who most need and deserve it.”

Worldreaders’s digital reading program in Uganda works with teachers in classrooms where girls and children with disabilities are at an historic disadvantage, face high dropout rates and increased barriers to learning. BookSmart offers tablets loaded with textbooks and supplementary reading materials to foster improved reading and learning. As a part of the program, teacher training is also provided on strategies for integrating a digital reading program into the classroom.

Finally, BookSmart provides schools and teachers with valuable insights into the actual reading practices within their classrooms. Data is collected from devices to give feedback to a consortium of partners which are able to better understand reading behaviors, content usage, and time spent on reading tasks. This information is critical for measuring the impact of the digital reading program.

Worldreader was co-founded by David Risher and Colin McElwee in 2010. The nonprofit has offices in San Francisco, Barcelona, Ghana, Kenya, and in Delhi as well as staff in the U.K.

About Intertrust

Intertrust provides trusted computing products and services to leading global corporations – from mobile, consumer electronics and IoT manufacturers, to service providers and enterprise software platform companies. These products include the world’s leading digital rights management (DRM), software tamper resistance, and technologies to enable private data exchanges for various verticals including energy, entertainment, retail/marketing, automotive, fintech, and IoT. Founded in 1990, Intertrust is headquartered in Silicon Valley with regional offices in London, Tokyo, Mumbai, Bangalore, Beijing, Seoul, Riga, and Tallinn. The company has a legacy of invention, and its fundamental contributions in the areas of computer security and digital trust are globally recognized. Intertrust holds hundreds of patents that are key to Internet security, trust, and privacy management components of operating systems, trusted mobile code and networked operating environments, web services, and cloud computing.

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