The latest data from UNESCO states that there are 750 million adults worldwide who lack basic literacy skills*. How then can we make God’s Word available to these people?

Amazon has developed a way to convert written text into spoken word, whether scanned from a book, or uploaded from a digital file. They have called her Polly**.

With the relevant permissions, OneHundredFold can now take any written material, put it through Amazon Polly, and have it come out as spoken word. We load it onto a Micro SD card, and send it to be used by anyone with a phone.

But we have a challenge, Amazon Polly hasn’t actually got a brain, just wires. She struggles with words like ‘read’, or ‘live’, or any word that can be pronounced in more than one way. She also pauses in unnatural …places.

At OneHundredFold we have a team who listen to Polly’s output, and correct her foibles, making her more user friendly. Our ability to provide evangelism or training material to those 750 million, is limited only by the number of volunteers we have correcting Polly’s inconsistencies. It is a task most computer literate native anglophones can do. It takes about ten hours training, followed by as much or as little time as you have to give. All you need is a computer, patience, and a conveyor belt of tea.

If you would like to find out more about various ways of volunteering with OneHundredFold (for example, helping to download files and tag them), please contact us through our
website – 100fold.org or email personnel@100fold.org.