Tech Shout!

Google and UNESCO have teamed up to fight global illiteracy. Google, in collaboration with UNESCO’s Insititute for Lifelong Learning and the Frankfurt Book Fair literacy campaign (Litcam), has launched the first Web site dedicated to literacy and is pulling together its books, video, mapping and blogging services to help teachers and educational organizations share reading resources.

The Literacy Portal was launched on Wednesday and Google has already invited academic communities all over the world to join the initiative. They can do that by uploading different educational projects, either in video or written form.

The site was launched at the Frankfurt Book Fair, the world’s largest gathering of publishing executives, in conjunction with the United Nations and a literacy campaign organized by fair officials.

The tool also allows people to find literacy organisations around the world using a searchable and zoomable map.

Talking about the initiative, Nikesh Arora, vice president - European operations, Google, said that Google’s business was born out of a desire to help people find information. They hope this site will serve as a bridge to even greater communication and access to important information about literacy problems and solutions.

Jessica Powell, European corporate communications manager at Google, said: “Our objective at Google is to organise the world’s information and to make it accessible to everyone. “We think the internet has an important role to play in terms of accessing information. “This was especially important for areas such as literacy, she added.

More than 1 billion people around the world over the age of 15 are considered illiterate, according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

The project, at http://www.google.com/literacy/, also serves as a fresh way for Google to expand and differentiate its fledgling video service, which is playing catch-up against popular sites such as YouTube.

Karin Plötz, from Litcam, said: “A global problem deserves a global solution, and we believe that cooperation and the sharing of best practices is key in the fight against illiteracy.”

The move ties in with the search engine giant’s entry into the literary world: Google Book Search