Bollywood, the world's biggest film industry, has hundreds of millions of illiterate fans. Brij Kothari, of PlanetRead and BookBox, saw this as an opportunity to improve lives through a technique called same-language subtitling (SLS). Unlike traditional subtitling, which gives a native translation to foreign-produced entertainment, same language subtitling shows the written representation of the words being spoken. Talking to Design for Change host Sheela Sethuraman in this audio interview, Kothari describes how he improves lives by incorporating education into everyday entertainment. By subtitling popular entertainment, he helps millions learn to read in a fun way. He's also creating multiplatform stories that will be seen on TV, read on mobile phones, and printed in books.
Brij Kothari is an Ashoka Fellow and president of PlanetRead, a nonprofit involved in scaling SLS efforts in India and other countries. He is also the CEO of BookBox, Inc, a for-profit social venture producing children's animated stories in more than 20 languages. He cofounded PlanetRead.org and BookBox.com as a Reuters Digital Vision Fellow at Stanford.
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