Learn Leap Fly: Using Python To Promote Global Literacy with Kjell Wooding

Summary Learning how to read is one of the most important steps in empowering someone to build a successful future. In developing nations, access to teachers and classrooms is not universally available so the Global Learning XPRIZE serves to incentivize the creation of technology that provides children with the tools necessary to teach themselves literacy. Kjell Wooding helped create Learn Leap Fly in order to participate in the competition and used Python and Kivy to build a platform for children to develop their reading skills in a fun and engaging environment. In this episode he discusses his experience participating in the XPRIZE competition, how he and his team built what is now Kasuku Stories, and how Python and its ecosystem helped make it possible. Preface Hello and welcome to Podcast.__init__, the podcast about Python and the people who make it great. I would like to thank everyone who supports us on Patreon. Your contributions help to make the show sustainable. When you’re ready to launch your next project you’ll need somewhere to deploy it. Check out Linode at podastinit.com/linode and get a $20 credit to try out their fast and reliable Linux virtual servers for running your awesome app. And now you can deliver your work to your users even faster with the newly upgraded 200 GBit network in all of their datacenters. If you’re tired of cobbling together your deployment pipeline then it’s time to try out GoCD, the open source continuous delivery platform built by the people at ThoughtWorks who wrote the book about it. With GoCD you get complete visibility into the life-cycle of your software from one location. To download it now go to podcatinit.com/gocd. Professional support and enterprise plugins are available for added piece of mind. Visit the site to subscribe to the show, sign up for the newsletter, and read the show notes. And if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions I would love to hear them. You can reach me on Twitter at @Podcast__init__ or email hosts@podcastinit.com) To help other people find the show please leave a review on iTunes, or Google Play Music, tell your friends and co-workers, and share it on social media. Your host as usual is Tobias Macey and today I’m interviewing Kjell Wooding about Learn Leap Fly, a startup using Python on mobile devices to facilitate global learning Interview Introductions How did you get introduced to Python? Can you start by describing what Learn Leap Fly does and how the company got started? What was your motivation for using Kivy as the primary technology for your mobile applications as opposed to the platform native toolkits or other multi-platform frameworks? What are some of the pedagogical techniques that you have incorporated into the technological aspects of your mobile application and are there any that you were unable to translate to a purely technical implementation. How do you measure the effectiveness of the work that you are doing? How has the framework of the XPRIZE influenced the way in which you have approached the design and development of your work? What have been some of the biggest challenges that you faced in the process of developing and deploying your submission for the XPRIZE? What are some of the features that you have planned for future releases of your platform? Keep In Touch Learn Leap Fly Website @learnleapfly on Twitter Kjell llfkj on GitHub @pdokj on Twitter Picks Tobias Yamaha YHT-4930UBL Home Theater System Kjell Instant Pot Anova Sous Vide Modernist Cooking at Home Links Programming Python (O’Reilly) Learn Leap Fly Tim Ferriss Peter Diamandis Global Learning XPRIZE Kasuku Beta Program XPRIZE Foundation Kivy Kivy Flappy Bird Podcast.init Kivy Interview Deliberate Practice Google Pixel C Bayesian Learning SciPy NumPy Keras The intro and outro music is from Requiem for a Fish The Freak Fandango Orchestra / CC BY-SA