To think that two years ago this month we were pulling together our resources to launch the 2015 Kickstarter campaign that resulted in the product you will soon be holding in your hands. Exactly one year ago this week, I was on the ground in Florence, walking in Michelangelo’s footsteps, researching the tour for our coming story app. With Mary Hoffman’s manuscript acting as my portal to the past, I time-traveled to the Renaissance to treasure hunt for evidence of our narrator’s life and work. That’s also when I started to sow the seeds of our current partnerships with the Bargello Museum, Medici Chapels, San Lorenzo Basilica, Foundation Casa Buonarroti, Guided Florence Tours, Antica Torre Via Tornabuoni 1, and the Paperback Book Exchange.
Today, I announce our newest partnership…
To further extend our mandate to create historically and culturally literate young people, we have officially partnered with Worldreader. In this way, our content will reach beyond the affluent, educated populations that can travel and purchase books to include citizens of developing nations for whom literacy was once only a dream.
Worldreader is a non-profit organization on a mission to create a literate world. Both Worldreader and TTT, LLC agree that literacy is transformative: it increases earning potential, decreases inequality, improves health outcomes, and breaks the cycle of poverty.
Books are a necessary part of the development of literacy skills, yet millions of people still have limited access to print editions. Worldreader is disrupting that reality by making quality literary content available to developing communities via mobile phones and e-Readers. Time Traveler Tours joins publishers worldwide to make our future story list accessible through the Worldreader app for free in perpetuity. Our shared goal: To empower millions of emerging readers in the world’s most impoverished areas through digital technology.
In future, we hope to work with Worldreader to publish worthy local authors and introduce them to western audiences as well, further expanding on our mandate to create positive cultural exchange across peoples and nations.
