New year heralds inspired collaborations as Ambani Africa collaborates with Ethnikids and Sho Madjozi
Award-winning South African Edtech company Ambani Africa, is cementing its place as a market leader in multilingual education through its innovative Augmented Reality books that present learners with an accessible platform to learn languages via the Ambani Augmented Reality (AR) app. Through a long-standing partnership with Ethnikids, the publishers of Sho Madjozi’s debut children’s book, Shoma and the stars, the magical book was brought to life via Augmented Reality.
The book, based on the author’s experiences with personal loss, introduces us to the main character, Shoma, who lives in Shirley village in Limpopo. Shoma and her sister Nyeleti are the oddballs who live in their own magical world, instead of watching television, they spend their days picking sparkly beads from trees, hunting treasure and getting up to all sorts of adventures. The book features high-end illustrations by Katlego Keokgale and they were the bedrock of bringing Shoma’s world to life through Augmented Reality.
“The process of designing the app really helped us broaden the scope of what the Ambani Augmented Reality app can be. This is the first time we have third party content which means that we foresee the app growing into a wonderful repository of storytelling from authors from all over the world, with a particular focus on educational stories by African authors,” explains Ambani Founder, Mukundi Lambani.
The beauty of Augmented Reality is that it’s a complementary component of the book, it in no way diminishes the importance of the printed book. It is a way of leveraging children’s affinity to devices in a way that enhances the story and by extension, the learning process. Together with the book, the technology delivers a more interactive and engaging learning experience. The app features a voice glossary of Xitsonga words voiced by Sho Madjozi herself where she guides the little ones through pronunciations, amongst other immersive versionings of the book.
“It was an absolute delight to see a book we published come to life through the Augmented Reality app. The future is Afrocentric and technology is an important component of addressing the literacy challenges our continent is facing.” concludes Ethnikids, the publishers of Shoma and the stars.
Ambani Africa is looking forward to collaborating with publishers and storytellers who are interested in augmented reality as a tool to bring the written book to life, especially for foundation phase readers.
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