Long Beach/Orange County: Help solve the literacy crisis as a lead graphic designer/illustrator

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Have you ever wanted to do something AMAZING to change the world but didn't know where to start?

Here is an opportunity to help underprivileged children, to help under-served children, to help ALL children, and even to help adults who can't read.

We are looking for three, very special people, who have the skills, expertise, experience, passion, and time to be part of something amazing that is about to fundamentally change the lives of millions of children, who right now, have no hope, but who will soon have the opportunity to learn how to read, which, in turn, will open a window to education and to a world of potential for them that, not only, has never been opened before, but that has never even been seriously contemplated as a possible reality, as opposed to just a pipe dream or a fantasy.

What we are talking about is an adaptive learning, smartphone app, that can literally, teach a child to read in about 12 hours of total use time!

We are the American Youth Literacy Foundation, and we have been teaching children how to read for 11 years! We have been developing this app for about two years, and our goal is to launch this incredible smartphone app in the App Store and on Google Play by Thanksgiving of 2020!

We are partnered with an engineering team that was one of the five $1 million finalists in the XPrize for Global Learning competition, the winners of which were announced this past May, which was a worldwide competition for app design and development teams from around the world to design, build and deliver a tablet-based app to children in remote villages in Africa which could teach them how to read and do basic math (children of all ages, most of whom had never been to school before in their lives).

The curriculum that our app is based on is a patented reading decoding system, and is so effective at teaching children how to read, that it usually only takes 4-6 hours for them to understand the system, and another 4-6 hours for them to reach a 2nd grade reading level. Compare this to many of our students who have been in the public school system for 6 years and still can't spell the word "the." Compare this to millions of students who have dropped out of school, primarily because they can't read (more than 10 million per decade).

More than 20 million children in grades 3-12 in America's public schools today can't read!

Our organization is an 11 year old, nationwide, charitable 501 c 3 non-profit. We started out as a tutoring program and we still tutor. But our focus has always been on finding a scaleable solution to the literacy crisis in America.

With the rise of the smartphone and the amazing penetration of this powerful tool, even into the most impoverished communities, we feel that the answer we have been searching for IS in the form of an app. So for the past several years we have been working to convert our amazing reading curriculum that teaches children how to read in 12 hours, into an app that teaches children how to read in 12 hours. And this is where you come in.

We have a LOT of opportunity in front of us to build, test, and deliver an end user experience (the UX) to millions of children in America's inner cities and rural lands, to the barrios and the suburbs and American Indian reservations and everywhere in-between, with this smartphone app.

But in order to do this, we need to complete three pieces of the equation: The Horse, The Cart, and the Payload.

The Horse is the curriculum; and it is well under way in the conversion process from analog to a digital pedagogy.

The Cart is the distribution system, the "how do we get it out into communities and to the children, once it's built?"

And the Payload is the UX (the user experience). But it's not just the child(who is the ultimate end user), but it's the parent or guardian or friend, or grandparent or sibling or concerned adult who must also be supported. And for that we are building the support system and the support network that will scale with the app and not constrain the growth and penetration of the app. The UX must be tested and must be proven to work in a controlled environment before it is released into an uncontrolled environment like the App Store or Google Play, where its success will depend upon ease of use, ease of understanding and the support that we provide to caring adults who download the app for the purpose of saving their child from living a life of impoverishment, without education, and without hope.

All of this development, whether it's the curriculum, the distribution system or the user experience, takes graphic design production and support. Building our curriculum and testing it in the field requires raw, pdf draft versions of the app that can be downloaded by tutors across the country working with kids, then modified as needed before they are enshrined in html and javascript code for the digital experience. Marketing and distribution require graphic support and materials. The UX support system for caring adults requires information and digital tools that contain critical information that is presented in an easy to use format.

There's much more to tell. You can read more about our story and about us on our website at www.YouthLit.org.

All of this requires Adobe Suite support, so right now we are looking for 3 very special people to be a part of our Lead Design Team.

We are looking for 3 very special people who have everything we mentioned above, passion, expertise, time, etc. to join our team and help us launch this app in 2020. Our 3 person, Lead Design Team will help us design and build multiple curriculum, as well as marketing and support materials that are critical to the app's success!

The Lead Design Team will hire future designers for specific tasking as needed. If you are interested in becoming a "task specific" graphic design team member, please also contact us and we will file your resume appropriately for a later date.

If you wish to be considered for this opportunity to be a member of our Lead Design Team, please send us a cover letter and resume to info@YouthLit.org.

We are looking for intelligent, creative, enthusiastic, cheerful, optimistic individuals with significant experience in both digital and print media. We are looking for hands on, "can do" individuals who are willing to execute production tasks. We are looking for designers who have extensive experience in Adobe Creative Suite. This is a complex undertaking and we are looking for highly proficient and organized individuals to help build the materials needed for an effective product launch, and to hire and coordinate other individuals who likely will be needed to fill in the gaps and complete critical projects in support of the app.

Just to be clear, our organization is an extended, virtual network, comprised of individuals around the country who collaborate through digital, internet-based tools. Individuals interested in this position should have experience organizing tasking across a variety of networks and platforms.

Thank you! We hope this opportunity finds you at the right place and the right time in your career to make a difference and an impact, in an amazing way, for millions of children who are waiting for someone, or some thing, to lead them out of a life of impoverishment and into a future of unlimited possibility and potential.

Mr. R. Kali Woodward
Founding, Executive Director