Educational software company brings joy of reading to children worldwide with .NET Core technology

Education plays a vital role in our digitally connected world. But children in remote villages and underserved communities often lack access to the technology they need to keep pace. Many rural areas in India and Africa, for example, may not be able to fund a local school, support trained teachers, or provide internet access. These inequalities disturbed LightSail founder Steven Gittleson, a South Africa native. He wanted to bring the right to literacy and the joy of reading to children all over the world. Thanks to his startup company LightSail and .NET Core technology from Microsoft, a world of literature—and possibility—is opening up for them.

Respecting children, culture, and capabilities

Gittleson put his own education experience aside when he set out to help others. “You can’t increase literacy for millions of students by handing them a free device but charging them for content they can’t buy,” he says. That’s why his company publishes thousands of titles for free as part of its solution. His development team built its Literacy-in-a-box learning system and content library on .NET.

Much more than an e-reader, Literacy-in-a-box offers 190 features and collects over 100 datapoints about student activity, including reading and comprehension assessments. The solution comprises a resilient, lightweight device preloaded with culturally appropriate content in the regional language. The solution is platform-agnostic; any device capable of running the Chrome browser can become a LightSail reader device. Literacy-in-a-box uses the Lexile® Framework for Reading, which assesses reading levels and assigns a readability scale to its content. The LightSail e-reader uses a machine learning algorithm in its library to match a child’s Lexile score with books at the correct level, optimizing learning and enjoyment. Student data is then collected, managed, and stored using Microsoft Azure cloud-based services like Azure Event Hubs, Azure Service Bus, Azure Blob storage, Azure Virtual Machines, and Azure Load Balancer, along with virtual machine scale sets and Microsoft School Data Sync, to help the company track progress and customize group reading games.

Students use their own devices to engage in friendly competition that rests on minutes logged rather than level to encourage new readers. Schools all over the United States also use LightSail to help level the playing field for students from varied backgrounds. Children who are learning English as a second language can begin with content in their first language to help ensure early reading success.

Creating a classroom in a box

Unlike traditional consumer e-readers, the LightSail device doesn’t limit content to a proprietary format. It ingests content of all types, in any language, and LightSail publishes thousands of its own titles. Through partnerships with local publishers and community-based literacy initiatives, a sustainable youth-led literacy social enterprise is taking root in rural areas.

LightSail’s latest code runs on the ruggedized “box,” which is built on the .NET Core open-source development platform, supported by Microsoft and based on Linux. The system operates without internet or electricity in extreme conditions—from -10° C to 50° C. It runs off solar power or batteries, which last for about two weeks.

But without cross-platform capability, the most rugged case would be useless. Gittleson knew that customers in developing countries are often limited to a hodgepodge of device types. His team chose .NET Core to maximize cross-platform availability. The prevalence of .NET technology affords Gittleson an ample, well-qualified development team. “Most of our team are seasoned, senior developers who have used .NET technology for many years,” he says. “They were very happy not to have to retool when we moved to .NET Core. They stayed productive as usual.”

Building in flexible, highly secure reliability

The LightSail team ensured its solution’s flexibility by porting its code to .NET Core on Linux. Given the platform’s extensive code base, it was a strategic move.

“It could have cost us millions of dollars to move our intellectual property without the support Microsoft provides,” says Gittleson. “Our patented software represents a significant investment. And we’re confident about choosing Azure to store and safeguard students’ information like their reading progress data.”

Find out more about LightSail on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.