CES 2013: Qualcomm teams up with Sesame Street

At this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Qualcomm and Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit educational organisation behind Sesame Street, announced that they are collaborating on mobile learning applications for early childhood education.

As part of the agreement, Qualcomm will perform research and development activities with Sesame Workshop to create and deliver new innovations in mobile educational content.

The collaboration between two global pioneers brings together Qualcomm’s cutting-edge mobile technologies, Sesame Workshop’s expertise in early childhood education, and mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets to create engaging and inspiring learning experiences that will prepare young children for school.

The first applications planned through this collaboration are being demonstrated in the Qualcomm booth as part of the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show. Abby’s Fairy Rock and Big Bird’s Words will include the very earliest examples of never-before-imagined content and hints at the possibilities to come.

An app called Big Bird’s Words will feature the first ever use of Qualcomm Vuforia‚Ñ¢ augmented reality (AR) platform’s text recognition capability. Within the app, children are guided, via the use of a virtual ‚’wordoscope’, to search for and find new words in their environment – making vocabulary building a fun and interactive experience.

Abby’s Fairy Rock (a working title) introduces preschoolers to the building blocks of music by allowing children to turn a tablet into a guitar and learn about musical concepts such as tempo, while interacting and playing along with Sesame Street’s Abby Cadabby on a smart TV/STB Development platform powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon‚Ñ¢ processor. Qualcomm’s AllJoyn‚Ñ¢ peer-to-peer technology seamlessly blends the game experience between the TV and mobile device.

In addition, Qualcomm and Sesame Workshop are continuing their collaboration in China and India through Qualcomm’s Wireless Reach initiative to bring educational information to underserved children. In India, Sesame Workshop’s Galli Galli Sim Sim, the Indian version of Sesame Street, is using 3G mobile technology to distribute radio content, videos and fun lessons about healthy living and good hygiene habits, as well as literacy and math, to migrant children ages 5-8 and their families. In China, a project launching later this year, will provide tips, activities and other tools to help families with young children prepare for emergencies. These projects are just two examples of the ways mobile can positively impact early childhood and improve literacy rates globally.

Qualcomm understands the many ways advances in mobile technology have already changed access to learning materials and is working to enable even greater transformation in mobile learning in order to enrich teaching and learning on a global scale. By working with organisations like Sesame Workshop, Qualcomm aims to leverage its capability from a chipset, multimedia and application perspective in order to expand the impact of mobile technology.

Sesame Workshop is a nonprofit educational organisation that revolutionised children’s television programming. The Workshop produces local Sesame Street programs, seen in over 150 countries, and other acclaimed shows that help to bridge the literacy gap. Beyond television, the Workshop produces content for multiple media platforms on a wide range of issues including literacy, health and military deployment. Sesame Workshop has a long history of using cutting-edge technology to address children’s developmental needs. With only 34 percent of all U.S. fourth-graders reading at grade level, Sesame Workshop is committed to utilising the latest technology to help children build literacy skills at an early age with the aim of improving their reading and comprehension later on. To this effort, Sesame Workshop’s Content Innovation Lab is working to seamlessly blend the latest in mobile technology and Sesame Street game experiences between multiple devices in order to bring enhanced entertainment and maximum educational benefits to children.

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