Amazon To Donate Kindles, Tablets

(RTTNews) - Amazon.com (AMZN) on Wednesday announced the launch of Kindle Reading Fund, aiming to donate Kindle e-reader, Fire tablets, and Kindle eBooks globally to make books more easily available for digital reading.

For this purpose, the company joining hands with local schools and libraries, hospitals, PTA as well as nonprofit organizations, mainly Worldreader, whose mission is to bring reading and literacy to everywhere.

Dave Limp, Amazon's senior vice president of devices and services, said in a statement, "Our vision has always been to make every book in the world available to our customers in less than 60 seconds but with this vision, we recognize that not everyone has access to the books they want or need."

Amazon, through a new collaboration with Worldreader, is donating thousands of Kindle e-readers to support reading programs in the developing world. Amazon currently supports Worldreader's LEAP 2.0 library partnership in Kenya, which reaches about 500,000 people by bringing digital reading to all 61 Kenyan public libraries.

In just six years, Worldreader has helped more than 4 million readers around the world access a library of both global and local books.

Further, with a view to improve children's literacy, Amazon has donated thousands of Kindle e-readers and Fire tablets to schools and libraries throughout the world. The e-readers are an exceptional tool for teachers and students to create more advanced learning opportunities, it said.

The company also collaborates with hospitals and nonprofit organizations, as well as the National PTA. Last year, the company provided devices to Seattle Children's Hospital, Mary's Place, Rainier Scholars, Well Spring Family Services and more.

Through President Obama's 2014 ConnectED initiative, apple also runs a similar program to donate iPad tablets to students at 114 schools across the United States.