Our 'technological platform' was something that has been around since the dawn of communication- the printed word. We decided to use our own newspaper as core delivery mechanism for an entirely different type of product- a 'cut & keep' primary school textbook.

A zero cost initiative that would ensure maximum spread and impact: by including a primary school textbook in our Delhi edition.

Readers were instructed to cut the textbook out of the newspaper and hand it over to an illiterate child. We spent no extra money, created no mobile app and used technology that was first invented in 1450 AD. But what we accomplished was new: we turned one million newspapers into one million textbooks and empowered our readers to reach out to those not as privileged as them and make a genuine difference to their lives.

Our 'technological innovation' set a national record for largest number of educational books distributed in a single day and was officially recognized by The Limca Book of Records.

While we did not quantitatively track the number of books handed over to underprivileged children, we received huge amounts of feedback from readers, sharing their own personal stories regarding their use of the textbook.

In social media, we saw large amounts of conversation regarding the textbook and the overall You Read, They Learn initiative.

But perhaps most encouragingly, we were approached by Pratham Books, one of India's largest publishers of primary school books in order to distribute their books on a regular basis using our paper as the core delivery mechanism.

What started as a one off innovation, has now become a strong and self sustaining platform that enables us to do our own little bit in the fight against child illiteracy.