NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Tuesday, March 21, 2017

According to a report from Google.org, the search giant’s philanthropic arm, 74 percent of students globally have little or no internet connectivity, 221 million students in schools are being taught in a language that is foreign to them and 32 million primary school-aged children can’t even reach traditional classrooms because of violent conflict and displacement.

Now, Google.org is donating a $50 million block of grant money to education tech nonprofits striving to create equal access to education around the world. The money, and in-kind services from Google, will support organizations working to bring quality educational materials and teacher training to students in developing nations, and to help students in crisis maintain their education.

Besides the cash donations, Google will provide to these organizations expertise in the areas of translation and transliteration, user experience design, building offline functionality, data analytics and more. Google.org’s global education portfolio lead, Brigitte Hoyer Gosselink, wrote in a blog post announcing the grants, “We believe every student deserves access to a quality education. We also believe that technology can play a vital role in creating richer learning environments, but only if all teachers and learners can equally benefit from it.”