October 13, 2010

Gates Foundation dedicates $20M to education technology grants

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced Monday a grant program that offers up to $20 million in funding to people and organizations who come up with great ideas to provide technology to schools, teachers and students.

The world's largest charity is seeking grant applicants to its Next Generation Learning Challenges program, which will award grants between $250,000 to $750,000. The application deadline is Nov. 19, the foundation said in a news release.

"American education has been the best in the world, but we're falling below our own high standards of excellence for high school and college attainment," Bill Gates said in the release. "We're living in a tremendous age of innovation. We should harness new technologies and innovation to help all students get the education they need to succeed."

Gates was one of two interviewees who helped shaped the direction of the new documentary "Waiting for 'Superman,'" directed by Davis Guggenheim ("An Inconvenient Truth"). When I spoke with Guggenheim, he said his conversations with Gates and with education-program directors at Microsoft gave him hope that technology can help turn around the U.S. public education system.

More information on the Gates Foundation grant program is here. To read more about "Waiting for 'Superman'" and Guggenheim's thoughts on how corporations can help U.S. education, check out my September report.

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