OK COMPUTER: The charitable arm of Google, Google.org, has pledged to award $25 million in 2019 to support programs that help black and Latino students access computer science education.
The first recipients of those grants have just been announced. They include $2 million to Latino advocacy group UnidosUS to expand its introductory computer science program, and add Google’s free CS First coding curriculum aimed at elementary and middle school students.
Google.org also gave YWCA USA $2 million to improve and expand its science, technology, engineering and math curriculum. Hispanic Heritage Foundation received $1 million to work with YWCA to deliver computer science education to Latino students nationwide.
A Google blog post published on Tuesday said the goal is for these three organizations to reach 1 million Latino students nationwide by 2022.
Previous education technology-related grants awarded by Google.org include $30 million to nonprofits to deliver phones, tablets and other devices to communities in need, $5 million to open-source application Kolibri, $4.8 million to deliver lessons to Brazilian teachers’ phones and $1 million to Southern New Hampshire University to explore soft skills tests.
