Pichai announced in a blog post last week that Google will offer financial support to nonprofits across the country working to expand CS education, with a focus on organizations that reach underserved students in major urban areas and rural communities, as well as those that help governments and educators implement CS education plans across the U.S. All told, the commitment is expected to affect more than 11 million students nationwide, he wrote in the post.
Among the organizations benefiting from the grant are the Oakland-based nonprofit The Hidden Genius Project, which provides Black male youth with training and mentoring in tech; the Computing Integrated Teacher Education project at the City University of New York; CodePath in Chicago and Atlanta, helping students in underrepresented communities work toward tech-based careers; 4-H through its parent organization Cooperative Extension’s programs and resources, which is helping millions of students and thousands of educators; and to the Expanding Computing Education Pathway Alliance, a national network coordinated by the Texas Advanced Computing Center at the University of Texas at Austin.
“We believe educational opportunities should be available regardless of socioeconomic status, background, race or geography,” Pichai wrote in his post.
Pichai said he visited alumni at The Hidden Genius Project earlier this summer and saw firsthand several graduates of the program who went on to use their CS knowledge to launch their own companies, despite “deep opportunity gaps” in education. Since 2004, Google has committed $240 million in advancing CS education, according to Pichai. He said the latest funding is part of the Grow with Google initiative, which includes funding from Google.org and also provides educational opportunities for adults, including Google Career Certificates that prepare individuals for jobs in growing fields.
