February
14, 2000 
Criticized in the past for
being cheapskates when it came to charitable giving, Hi-Tech tycoons are finally
taking out their checkbooks and putting down some real money. The latest
beneficiaries of an unprecedented outflow of big-ticket donations are some of
the world's sorely pressed educational systems.
Gigantic donations will
soon be flooding into schools and universities from big players such as
Hewlett-Packard, Intel, and Microsoft. This may, in part, be a countermove in
the face of nationwide (and presidential) criticism of Silicon Valley's seeming
lack of interest in philanthropy despite tremendous profits.
Teaching the Future
On the education front, Intel Corp. is spearheading a project called Intel Teach
to the Future in partnership with Hewlett-Packard Co., Microsoft Corp., and
Premio Computer. Intel will invest $100 million over the next three years in
education, including the training of over 400,000 teachers in 20 countries.
Microsoft will donate $344 million in software and program support.
Hewlett-Packard and Premio plan to give donations and discounts on hardware
worth almost half a billion dollars. "This is a directly effective
mechanism for teachers to use. It will take children out of the classroom into
the real world via the Internet. Computers can help students direct their own
research, create topics, and work with numerical data," says Wendy Hawkins,
manager of Intel's Teacher Development Initiative.
A core group of a dozen
trainers will travel the U.S. to train 2,500 "master teachers." These
teachers will then train a minimum of 60 classroom teachers each during the
three-year program. Over the course of the training, the classroom teachers will
learn how to incorporate electronic lesson plans, e-mail, Internet searches,
word processing, and spreadsheets into their teaching methods. The program is
already underway in Arizona, northern California, Oregon, and Texas, moving into
other parts of the country by the end of the year. China, Costa Rica, Germany,
India, Ireland, and the U.K. also plan to implement the project.
In another move indicating
a change in corporate giving, the Community Foundation Silicon Valley (CFSV)--which
promotes philanthropy, provides charitable giving expertise, and makes grants to
nonprofit organizations and schools--recently received more than $75 million in
cash and stock gifts from eBay Foundation, E-Loan, and Alta Vista, among others,
from July 1, 1999 to December 31, 1999--an all-time high.
Support from the
Super-Rich
In addition to huge corporate donations, individual giving on a large scale has
also become the fashion among tech tycoons. These donations are very often
targeted at specific causes close to the donors' hearts. Former Netscape
president Jim Barksdale and his wife are planning to give $100 million to
promote literacy in Mississippi. The donation will go to the University of
Mississippi Foundation to create the Barksdale Reading Institute, which will aim
to improve children's reading skills. Mississippi currently has the lowest
literacy rate in the U.S.
The Barksdales' donation
followed a $150 million giveaway by entrepreneur James H. Clark to Stanford
University for biomedical engineering and science. Bill and Melinda Gates have
also recently gave an additional $5 billion to the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation, which brings the total endowment to about $21.8 billion. Last year,
Bill Gates and his wife pledged $1 billion in college scholarships to minority
students over a 20-year period. Administered by the United Negro College Fund,
the scholarships will target African-Americans, Latinos, Asian-Americans, and
native Americans. The Gates Foundation has also pledged $750 million over five
years to help vaccinate children in developing countries against disease.
Enterprise Network
Design & Solutions, LLC of Silver Spring has donated thousands of
dollars worth of computer hardware, software and services to the children and
charter schools of the
local area. ENDS has a program that matches donors with children and
organizations that are in dire need of computer equipment and services. Please contact
ENDS if you could find it in your heart to participate in such a worthy cause.
