Google.org expands grant pool to support education in India

 In an effort to further support education and learning efforts in India, Google.org, the philanthropic arm of Google, on Thursday announced additional grants of $3 million to two non-profit organisations -- Central Square Foundation and The Teacher App.

With online video emerging as a popular medium of learning, Google.org will provide a $2 million grant and technical assistance from the YouTube learning team to Central Square Foundation -- a policy think tank focused on improving the quality of school education.

The grant will support a minimum of 20 content creators to produce at least 200 hours of quality science, technology, engineering and Math content in Hindi and vernacular languages. 

With $1 million grant to The Teacher App, Google.org aims to empower teachers with the right training and resources on concepts of Math, science, language and pedagogy. The funds will be used to scale the platform to reach 500,000 teachers in two years.

"We strongly believe that technology can play a powerful part in solving the learning gap in India, and we are expanding our investments in India to ensure that all teachers and students are able to benefit from it," said Nick Cain, Education lead, Google.org.

These new projects are in addition to Google.org's existing projects that were funded last year in India. 

With the additional grants, Google.org's total grant for NGOs in India to support learning and education efforts stands at $11.4 million.

Four NGOs -- learning Equality, Million Sparks Foundation, Pratham Books StoryWeaver, and Pratham Education Foundation -- received total grants of $8.4 million to add scale to their existing efforts and help provide access to quality education and learning for all. 

Since receiving Google.org funding last year, the grantees have reached more than 800,000 students and teachers with their tools and programs across India.

"These new funds will help contribute in building more locally relevant solutions and content for students and teachers," Cain added.

"Globally, learning and educational content drives over a billion views a day and we believe there is a huge opportunity for creators in India to enhance education and learning through YouTube," said Satya Raghavan, Head of Entertainment for India at YouTube. 

India was among the first country to receive grants from Google.org's global $50 million commitment to support nonprofits who are building tech-based learning solutions.