I’m very happy to announce that the first round of Dell YouthConnect grants has been awarded. These grants are helping ensure technology access and education for youth in emerging countries, and they’re an important component of Dell’s new global giving strategy.
We’re giving more than $2.7 million in cash and in-kind donations to organizations in Brazil, India and Mexico. The grants support technology education for youth 17 years old and younger, and promote math, science and technology skills in emerging countries.
The Dell team has spent the last several months reviewing applications and working with the recipient organizations to understand their technology requirements. We were thrilled when we found that in addition to computers, we could provide infrastructure solutions – including solar panels – to better meet the needs of each organization.
And because we want these organizations to be able to sustain their systems on their own once the grants are gone, we provided environmentally responsible technology offering the lowest total cost of ownership wherever possible.
This year’s recipients are:
- Akshara Foundation (India)
- American India Foundation (India)
- Asset India Foundation (India)
- The Committee for Democracy in Information Technology (Mexico and Brazil)
- Christel House India (India)
- Humana India(India)
- Learning Links (India)
- Parikrma Foundation (India)
- PlanetRead(India)
- Sikshana Foundation(India)
- TERI (India)
Over the next year, we’ll evaluate these groups with the possibility of extending their grants, and we’ll continue to increase our corporate giving as we work towards our goal of giving one percent of pre-tax profits by 2010.
The way people communicate is changing rapidly. Every day, nearly 500,000 people get online for the first time in their lives. The majority of those people live in emerging countries, which collectively will account for about 55 percent of global PC sales by 2012. Dell’s YouthConnect initiative is taking steps to ensure that youth living in emerging countries have the digital literacy and access to information to make them successful and productive in today’s digital economy.
We’re always interested in learning more about people and organizations – especially those in emerging countries – that are working on these same issues. If you’ve got ideas, we’d love to hear them.
