Clark Atlanta has announced that it has been awarded nearly $12 million in grant funding to establish a “Knowledge Metaverse” hub. The Knowledge Metaverse, according to a school release, “amplifies access and engagement in learning by combining the real world with digital information and extended reality (XR) similar to immersive experiences that have become increasingly popular in arts, gaming, and entertainment.” The grant was supplied by EON Reality, described by the school as “the global leader in augmented and virtual reality learning solutions.” Clark Atlanta is the first HBCU to
Since the start of the pandemic, the School District of Philadelphia has worked on getting students connected to broadband internet at home and making sure they have the right devices that will help them learn. Back in April 2020, it rolled out a program to get Chromebooks into the hands of more than 117,000 students via the Fund for the School District of Philadelphia and more than $7 million in donations. But with the distribution of thousands of devices comes the need for routine repairs and troubleshooting and that’s where one West Philadelphia High School class
Goodwin has just announced its latest partnership with Meta on a new IP/Tech Scholarship Program for students from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) planning to pursue a career in intellectual property or technology law. The new program provides $20,000 scholarships to graduating seniors from historically excluded groups who are currently attending HBCUs and will be starting law school in fall 2022. Awardees will spend one week this summer at a Goodwin office, shadowing firm lawyers to learn more about the firm and its practice areas. Each awardee will be
Antler East Africa, the Nairobi office of VC firm and venture builder Antler, has closed a $13.5 million fund to invest in early-stage tech startups in the region. Antler, which was first launched in 2019, actually intended to raise $10 million but ended up with an extra $3.5 million. It runs a full venture building model with two cohorts each year. Five cohorts with 153 founders have passed through the accelerator programs so far, and the firm has made 14 investments, according to reports and a few of them include
TechLit Africa redistributes recycled technology to build computer labs in African schools. With 4,000 students and 20 teachers, the organization has built 10 computer labs in rural Kenya and is currently working on the next 100 computer labs. Cheboi, who grew up in a poor rural village in Kenya, landed a full scholarship to study computer science at Augustana College in Illinois and later built a school in Kenya, Zawadi, where she started TechLit Africa. When speaking about her startup, she says: “I grew up in rural Kenya, Mogotio. The
SMASH, a STEM racial justice nonprofit focused on addressing inequities in education, and the nationally renowned HBCU Spelman College have announced a partnership to offer programming and support to young women of color interested in academic and professional careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. With this partnership, Spelman College joins a network of several universities around the country, in addition to Atlanta’s Morehouse College, that offers programming through SMASH to historically underrepresented groups in STEM. The cohort will comprise 25 female high school students, who will have the opportunity to participate in multi-year immersive
The Propel Center, the global HBCU technology and learning hub intended to level the playing field and open greater doors of opportunity for HBCU students, today announced the launch of its Propel Student Impact Scholarships, with support from Apple and Southern Company. The new scholarship program, directed at HBCU students who are interested in pursuing careers in entrepreneurship, arts & entertainment, agri-tech, social justice, and health, is open to rising sophomores, juniors, seniors, and graduates students alike. Propel Center will donate a total of 100 $10,000 scholarship awards to the winners, an
Netflix co-CEO Reed Hastings and his wife, Patty Quillin, an independent film producer, are personally donating $10 million to Tougaloo College, a historically Black college and university in Mississippi, and the school’s partnership with Brown University. The gift will fund much-needed financial aid for Tougaloo students working toward careers in medicine, public health, the sciences, education, business, and other fields and aspiring to make a positive impact on their communities after graduation. Of the total, $5 million will fund scholarships at Tougaloo, in Jackson, Miss., and $5 million will establish the Brown-Tougaloo Partnership
Alejandro Cordero, a professor of electronics and the CEO & Founder of Innova Space, which is reportedly the only company in Latin America that specializes in the design and development of PocketQube pico-satellites. Innova Space was born from an educational project led by Cordero and his seventh-year students. Cordero had challenged his students of Technical High School, which is dubbed number five in the city of Mar del Plata, Argentina with designing a satellite in 2019. In the process, Innova Space received an offer from a startup accelerator. An investment of $100,000
Alhaji M. Sow, an 18-year-old sophomore studying aeronautical science at the Florida Institute of Technology (FIT), was shot and killed during a confrontation with officers on December 3. Now his family is reportedly questioning the use of force on their son. Here’s a breakdown of what we know so far: Around 10 p.m. on Friday, December 3, Melbourne police reported officers were called to the campus after news of the sophomore brandishing a knife and allegedly assaulting students with it. Authorities report Florida tech campus security confronted Sow inside the Roberts Hall, where investigators say he refused
