Zoom Pledges $10 Million to Make AI Education Accessible to All

Product announcements aren’t the only news Zoom is making at its Zoomtopia event. The cloud-based video conferencing company has also revealed it’s committing $10 million over three years through a combination of grants to improve AI education and opportunity. The investments are being made through Zoom’s philanthropic arm, Zoom Cares.

“AI should not be a privilege for a few,” Kimberly Storin, the company’s chief marketing officer, remarked in a press release. “At Zoom, we believe it should be a tool for everyone to create, solve, and thrive. Through this commitment, we’re helping unlock that potential across classrooms, communities, and workplaces.

Code.org and Data.org have been named as two of the first grant beneficiaries.

Founded by Hadi and Ali Partovi in 2013, Code.org works to make computer programming more accessible for K-12 students. It provides free coding lessons and other resources. The organization stated the funding will be used to expand access to its free AI curriculum, empower more educators, and improve outreach to students from underserved and underrepresented groups.

As for Data.org, it’s a nonprofit that launched in 2020 to democratize data science and AI, tackling society’s most pressing challenges. It was founded through a partnership between The Rockefeller Foundation and the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth. It plans to use the grant money to host its fifth global challenge, a competition designed to discover new ways to utilize data and AI to create economic opportunities in communities worldwide.

Today’s announcement is in addition to the commitment Zoom made to the White House earlier this month, saying it would allocate $5 million towards K-12 AI education. Through multi-year grants, the money would support nonprofits and institutions, helping create a pathway into AI careers for young people, such as through internships, boot camps, and dual-credit courses. Additionally, it would invest in workforce development organizations that help retrain workers impacted by AI.

This program may appear commendable, but it’s the least that tech companies can do. The generative AI era has rapidly disrupted all aspects of society, including job displacement. More than a few companies have already laid off employees in favor of AI. Students graduating today are also finding it challenging to secure a job.

Zoom isn’t alone in this philanthropy. Google is committing $1 billion towards education and job training programs in the U.S. and is providing every American high school and its students, teachers, and staff with free access to Gemini for Education. Nvidia is investing $25 million over the next five years to develop K-12 AI skills and training. Microsoft is giving every K-12 student in the U.S. free access to its AI Copilot. Amazon aims to provide AI skills training to four million American learners by 2028, enable AI curricula for 10,000 educators, and provide up to $30 million in credits for organizations. Lastly, Anthropic plans to invest $1 million over three years to advance K-12 AI and cybersecurity education.

Since launching five years ago, Zoom Cares has donated over $66 million to various communities worldwide. The firm boasts that today’s “ambitious” investment will help build “a future where technology expands human potential.”