Google has created a $5.3 million grant for German-based nonprofits to provide refugees with Chromebooks.
Google has been providing support to charities working with refugees in Europe for months, and in September, the company raised $10 million dollars in aid by matching donations to refugee relief organizations.
“Chromebooks have proven to be a good fit for education purposes. They can be easily set up to run education or language learning apps,” Jacquelline Fuller, director of Google.org, wrote in a blog post. “They’re automatically kept up to date with the latest features, apps and virus protection. And they can be configured and managed by a central administrator (in this case the nonprofits) to offer relevant programs, content and materials depending on the situation.”
In addition to providing educational programs, Google said the Chromebooks could be configured to feature information about the asylum application process on a pre-installed homepage.Nonprofits interested in applying for the grant can do so onNetHope’s website; distribution of the first round of computers will begin on March 1.
The grant is also a way for Google to take steps to amend itsdamaged relationship with the EU. Europe has long criticized Google for failing to pay what it considers the company’s fair share of taxes, and the EU brought anti-trust charges against the company last year.
More than 1 million refugees made their way into Europe in 2015, and the movement of people out of the Middle East and North Africa shows no signs of slowing.
Germany has accepted a sizable portion of those refugees. Initially, the country said it was prepared to resettle those who qualified for asylum, but it has since walked back some of the initial offer.
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Source: Mashable