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AWS pledges $100m towards digital learning

Staff Writer
By Staff Writer, ITWeb
Johannesburg, 06 Dec 2024
AWS will invest $100m over five years to provide under-represented communities with access to e-learning technology.
AWS will invest $100m over five years to provide under-represented communities with access to e-learning technology.

Amazon Web Services (AWS), via its AWS Education Equity initiative, has committed $100m over the next five years to help under-represented communities in Africa access digital learning resources.

AWS says the initiative will provide recipients with cloud credits, which essentially act like cash that organisations can use to offset the costs of using AWS's cloud services.

Examples of AWS tech empower communities in Africa

  • Code.org: Using AWS cloud credits to scale an AI Teaching Assistant for K-12 students, focusing on young women and underrepresented groups.
  • Rocket Learning: Scaling a project with Amazon Q in AWS QuickSight to analyse trends in video and WhatsApp-based content for early childhood education.
  • Tangible Africa: Expanding an offline coding curriculum on AWS to reach 10 000 learners and 120 teachers across Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, and Zambia.

Recipients can then leverage AWS cloud technology and advanced AI services to create innovations such as AI assistants, coding curriculums, connectivity tools, student learning platforms, mobile apps, chatbots, and other technology-based learning experiences.

They can also get technical expertise from AWS Solution Architects, who will provide architectural guidance, best practices for responsible AI implementation, and ongoing optimisation support, AWS adds.

AWS says it is working with over 50 organisations from ten countries. In the past year, more than 2 million students have received over 17 million hours of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), literacy, and career development courses via the company’s Amazon Future Engineer child-to-career programme.

The company’s AWS’s AI and ML scholarship programme has awarded $28 million in scholarships to approximately 6 000 students to prepare them for a career in AI.

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