Google's philanthropy previously committed to $50 million in the background of coronavirus pandemic for various areas such as health and science, economic relief and recovery, and distance learning. On Wednesday, it added 100 percent of its previous commitment or doubled it to $100 million.
Jacquelline Fuller head of Google.org, the philanthropic forum of Google wrote about this in the website's blog. She wrote that the organization's fellows would give "a total of 50,000 hours to COVID-19-specific projects."
Frontline workers: Top priority
Its top priority is in supporting frontline workers battling the virus, while it would contribute for the data science related to coronavirus disease tracking. Google would use data analytics and AI in improving the understanding of COVID-19 and about its overall impact such as grants to Boston Children's Hospital's HealthMap consortium.
Also it Google is applying its AI in developing new tools and models in monitoring the spread of the coronavirus pandemic to provide real time info to policy makers and healthcare setups.
To businesses
In order to provide critical support to crisis helplines to more than 200,000 underserved small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) in 32 countries across Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific. OECD, estimates that SMB's will be hit greatly
The organization is giving $5 million grant to Youth Business International in order to launch a Rapid Response and Recovery Program, while committing $10 million and more grants to nonprofits across the world
Direct cash handovers
Fuller cites a research showing that direct cash provision as an effective aid to the people during crises. Hence, cash grants would be given through GiveDirectly in the US and through GiveIndia in India. Thus committing an overall $10 million to direct cash handovers.
In supporting distance learning, specifically learning in other languages Google commited a $10 million distance learning fund as more than a billion students globally are out of school due to coronavirus pandemic.
