USA Education

Grants

FY Philanthropy Report

Selected grant stories:

Asia Pacific:

Indian Institute of Technology (Delhi, India)
HP contributed an HP715/100 workstation and simulation software valued at $143,000 to establish a facility for RF simulation and electromagnetic computation for students, college teachers, and industry professionals.

Taiwan National Volunteer Association
A server, PCs, and printers valued at $111,000 will help develop an integrated volunteer information system for the entire country.

Canada:

The Learning Partnership (Toronto, Ontario)
HP Canada is helping to unleash the potential of information technology as a learning tool for students in the classroom through its participation in The Learning Partnership's Hands On IT Project. A program of the Science & Technology Committee, Hands On IT is a five-year project which will equip and train elementary school teachers on how to integrate information technology into their classrooms. The program was recently approved for funding as part of the Ministry of Education and Training's Technology Incentive Partnership Program. HP donated PCs and printers valued at over $146,000.

Latin America:

Fundacao ABRINQ (Sao Paulo, Brazil)
This foundation for the rights of children in Brazil has established a number of different initiatives with private companies. One of the projects is a financial adoption to take children out of the streets. HP is "adopting" 10 children. Through this program, funds go directly to institutions that support the educational needs of this population. HP's donation exceeded $3,000.

Europe:

Physicians for Human Rights (Bosnia)
As many as 8,000 men, women and children are missing and presumed dead in the former Yugoslavia. Friends, relatives and entire communities are traumatized by these losses and by the uncertainty as to whether their loved ones are dead or alive. The identification and proper burial of the dead and the international community's participation in this effort are essential parts of the peace and reconstruction process in Bosnia.

When Dr. Laurie Vollen of Physicians for Human Rights, who is working for the mass grave-exhumation project, was seeking a company to donate hardware, software and technical support in order to set up a database of missing persons, HP decided to become involved. HP donated a server together with several Vectras, Omnibooks and printers to help the project in the process of matching missing persons against the DNA results of autopsies. The information entered into the database is crucial in resolving the fate of thousands of persons currently listed as missing in the Srebrenica region and elsewhere.

Doug Ford, Deputy Director of the project, thanked HP. "HP's donation has helped jump-start work on the project by enabling us to already interview more than 1,500 people with missing relations." Equipment donated: $53,000.

Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (Freiburg, Germany)
HP donated a $35,000 communication server for the whole society of solar energy researchers that will allow researchers all over the world to share information.

Technical University Delft (The Netherlands)
A $95,000 grant of servers, PCs and printers to the "SIMONA" project will be used for research simulators for helicopters and airplanes, thus improving safety and environmental aspects of transportation.

U.S.

University Grants: The University Grants Board approved three curriculum initiatives in which several schools were invited to reply to three separate RFPs (Request for Proposals). The first initiative was the Digital Image Systems Engineering program in which five universities each received about $1M in HP equipment to develop curriculum to teach image systems in their electrical engineering courses. (University of Iowa, Purdue, Stanford, University of California-San Diego, and Georgia Institute of Technology)

Two grants were approved for the Technology Enhanced Learning initiative at about $500,000 in equipment for each to develop innovative ways of improving learning through the use of technology (a joint proposal from the Universities of Wisconsin, Illinois, and Michigan and another joint proposal from California State Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute).

Four grants were made to develop curriculum in large scale systems utilizing the healthcare information of medical schools working with schools of engineering. Equipment grants amounting to about $500,000 each were made to four partnerships (University of Iowa, UCLA, Columbia University, and Harvard/MIT/Mass General Hospital/Brigham & Women's Hospital/Beth Israel Hospital/Boston Children's Hospital).

U.S. Local Grants:

National Science Foundation grant

Senator Barbara Boxer, D-Ca. and HP CEO Lew Platt announced the grant at a May 16th press event in Palo Alto, Ca.

"It was like a train moving out of the station and we had to make sure everybody and everything were on board," says Nancy Thomas, HP contributions manager. "It was such a big commitment that sometimes we wondered what we'd gotten into--wondered occasionally if we really wanted to get it."

But nobody was happier (and more relieved) than Nancy and K-12 Education Relations Manager Bess Stephens when the National Science Foundation awarded $5.6 million to eight local school districts for improving science education. "In addition to being a good solution, it was quite an honor to be selected from among hundreds of candidates," Bess says in a modest understatement.

It was quite an accomplishment in collaboration, too. Bess and Nancy worked for 18 months, coordinating the needs and desires of science teachers from 74 different schools to complete the winning grant application.

The grant funds, to be awarded over five years, will continue the hands-on science education training for teachers that HP launched earlier. The company goal is to improve science and math education, support women and minorities in technical fields, and help every child enter school ready to learn.

In recent years, HP funded science improvement training with $90,000 for each district. But to strengthen collaboration between business and schools, the K-12 education and philanthropy departments supported the NSF grant application effort this year. And it worked. Nancy says, "We became a very cohesive team and accomplished much more together than we could have separately."

HP's important role was commended by Jan Hustler from the Palo Alto Unified School District. Her thank-you letter stated that HP provided "critical friends who know how to ask the right questions. Nancy and Bess asked, 'How can we help?' and then they listened."

U.S. National Grants:

Council for Aid to Education (New York, NY)
The Council enhances the quality of corporate support of education and stimulates increased private support of education through its research, publications and other information services. Its primary focus is drawing national attention to the fiscal crisis in higher education, fostering restructuring and reform efforts within higher education, promoting increased private and public support of higher education and tracking corporate support of education. HP provided seven personal computers valued at over $24,900 which will improve the access and efficiency of information processing and provide effective use of the internet to assist the Council to achieve its goals.

Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic (Princeton, NJ)
As the nation's education library for individuals with print disabilities, this organization helps people who cannot effectively use regular print to enjoy equal opportunities in the classroom and the workplace. They provide educational materials on tape and computer disk to the blind, visually impaired, learning disabled and physically handicapped individuals. HP's donation of two NetServers and related components valued at $46,500 helps them prepare the foundation for the implementation of a digital audio production and distribution system.

California Science Center (Los Angeles, CA)