Civil
Google Donates $1M To Hampton University For Digital Upgrades
Google’s recent $1 million donation is transforming Hampton University’s campus, closing the digital divide, and advancing opportunities for HBCU students.
By Rosaland Tyler
Associate Editor
New Journal and Guide
There was a time when the digital divide stretched across HBCU campuses, the same way acres of undeveloped land lay fallow awaiting a philanthropist’s magic touch at the turn of the century.
Now, students with cellphones, tablets and laptops spill out of renovated campus buildings that were built by turn-of-the-century HBCU students with handmade bricks. The way philanthropists like Andrew Carnegie donated funds that led to the construction of new HBCU buildings at Tuskegee Institute in the early 1900s, today’s corporate leaders and the federal government are supplying funds that are slowly wiping out the digital divide on HBCU campuses.
For example, Google recently donated $2 million to Hampton and Morehouse. According to a recent UNCF press release, Hampton will use its recent $1 million Google gift to “enable the university to expand pathways and opportunities by facilitating needed infrastructure and classroom technology upgrades.”
According to its website, Hampton also received a recent $1.76M grant from the Simons Foundation to help develop a new Stellarator Experiment Group to advance research in Fusion Plasma Science.
Meanwhile, Morehouse will use its $1 million gift to construct a Google Annex that will contain new computers and furniture. Thanks to Google’s recent $1 million donation, Morehouse will also add a computer lab, study rooms, and a collaboration site for budding entrepreneurs.
Hampton University President Darrell K. Williams said in a recent UNCF statement, “We are in an unrelenting pursuit of making a reimagined academic experience a reality for our students, faculty, and staff, through digital transformation. We are delighted to receive this gift and applaud the Google and UNCF partnership for increasing access to unrestricted funds for HBCUs.”
While it is impossible to list all of the private and public donations that are erasing the digital divide, Stillman College in Tuscaloosa recently received a $500,000 grant from the Google Cybersecurity Clinics Fund. Stillman will use the grant to offer free cybersecurity services to organizations and small businesses, hire students for internships in the clinic, provide scholarships, and mentor other colleges as they launch cyber clinics.
Prairie View A&M University, in Texas, has been awarded a $1.2 million grant from the National Nuclear Security Administration of the U.S. Department of Energy. The grant program has two goals: to develop and test high-tech materials for use in harsh environments, such as space, and to develop and encourage student interest in STEM.
Fayetteville State University and North Carolina A&T State University are sharing a $1.7 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy. This project aims to enhance the amount of energy-related materials science research at the two historically Black universities through collaboration with the Savannah River National Laboratory
Bur before Google donated $2 million to fund new Google Annex classrooms at Hampton and Morehouse, it funded and constructed a Google Annex enrichment space at North Carolina Agricultural and Technology University.
The digital divide is a term that means some people have access to technology while others do not. To close the digital divide, the Obama administration launched The Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP). It impacted more than 7,200 communities in all 56 states and territories.
The BTOP initiative awarded millions to HBCUs, upgraded broadband service for videoconferencing and increased low-income residents’ access to legal services and extended classes at Elizabeth City State University, Winston-Salem State University, North Carolina A&T University, and Fayetteville State University, as well as to 22 legal assistance sites. Fayetteville State and Coppin State University, also received BTOP grants to establish new public computer centers.
Similar to how billionaire Andrew Carnegie donated millions to fund the construction of new buildings at Hampton and Tuskegee, IBM in September 2020 donated $20 million to 13 HBCUs that were living in a digital desert. IBM’s gift allowed HBCUs to construct and manage the IBM-HBCU Quantum Center. IBM’s research center focuses on computer security, data mining, high-performance computing, and image processing.”
Other corporations have donated funds to wipe out the digital divide.
Two years ago, Apple and Disney announced plans to build the Propel Center on the campus of Atlanta University. The “first-of-its-kind ideation hub” intends to “build generations of Black leaders who advance equity and justice through technology, entrepreneurship, education and social impact,” Apple said in a statement. The new partnership will connect students with Disney on two fronts.
The Propel Center was created in 2021, thanks in part to a $25 million contribution from founding partner Apple. Currently, donors are constructing a new building at the Atlanta University Center Consortium, which includes member institutions Clark Atlanta University, Morehouse College, the Morehouse School of Medicine and Spelman College.
