Salesforce.com founder Marc Benioff announced today that his company will donate $2.7 million to "the most important resource in San Francisco" — middle school kids. The donation will help bring the math and science programs up to speed at San Francisco's middle schools as part of the Unified School District's STEM initiative (that's "Science, Tech, Engineering and Math"). The donation includes $1.5 million for upgrading the technology at the city's 12 middle schools, 750 new iPads for students, and $100,000 for each school's principal to spend on science and tech learning.
Benioff, Mayor Ed Lee and SFUSD Superintendent Richard Carranza announced the donation today at Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School in Portola. On Sunday, the Chronicle ran a warm fuzzy piece about the tech "Titan" and his determination to make the biggest donation in the history of the school district. When Lee and Carranza met with Benioff a few months ago, they asked for iPad donations and improved wireless in the middle schools, which had been lagging behind the elementary and high schools in terms of technology. Benioff countered with a cool 100 grand for each school and gave the city's tech-friendly mayor time to ask for more:
With pen poised above a checkbook, Benioff told Lee he had a year to figure it out and come back for more."We wanted to make this bigger," Benioff said. 'The city and school district weren't ready for us to do more."
How much more?
"We're loaded with money," he said and the mayor's focus on preparing middle-school students for the future workforce is a perfect match for the tech company's philanthropic foundation.
"Why shouldn't San Francisco have the best 12 middle schools in the country?" Benioff said. "What is preventing that? We are their partner in this."
The schools are already showing off the utility of iPads in the classroom: despite spotty WiFi and kids who can't seem to remember their login passwords, Mayor Lee and Benioff toured a class room today where all students would submit answers to an in-class question via an app rather than letting one smartypants raise his hand and blurt out the answers. Another app allowed kids to draw eyeballs and record spoken word poems about eyeballs as part of a science test.
In addition to the iPads and WiFi, Benioff hopes other companies will step up to contribute technology to the initiative.
