Amazon Web Services (AWS) has announced the launch of a five-year, $100 million effort to help education organizations build digital learning innovations for underrepresented communities.

The AWS Education Equity Initiative will provide cloud credits to ensure learners from underrepresented and underserved communities have equal access to transformative learning opportunities. To that end, the initiative will enable organizations to use the credits like cash to offset the costs of using AWS’s cloud services. Applications for the initiative are open and eligible organizations include nonprofits, governments, socially minded EdTechs, and corporate social responsibility teams seeking to build digital learning solutions for underserved and underrepresented communities.

The effort will build on AWS’s current efforts to assist organizations in the field, including Code.org, which provides computer science and AI education for K-12 schools with a focus on supporting young women and students from underrepresented groups; Rocket Learning, an India-based nonprofit that improves access to quality, early-childhood education for underserved children; and Tangible Africa, a nonprofit that equips children in South Africa with coding skills.

Recipients can use credits on AWS’s portfolio of 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.

“The future is definitely not evenly distributed: over half a billion students cannot be reached by digital learning today,” wrote AWS chief evangelist Jeff Barr in a blog post. “Our goal is to empower [educators] to build new and innovative digital learning systems that can amplify their work and allow them to reach a bigger audience.”

(Photo credit: Getty Images/Drazen Zigic)