The Zurich-based Jacobs Foundation has announced a grant of nearly $11 million over five years to the University of California, Irvine, to establish a collaborative network to help tailor digital technologies for children.

Connecting the EdTech Research EcoSystem (CERES) will bring together global leaders in computer science, psychology, neuroscience, education, and educational technology to identify opportunities for interventions aimed at improving children's learning and life outcomes. Even as school doors begin to reopen and children reunite with teachers and friends, most will also continue to learn and socialize online. According to the foundation, youth represent roughly a third of Internet users globally, yet online spaces and tools often are not designed to offer children the types of support and opportunities for learning that they need. CERES will work to reduce growing inequalities in access by placing children and evidence at the center of the digital equations that are critical to predicting their success.

With its Strategy 2030 campaign, the foundation has committed more than $545 million to advancing learning and education around the globe over the next ten years. CERES is one of three educational technology initiatives the foundation hopes will make a difference for children's future lives by leveraging new technologies and improving the digital world.

"Robust science needs to play a key part in how ed tech products are designed and deployed," said Jacobs Foundation co-CEO Simon Sommer. "The current momentum presents an enormous opportunity to influence the direction of the ed tech industry to be a force of positive change in education."

(Photo credit: Steve Zylius)