Google pledges S$27m to help people with disabilities

SINGAPORE — Google is giving away US$20 million (S$27 million) to non-profit organisations that use technology to improve the lives of people with disabilities.

The tech giant’s charitable arm, Google.org, announced the move yesterday (May 26) in a blog post. To kick off the campaign, named Google Impact Challenge: Disabilities, two non-profit organisations have been given grants of up to US$600,000.

The first group is the Enable Community Foundation (ECF), which connects people who need prosthetics with volunteers who use 3D printers to design, print, assemble, and fit them, for free. To date, the ECF has more than 1,000 listed volunteers, including six in Singapore.

Non-profit World Wide Hearing (WWH) also received a grant of US$500,000. WWH is working on developing an an extremely low cost tool kit for hearing loss using mobile technology.

The two organisations were chosen as they used technology to “dramatically reduce the cost of and access to prosthetic limbs and auditory therapy, respectively,” wrote Google.org director Jacqueline Fuller. This “could be transformative for hundreds of millions of people”, she noted.

An open call has been issued to identify new areas of opportunity. Proposals can be submitted at http://get.google.com/disabilitiesimpactchallenge/.

Ms Fuller added that Google will choose the best ideas and “help them to scale by investing in their vision, by rallying our people and by mobilising our resources in support of their missions”.