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Grants and prizes

Notable grants given and received, open funding programs, competitions and prizes.

  • 125 listed

Competitions and prizes

  • AI Mathematical Olympiad (AIMO) PrizeXTX Markets · to Open to AI teams building open models that solve olympiad math · $10 million fund ($5 million grand prize plus up to $5 million in progress prizes) · 2024A prize fund for publicly shared AI models that can reach gold-medal level at the International Mathematical Olympiad. Progress prizes have run on Kaggle since April 2024, pushing open-source math reasoning forward.
  • AIMO Progress Prize 1XTX Markets · to Team Numina · About $264,000 prize pool · 2024First progress prize of the AI Mathematical Olympiad, run on Kaggle in 2024 and won by Numina, whose open models and datasets for olympiad-style problems were released for others to build on, as the prize rules intend.
  • AIMO Progress Prize 2XTX Markets · to Team NemoSkills · About $528,000 prize pool · 2025Second progress prize of the AI Mathematical Olympiad, run on Kaggle with harder problems than round one, and won by the NemoSkills team. Winners share their models and methods openly, which is the point of the prize: better open-source math reasoning.
  • CommonLit Readability PrizeCommonLit (host), on Kaggle · to Open to data scientists worldwide · 2021A Kaggle competition to rate how hard literary passages are to read for grades 3-12 classrooms, so teachers can match texts to students more accurately than traditional readability formulas.
  • Eedi: Mining Misconceptions in MathematicsEedi (host), on Kaggle · to Open to data scientists worldwide · 2024A Kaggle competition hosted by Eedi to predict which math misconception explains each wrong answer choice in multiple-choice questions, so diagnostic questions can be written and tagged at scale. Eedi builds diagnostic math questions used by schools in the UK and elsewhere.
  • Feedback Prize: English Language LearningGeorgia State University (host), on Kaggle · to Open to data scientists worldwide · 2022A Kaggle competition to score the language skills of English language learners in grades 8-12 from their essays, aimed at better automated feedback for multilingual students. It followed the 2021 Feedback Prize on argumentative writing.
  • Feedback Prize: Evaluating Student WritingGeorgia State University (host), on Kaggle · to Open to data scientists worldwide · 2021A Kaggle competition to build models that identify the parts of argumentative essays written by students in grades 6-12, so automated feedback tools can help students write better. One of several Kaggle contests that produced open education datasets.
  • Global Learning XPRIZEXPRIZE (benefactors incl. Elon Musk, the DeVos and Tony Robbins foundations) · to onebillion and Enuma (Kitkit School), joint grand prize winners · $15 million total purse; $10 million grand prize shared · 2019A five-year contest for open-source tablet software that lets children in low-resource areas teach themselves reading, writing and math. A 15-month field test with about 2,500 children in 141 Tanzanian villages ended in a tie between onebillion's onecourse and Enuma's Kitkit School.
  • Learning Agency Lab: Automated Essay Scoring 2.0The Learning Agency Lab (host), on Kaggle · to Open to data scientists worldwide · 2024A Kaggle competition to improve open essay-scoring algorithms, with the goal of faster, fairer feedback to students on their writing. It followed earlier Learning Agency Lab and Feedback Prize contests that released large sets of student writing for researchers.
  • Support for Tools Competition winner ASTRA AIGates Foundation · to Georgia State University Research Foundation · $498,208 · 2023A follow-on Gates grant to back ASTRA AI, a winner in the Tools Competition's Learning Science Research track, and to improve research infrastructure for understanding how students learn. It shows funders carrying promising contest winners further.
  • Tools Competition (Learning Engineering Tools Competition)Renaissance Philanthropy and co-funders; run by The Learning Agency · to Open to edtech builders, researchers, students and organizations worldwide · Catalyst $50K, Growth $150K, Transform $300K prizes (current cycle) · 2026An annual competition that funds learning tools and datasets across K-12, post-secondary and research tracks, with prize tiers matched to a tool's stage. The 2026-27 cycle opened Sept. 10, 2026, with abstracts due Oct. 13 and winners due in June 2027. Winners join an impact study.
  • Tools Competition 2021 winnersSchmidt Futures and Ken Griffin · to 18 teams, including Springboard Collaborative, UPchieve, Rising Academies and Learning Equality (Kolibri) · More than $1.5 million · 2021An early round of the Learning Engineering Tools Competition. Winners included a speech-recognition reading check for parents, free tutoring for low-income students, a chatbot tutor to pair with a radio school program, and offline-first learning for places with little or no internet.
  • Tools Competition dataset prize: BLAST bilingual children's speechTools Competition · to BLAST (LangInnov Inc.) · Dataset Prize · 2025An Education Datasets winner: a corpus of oral assessment recordings from bilingual and multilingual children, gathered through a game-based literacy platform, with transcripts and details such as age, grade and home languages. Children's speech data is scarce for training fair speech tools.
  • Tools Competition winner: Bookbot reading coachTools Competition · to Bookbot (Australia, Indonesia, Tanzania) · Growth Prize · 2024A K-12 Learning winner for early grades: an app that listens to children read aloud, gives pronunciation feedback, and talks with them about the story through an avatar that asks questions to build comprehension and thinking.
  • Tools Competition winner: Kolibri pre/post testingTools Competition · to Learning Equality · Transform Prize · 2024A Learning Science Research winner: automatic, balanced pre- and post-tests for offline, low-resource classrooms running Kolibri, drawing on a question bank supplemented by AI, so researchers can link test results with learner activity.
  • Tools Competition winner: Little Language Models (CoCo)Tools Competition · to MIT doctoral researchers Manuj and Shruti Dhariwal · Growth Prize · 2024A K-12 Learning winner: a creative 'math microworld' where children ages 8 to 16 build their own probability models from images, sounds or text to make art, music, stories and games, as a hands-on way to learn the ideas behind generative AI.
  • Tools Competition winner: OATutor-GenAITools Competition · to UC Berkeley School of Education (Zachary Pardos) · Growth Prize · 2024A Post-Secondary Learning winner: an open-source adaptive tutoring system that uses large language models to generate tutors for lower-division college STEM courses, shaped to instructors' needs and adult learners' goals.
  • Tools Competition winner: Teacher TappTools Competition · to Teacher Tapp (UK, Netherlands, Belgium) · Transform Prize · 2023A Teacher Development winner from Teacher Tapp, the survey app co-founded by Laura McInerney and Becky Allen. More than 10,000 teachers answer its daily questions; the prize backs using that data to tailor development and support to each teacher.
  • Tools Competition: Learning Science Research track (2024)Gates Foundation · to Georgia State University Research Foundation (Tools Competition partner) · $999,938 · 2023Gates funding for the 2024 Tools Competition's track on learning science research tools, which rewards platforms and instruments that make it faster and cheaper to run rigorous studies of how students learn.
  • WISE Prize for EducationWISE (World Innovation Summit for Education), Qatar Foundation · to Open to education innovations with proven results · $1 million prize fund; $500,000 first place; finalists get $100,000-$125,000 to build an MVP · 2026Now a forward-looking prize: finalists get a year of funding to build a minimum viable product of an approach that already works, and the top three split $1 million at the WISE summit. The 2026-27 cycle closed applications June 27, 2026.
  • WISE Prize for Education 2024-25 winnerWISE, Qatar Foundation · to TUMO (Armenia) · $500,000 (first place) · 2025TUMO took first place for its AI-supported model of free, self-paced creative technology learning for teenagers, which has reached more than 20,000 students in Armenia. Iqrali.jo and Darsel, both working on a numeracy chatbot in Jordan, placed second and third.
  • XPRIZE literacy and numeracy content grantGates Foundation · to XPRIZE · $1,000,000 · 2025Gates support for XPRIZE to develop new high-quality literacy and numeracy content for underserved students in the Global South, following an earlier $500,000 grant in 2024 and building on the Global Learning XPRIZE.

Education research and practice prizes

  • Brock International Prize in EducationBrock Institute (hosted by the University of Oklahoma) · to Laureate chosen by a jury of nominators · 2002An annual prize for a person whose work has had a lasting effect on education. Past laureates include Howard Gardner (2015), Linda Darling-Hammond (2011), Sugata Mitra (2022), Sal Khan (2023) and Michael M. Crow of Arizona State University (2024).
  • Brock Prize 2022: Sugata MitraBrock Institute · to Sugata Mitra · 2022Awarded for self-organized learning environments, which grew out of his 'Hole in the Wall' experiments that put computers in Indian slums for children to explore on their own. His claims about unsupervised learning have also drawn critics.
  • Brock Prize 2023: Sal KhanBrock Institute · to Sal Khan, founder of Khan Academy · 2023Awarded to the founder of Khan Academy, the nonprofit known for free video lessons and practice in math and other subjects. In recent years Khan Academy has built Khanmigo, an AI tutor and teaching assistant, making Khan a leading voice on AI in schools.
  • Global Schools Prize (inaugural)Varkey Foundation · to Alsama Project (Lebanon) · $500,000 · 2026The first Global Schools Prize, a $500,000 award for a whole school rather than a single teacher, went to the Alsama Project in Lebanon, an education project for refugee and out-of-school young people.
  • Global Student PrizeChegg.org, with the Varkey Foundation · to Open to students worldwide · $100,000 · 2025An annual $100,000 award, funded by Chegg.org and run with the Varkey Foundation, for a student making a real impact on learning and society. The 2025 prize went to Adarsh Kumar of Bihar, India.
  • Global Teacher PrizeVarkey Foundation (with UNESCO; sponsored by GEMS Education) · to Open to practicing teachers worldwide · $1 million · 2015An annual $1 million prize for an exceptional teacher, first awarded in 2015. The Varkey Foundation also runs the $100,000 Global Student Prize and, since 2026, a $500,000 Global Schools Prize.
  • Global Teacher Prize 2026: Rouble NagiVarkey Foundation · to Rouble Nagi (India) · $1 million · 2026Honored for using art to bring learning to marginalized communities in India: murals on abandoned walls that teach literacy, numeracy and hygiene, and more than 800 learning centers in over 100 underserved communities run by her foundation.
  • Grawemeyer Award in EducationUniversity of Louisville · to Authors of ideas with major potential impact on education · $100,000 · 1989An annual award for a powerful idea in education, usually a book or major study. Recent winners include Mark R. Warren (2025) on the movement against the school-to-prison pipeline and Laura Hamilton and Kelly Nielsen (2024) on underfunded public universities.
  • Klaus J. Jacobs Research PrizeJacobs Foundation · to Hirokazu Yoshikawa (2025 recipient) · CHF 1 million endowment · 2025A research prize for scholars whose work on learning and development, or on children's and young people's living conditions, is outstanding. The 2025 prize went to developmental psychologist Hirokazu Yoshikawa.
  • Yidan PrizeYidan Prize Foundation · to Open by nomination: education researchers and practitioners · HK$15 million cash plus HK$15 million project fund per prize · 2017Annual prizes in Education Research and Education Development, among the largest in education. Each laureate (or team) gets a gold medal, HK$15 million in cash and a HK$15 million project fund to scale the work. First awarded in 2017.
  • Yidan Prize for Education Development: Anant AgarwalYidan Prize Foundation · to Anant Agarwal · HK$15 million cash plus HK$15 million project fund · 2018Recognized for founding edX, the nonprofit online course platform launched by MIT and Harvard in 2012, which helped start the wave of massive open online courses and opened university-level courses to millions of learners around the world.
  • Yidan Prize for Education Development: Rukmini BanerjiYidan Prize Foundation · to Rukmini Banerji · HK$15 million cash plus HK$15 million project fund · 2021CEO of Pratham, recognized for its Teaching at the Right Level approach, which groups children by learning level rather than grade, and for the citizen-led ASER learning surveys in India.
  • Yidan Prize for Education Development: Shai ReshefYidan Prize Foundation · to Shai Reshef · HK$15 million cash plus HK$15 million project fund · 2023Recognized for founding University of the People, a tuition-free, accredited online university that relies on volunteer instructors and open resources to serve students shut out of higher education by cost, location or displacement.
  • Yidan Prize for Education Development: Vicky ColbertYidan Prize Foundation · to Vicky Colbert · HK$15 million cash plus HK$15 million project fund · 2017One of the first two Yidan laureates, recognized for co-founding Escuela Nueva, a Colombian model of active, student-centered learning built for rural multigrade schools, where children work in small groups with self-paced guides. The model has been adapted in many countries.
  • Yidan Prize for Education Research: Carol S. DweckYidan Prize Foundation · to Carol S. Dweck · HK$15 million cash plus HK$15 million project fund · 2017Stanford psychologist and one of the first two Yidan laureates, recognized for research on mindsets: how students' beliefs about whether ability can grow shape their effort, learning and persistence. Her work is widely used in schools, and some later studies have debated how large school mindset effects are.
  • Yidan Prize for Education Research: Linda Darling-HammondYidan Prize Foundation · to Linda Darling-Hammond · HK$15 million cash plus HK$15 million project fund · 2022Stanford professor recognized for decades of research on teacher preparation, school equity and the conditions for deeper learning. She founded the Learning Policy Institute and has advised U.S. state and federal policymakers on teaching and school funding.
  • Yidan Prize for Education Research: Michelene ChiYidan Prize Foundation · to Michelene Chi · HK$15 million cash plus HK$15 million project fund · 2023Arizona State University learning scientist recognized for the ICAP framework, which ranks how deeply students engage with material (interactive, constructive, active, passive), and for research on self-explanation and expertise. ICAP is often used to judge whether a learning tool asks enough of students.
  • Yidan Prize for Education Research: Uri WilenskyYidan Prize Foundation · to Uri Wilensky · HK$15 million cash plus HK$15 million project fund · 2025Northwestern University professor recognized for 'systems literacy.' His free, open-source NetLogo platform lets students, teachers and researchers build agent-based models that show how individual behaviors produce large-scale patterns, and he has helped bring computational modeling into school subjects.
  • Yidan Prize for Education Research: Usha GoswamiYidan Prize Foundation · to Usha Goswami · HK$15 million cash plus HK$15 million project fund · 2019University of Cambridge neuroscientist recognized for research on how children's brains process the rhythm and sound patterns of speech, and how differences in this processing relate to reading development and dyslexia. Her work links brain science to early literacy teaching.

Government research funding

  • AI content store and teacher tools fundUK Department for Education and Department for Science, Innovation and Technology · to Content store for edtech developers, with The Open University as a founding partner · £4 million (£3 million content store, £1 million for tool builders) · 2024A pooled store of curriculum guidance, lesson plans and anonymized pupil work to train generative AI tools for England's schools, aimed at more accurate marking and feedback help for teachers.
  • AI marking and feedback tool awardsUK Department for Education · to 16 edtech developers, start-ups and universities (including Summatic) · £1 million · 2025Funding for 16 UK developers to build AI tools that speed up marking and give students tailored feedback, with teachers keeping oversight; prototypes were due in April 2025.
  • AI tutoring tools for disadvantaged pupilsUK Department for Education and Department for Science, Innovation and Technology · to Industry partners chosen by tender, working with teachers · Not stated (announced alongside £23 million for EdTech Testbeds) · 2026A government program to co-create safe AI tutoring tools with teachers for up to 450,000 disadvantaged pupils in years 9 to 11 each year, with trials from late 2026 and tools for schools by the end of 2027.
  • EdTech HubUK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (with support from the World Bank, Gates Foundation and UNICEF) · to EdTech Hub research partnershipA global research partnership giving governments in low- and middle-income countries evidence and hands-on help on education technology, including AI, personalized learning and teacher development, through research, innovation sandboxes and a helpdesk.
  • EIR grant to scale ASSISTmentsU.S. Department of Education, Education Innovation and Research program · to Worcester Polytechnic Institute, with The ASSISTments Foundation · $7,928,232 · 2019A federal scale-up grant to expand teacher professional development and use of ASSISTments. The What Works Clearinghouse has rated the ASSISTments efficacy trial as meeting its standards without reservations.
  • EIR grant: Project RAISE (AI for school turnaround)U.S. Department of Education, Education Innovation and Research program · to Texas A&M Research Foundation · $14,999,990 · 2023A large federal grant for 'Research-Based Strategies and Artificial Intelligence for School Enhancement' (RAISE), using research-based practices and AI tools to help turn around struggling schools, led by Texas A&M.
  • IES efficacy study of ASSISTmentsInstitute of Education Sciences · to American Institutes for Research · $3,799,617 · 2017A five-year study of whether ASSISTments online math homework raises achievement for about 15,000 seventh graders across seven diverse U.S. sites, following an earlier Maine trial that found positive effects.
  • IES grant: Active Learning at Scale with generative AIInstitute of Education Sciences · to Arizona State University · $3,750,000 · 2024An IES award to Arizona State University to transform college teaching and learning by pairing large-scale learning science studies with generative AI, building on ASU's Learning at Scale research network for running experiments in real courses.
  • IES grant: ASSISTments as a research platformInstitute of Education Sciences · to Worcester Polytechnic Institute · $2,198,516 · 2021One of the IES platform grants tied to the SEERNet network: revisions to the free ASSISTments math homework platform, built at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, so outside researchers can run rigorous experiments with the students and teachers already using it.
  • IES grant: MATHia as a research platformInstitute of Education Sciences · to Carnegie Learning · $1,999,460 · 2021One of the IES platform grants tied to the SEERNet network: support to open Carnegie Learning's MATHia, an AI-based math tutor for middle and high school, to outside researchers running experiments at scale.
  • IES grant: OpenStax research platformInstitute of Education Sciences · to Rice University (OpenStax) · $2,000,000 · 2021One of the IES platform grants tied to the SEERNet network: support for Rice University's OpenStax, the publisher of free, openly licensed college textbooks, to make its learning platform available for efficient, rigorous education research.
  • IES grant: Scenario-based assessment in the age of generative AIInstitute of Education Sciences · to University of Memphis · $3,657,923 · 2024An IES award to the University of Memphis to develop scenario-based assessments, in which students solve realistic tasks, as an alternative to traditional tests, and to make room for them in the education market now that generative AI changes what tests can measure.
  • IES grant: Talking Math, AI conversational tutoringInstitute of Education Sciences · to Worcester Polytechnic Institute · $3,749,600 · 2024An IES award to Worcester Polytechnic Institute, home of ASSISTments, to build and test AI-enabled conversational tutoring in math. The project asks whether tutoring dialogue with an AI can improve both math performance and student engagement.
  • IES grant: Text Answer AI Tutor for Title I schoolsInstitute of Education Sciences · to ASSISTments Foundation · $500,000 · 2025An IES award to the ASSISTments Foundation to create an AI tutor that responds to students' typed explanations in math, rather than only their final answers, to deepen understanding for students in Title I schools.
  • NSF AI Institute for Adult Learning and Online Education (AI-ALOE)U.S. National Science Foundation (with Accenture as funding partner) · to Georgia Research Alliance; headquartered at Georgia Tech (executive director Ashok Goel) · $19,990,448 · 2021A five-year institute to make online adult STEM education at least as effective as in-person teaching, using AI teaching assistants such as Jill Watson and tools for personalized learning, with partner universities, technical colleges and companies.
  • NSF AI Institute for Engaged Learning (EngageAI)U.S. National Science Foundation · to North Carolina State University (James Lester), with UNC Chapel Hill, Indiana University, Vanderbilt and Digital Promise · $19,996,290 · 2021A five-year NSF institute building story-based (narrative-centered) learning environments where students work with AI characters that communicate through speech, gesture and facial expression, to make STEM learning more engaging for middle and high schoolers.
  • NSF AI Institute for Exceptional Education (AI4ExceptionalEd)U.S. National Science Foundation and the Institute of Education Sciences · to University at Buffalo (Venugopal Govindaraju), with eight partner universities · $20,000,000 · 2023A five-year institute addressing the shortage of speech-language pathologists. It is building an AI screener that analyzes classroom video and audio to spot children ages 3 to 10 who may need speech or language help, plus AI assistants to support them.
  • NSF AI Institute for Inclusive Intelligent Technologies for Education (INVITE)U.S. National Science Foundation and the Institute of Education Sciences · to University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (H. Chad Lane) · $19,998,746 · 2023A five-year institute building AI tools that help students develop persistence, academic resilience and collaboration, with research centered on middle school computer science and on how generative AI can scaffold learners while teachers stay in charge.
  • NSF AI Institute for Student-AI Teaming (iSAT)U.S. National Science Foundation · to University of Colorado Boulder (director Sidney D'Mello) · $19,993,294 · 2020One of the first NSF National AI Research Institutes. iSAT builds AI 'partners' that help small groups of students talk, reason and learn together in classrooms, such as the CoBi community builder, working with researchers at several universities and school districts.
  • NSF AI-ALOE renewalU.S. National Science Foundation · to Georgia Tech Research Corporation (Ashok Goel) · $18,374,008 · 2026A second NSF award, starting September 2026, to continue the AI Institute for Adult Learning and Online Education at Georgia Tech under Ashok Goel, extending its work on AI teaching assistants and personalized online learning for adult STEM students.
  • NSF EngageAI renewalU.S. National Science Foundation · to North Carolina State University (James Lester) · $20,000,000 · 2026A second NSF award, starting September 2026, to continue the AI Institute for Engaged Learning at NC State under James Lester, extending its research on story-based learning environments with AI characters for STEM classrooms.
  • NSF iSAT renewalU.S. National Science Foundation · to University of Colorado Boulder · $20,000,000 · 2025A second five-year NSF award to the Institute for Student-AI Teaming, shifting toward AI literacy and an AI-ready workforce, including a semester-long AI literacy curriculum co-designed with schools.
  • Oak National Academy AI tools for teachersUK Department for Education · to Oak National Academy · Up to £2 million · 2023Government funding for Oak to improve and expand free AI tools for teachers in England, such as lesson planners and quiz builders, as a first step toward a personal AI lesson-planning assistant for every teacher. This work led to Oak's Aila assistant.
  • SEER Research Network for Digital Learning Platforms (SEERNet)Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education · to Digital Promise Global (network lead) · $2,999,874 · 2021IES funding to turn widely used digital learning platforms into research infrastructure, so researchers can run fast, rigorous experiments inside tools students already use. Companion IES grants went to platforms such as ASSISTments, MATHia, OpenStax and Canvas/Terracotta.

Open funding programs

  • ED/IES Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR)Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education · to Open to U.S. small businesses building education technology · Up to $1.25 million per project ($250K Phase I, $1M Phase II) · 2002Since 2002 the program has made 286 Phase I and 120 Phase II awards for education games, assessments, simulations, AI adaptive tutors and assistive technology. It also runs the annual ED Games Expo.
  • Google for Startups Growth Academy: AI for EducationGoogle for Startups · to 21 edtech startups across Europe, the Middle East and Africa · Mentoring and resources (no equity-free funding stated) · 2024A three-month accelerator for AI-for-education startups with mentoring from Google experts and a founder community. The 2024 EMEA cohort of 21 included EvidenceB (France), Angaza Elimu (Kenya), Digify Africa (South Africa) and Story Spark (UK).
  • NAEd/Spencer Postdoctoral FellowshipSpencer Foundation, administered by the National Academy of Education · to About 20 early-career education researchers a year · $80,000An annual fellowship for recent PhDs doing education research, covering salary replacement and research costs, run by the National Academy of Education with Spencer support. It is a well-known launch point for education researchers.
  • NSF Research on Innovative Technologies for Enhanced Learning (RITEL)U.S. National Science Foundation · to Open to researchers at U.S. institutions · Up to $900,000 over 3 years per project; about 20-25 awards expected · 2023An NSF program for early-stage research on emerging technologies such as AI, robotics and immersive tools for teaching and learning in real settings, with interest in low-cost tools for budget-limited schools. Projects must advance both learning research and technology.
  • Spencer Foundation Initiative on AI and EducationSpencer Foundation · to Open to education researchers · 2024Grew out of a spring 2024 Spencer convening. It funds research on AI and learning, AI policy, ethics and justice, and how AI will change education research itself, through Spencer's research grant programs.

Kids' online safety funding

  • Disrupting HarmSafe Online · to ECPAT International, INTERPOL and UNICEF Innocenti · $15 million · 2019A large evidence project on how online child sexual exploitation and abuse shows up country by country, covering 13 countries in a first phase and 12 more in a second, with national reports due through 2026. Safe Online began with $7 million in 2019.
  • Google.org digital wellbeing grants for kidsGoogle.org · to Initial grantees Highlights for Children and Sesame Workshop · $20 million · 2024Announced on Safer Internet Day to support digital wellbeing, mental health and online safety for kids, starting with a Highlights magazine edition based on Be Internet Awesome and new Sesame Street media on healthy tech and AI use.
  • Google.org teen safety and wellbeing fund for EuropeGoogle.org · to Programs in Europe for kids, teens, caregivers and teachers · €10 million · 2025Funding announced in March 2025 for European programs that create safer online spaces for kids, support teens' digital wellbeing and give caregivers and teachers practical resources, building on earlier Google.org online safety grants in the region.
  • NSF CAREER: Safety by Design, Protecting Adolescents from Online RisksU.S. National Science Foundation · to Pamela Wisniewski (then University of Central Florida) · $550,000 · 2019A five-year NSF early-career award to study how teens experience and cope with online risks and to co-design, with teens, safety tools that build self-regulation and draw on their support networks, for use by platforms that serve young people. The award later moved with her to Vanderbilt and ICSI.
  • ROOST (Robust Open Online Safety Tools)Founding partners Discord, Google, OpenAI and Roblox, with the Knight, McGovern and other foundations · to ROOST, an open-source online safety nonprofit · $28 million initial funding · 2025Launched at the Paris AI Action Summit to build free, open-source trust and safety tools as a public good. Its Coop tool (v1.0 in June 2026) handles child safety review and reporting to NCMEC for platforms of any size.
  • Safe Online open callsSafe Online (with government, foundation and company donors) · to Open to groups fighting online child sexual exploitation and abuse · About $10 million (2024 open call); nearly $100 million invested since 2016 · 2024Safe Online funds prevention, detection and response to online child sexual exploitation and abuse in more than 100 countries. Its 2024 open call drew over 300 applications; it held no new open call in 2025.
  • Safe Online Research Fund 2026 targeted callTech Coalition and Safe Online · to Cyberbullying Research Center (Florida Atlantic University), Sheffield Hallam University and Behavioral Health Global · Over $240,000 combined · 2026Three projects on emerging risks: a survey of about 3,500 U.S. teens on AI chatbot use and sexual or secretive conversations, grooming in social VR and games like Roblox and Minecraft, and an open classifier to detect sadistic online exploitation networks.
  • Tech Coalition Safe Online Research FundTech Coalition and Safe Online · to Researchers studying online child sexual exploitation and abuse · $2.5 million invested to date · 2020A research fund backed by tech companies that has supported 15 projects since 2020, including a 2024 round focused on generative AI risks, with advice from companies, Thorn, UNICEF and WeProtect.
  • Young Futures funding challenges and YF500Young Futures · to U.S. nonprofits helping young people, families and educators thrive with technology · Challenge awards of $50,000-$100,000; YF500 has raised $26 million toward $50 millionYoung Futures runs two open funding challenges a year on youth digital wellbeing, including 'Unwritten' (at least $1 million for 10+ nonprofits helping ages 10-19 think critically in an AI-shaped world), and a five-year plan to fund 500 nonprofit innovators.
  • Youth voice in AI guidanceGates Foundation · to Young Futures · $1,200,000 · 2026Funding to Young Futures to shape AI guidance for schools and families using real student and parent experiences and recommendations written by young people themselves, so rules about AI reflect how kids actually use it.

AI and learning grants

  • AI classroom discourse feedback for mathGates Foundation · to TeachFX · $1,549,089 · 2023Funding to TeachFX, whose app uses AI to analyze classroom audio and give teachers feedback on how much and how students talk, for R&D supporting math outcomes for Black, Latino and low-income students.
  • AI coaching for teachers in low-resource settingsGates Foundation · to Renaissance Philanthropy Fund · $3,200,000 · 2025Funding to Renaissance Philanthropy to improve literacy and numeracy by giving teachers real-time, AI-driven coaching and feedback that supports structured lessons in low-resource classrooms, an approach meant to scale teacher support where human coaches are scarce.
  • AI coaching tools for instructionGates Foundation · to EdLight · $1,250,000 · 2024Funding to EdLight, a company whose tools let teachers capture and analyze handwritten student work, for research and development of AI coaching tools that support the quality of teaching for priority students.
  • AI for learning in low- and middle-income countriesGates Foundation · to Fab AI Foundation · $4,200,000 · 2024Funding to develop high-quality AI tools, share knowledge and build partnerships so AI improves education outcomes fairly in low- and middle-income countries; one of several Gates grants to Fab AI since 2023.
  • AI for Math FundRenaissance Philanthropy and XTX Markets (founding donor) · to Researchers and builders of AI tools for mathematics · $9.2 million (first round); grants up to $1 million · 2024A fund for open AI tools for mathematics: proof formalization and verification software, open datasets of theorems and problems, field-building such as textbooks and courses, and high-risk research. Its first 2025 awards backed 29 projects, including a Lean tutoring tool.
  • AI Literacy Framework implementation resourcesGates Foundation · to Code.org · $200,000 · 2025Funding to Code.org for short, free implementation resources (public goods) aligned with the AI Literacy Framework, to help schools teach AI literacy effectively and fairly across classrooms.
  • AI tools for teachers R&DGates Foundation · to Teach For America · $750,000 · 2023Funding to Teach For America, which places and supports new teachers in high-need schools, for research and development of AI-based tools that support teachers in their work.
  • AI-driven Teaching at the Right LevelGates Foundation · to Pratham International · $1,323,011 · 2025Funding to Pratham International to test and scale AI automation of Teaching at the Right Level, Pratham's approach of assessing children and grouping them by learning level rather than grade, in sub-Saharan Africa.
  • AI-powered literacy instruction and assessmentGates Foundation · to Amira Learning · $2,757,128 · 2025Funding to Amira Learning, maker of an AI reading tutor that listens to children read aloud, to show how AI reading instruction and assessment can improve outcomes in U.S. pre-K and early grades and in low-resource settings in sub-Saharan Africa.
  • AI-supported tutoring R&DGates Foundation · to UPchieve · $648,947 · 2023Funding to UPchieve, a nonprofit offering free online tutoring to low-income students, for research and development of tutoring approaches that use AI to support math learning for Black, Latino and low-income students.
  • Applied research on AI math tutoringGates Foundation · to Stanford University · $1,899,805 · 2025Funding to Stanford University for applied research in diverse school settings, aimed at speeding the design and adoption of scalable, AI-enabled math tutoring that schools can actually use.
  • Benchmark for AI math tutorsGates Foundation · to Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence (Ai2) · $1,755,137 · 2024Funding to the Allen Institute for AI to develop a benchmark for judging AI tutoring systems in math, so school districts serving priority students can pick better products and developers have a shared yardstick to improve against.
  • Coalition for AI-era computer science standards (TeachAI)Gates Foundation · to Code.org · $1,093,695 · 2023Funding to Code.org for a coalition that develops updated curriculum standards, courses, tools and assessments to prepare students safely and fairly for an age of artificial intelligence. Code.org co-leads the TeachAI initiative on AI guidance for schools.
  • District AI instructional frameworkGates Foundation · to Denver Public Schools · $400,000 · 2024Funding to Denver Public Schools to write a district-wide AI instructional framework and AI academic policy to guide safe, intentional use of AI and instructional technology in classrooms, an example of a large district setting its own AI rules.
  • Education-focused AI models and datasetsGates Foundation · to University of Maryland · $3,035,000 · 2024Funding to the University of Maryland to develop AI models and datasets built specifically for education. It is part of a 2024 cluster of Gates grants (with Renaissance Philanthropy, Cornell and others) aimed at better open data and models for learning tools.
  • Evidence on AI features in digital math productsGates Foundation · to Edia Learning · $726,250 · 2024One of several 2024 Gates grants to math product makers, including Edia and Aha Moments, to test how AI-powered features affect student motivation, engagement, persistence and learning, and to improve math materials based on the results.
  • Generative AI assessment for math curriculumGates Foundation · to ASSISTments Foundation · $1,748,232 · 2025Funding to the ASSISTments Foundation, steward of the free ASSISTments math platform, to scale research and development of a generative AI assessment tool that plugs into high-quality math curricula.
  • Generative AI math tutoring R&DGates Foundation · to NewSchools Venture Fund · $9,500,000 · 2024Funding for NewSchools' R&D programs to speed up K-8 math growth with new tools and models and to spur the building and testing of new generative AI math tutoring products.
  • Jill Watson AI assistant in technical collegesGates Foundation · to Georgia Tech Research Corporation · $425,001 · 2023Funding to study the use of Jill Watson, the AI teaching assistant developed at Georgia Tech by Ashok Goel's group, in English 101 classes at the Technical College System of Georgia, testing it beyond the computer science courses where it began.
  • Learning CommonsChan Zuckerberg Initiative · to Open to edtech developers and educators · 2025CZI's education work, renamed Learning Commons in 2025. It offers free AI developer tools, such as a knowledge graph of state standards and learning progressions and 'evaluators' for checking AI outputs, opened to developers more widely in 2026.
  • Learning Engineering Virtual Institute (LEVI)Renaissance Philanthropy (with philanthropic partners) · to Seven research-practice teams in LEVI Math and four in LEVI Literacy · Multi-year grants over five years (amount not published) · 2022A five-year effort, launched with LEVI Math in 2022, to double the rate of middle school math progress for students from low-income backgrounds; LEVI Literacy aims to halve the number of struggling K-2 readers.
  • Learning Engineering Virtual Institute coordinationGates Foundation · to Renaissance Philanthropy Fund · $550,000 · 2025Funding to Renaissance Philanthropy to coordinate the Learning Engineering Virtual Institute, whose research-practice teams are building AI-driven tools meant to double math learning growth for low-income middle school students.
  • LEVANTE (Learning Variability Network Exchange)Jacobs Foundation · to Research teams worldwide, coordinated by Stanford University · 2023A flagship Jacobs Foundation research effort collecting common measures of cognitive, social, emotional and environmental factors from children ages 2 to 12 across countries, building an open data archive on how children learn differently.
  • LLM co-pilot for math discussionGates Foundation · to Stanford University · $2,267,154 · 2024Funding to Stanford University to build large-language-model 'co-pilot' tools that help teachers lead rich mathematical discussion in class and differentiate instruction for students working at different levels.
  • Open numeracy AI infrastructure for Sub-Saharan AfricaGates Foundation · to Eedi · $1,849,553 · 2026Funding to Eedi, the London math diagnostic company, to build open, locally adapted math AI infrastructure for Sub-Saharan Africa: knowledge graphs, diagnostic assessments and student-response datasets that others can use to build tools.
  • Research on effective AI tutoringGates Foundation · to Accelerate: The National Collaborative for Accelerated Learning · $2,500,794 · 2024Funding for research on effective, efficient AI tutoring for Black, Latino and low-income students, from Accelerate: The National Collaborative for Accelerated Learning, a national nonprofit that funds and studies high-impact tutoring.
  • Research-backed AI models for K-12 mathGates Foundation · to Digital Promise Global · $9,500,000 · 2025Funding to Digital Promise to improve AI education tools by developing research-backed AI models tuned to K-12 learning and math instructional materials. Digital Promise also manages Gates-backed AIMS research grants on math learning.
  • Teacher learning on AI toolsGates Foundation · to Playlab · $490,000 · 2024Funding to Playlab, a nonprofit whose platform lets educators build their own AI apps, to give more teachers chances to learn about AI and build skill and buy-in for AI-driven teaching tools.
  • Tutoring datasets for priority studentsGates Foundation · to Cornell University · $3,921,000 · 2024Funding to Cornell University to build education datasets that support the development of high-quality tutoring tools for Black, Latino and low-income students in the U.S., part of a 2024 push by Gates on open data and models for learning.

Big gifts to edtech nonprofits

  • Audacious Project: Imagine WorldwideThe Audacious Project · to Imagine Worldwide · 2025Selected by the Audacious Project to scale child-directed, solar-powered tablet learning in local languages across Malawi, Sierra Leone and Tanzania, aiming to reach more than 4 million students a year by 2030 and hand the program to governments.
  • Carnegie Learning comprehensive math solutionGates Foundation · to Carnegie Learning · $9,799,223 · 2023Funding for a math program that builds in motivation, engagement and persistence to raise achievement for priority students, from Carnegie Learning, the Pittsburgh company behind the MATHia AI math tutor.
  • Illustrative Mathematics capacity and scaleGates Foundation · to Illustrative Mathematics · $15,058,587 · 2025Funding to build out Illustrative Mathematics' customer platform, open educational resources ecosystem and product quality. IM's openly licensed K-12 math curriculum is widely used in U.S. schools.
  • Khan Academy district and classroom productsGates Foundation · to Khan Academy · $55,569,976 · 2024A five-year grant to develop district-facing and classroom products, tools and services, with a goal of increasing learning for 11.2 million students. One of the largest recent philanthropic grants to an edtech nonprofit; Khan Academy also builds the Khanmigo AI tutor.
  • MacArthur 100&Change: early learning for refugee childrenJohn D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation (100&Change) · to Sesame Workshop and the International Rescue Committee · $100,000,000 · 2017The first 100&Change award funded early childhood development for children displaced by conflict in Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq and Syria: a new Arabic Sesame Street (Ahlan Simsim), home visits and caregiver support, and play-based learning centers.
  • Zearn capacity and scaleGates Foundation · to Zearn · $11,588,193 · 2023Funding for Zearn, the nonprofit K-8 math learning platform used in many U.S. schools, to build a Spanish digital experience, professional learning services, and features that support student motivation, engagement and persistence.

Corporate AI education funds

  • Anthropic and Teach For All AI fluency partnershipAnthropic · to Teach For All network (63 countries) · In-kind (Claude access and training) · 2026A partnership giving teachers in the Teach For All network Claude access, an AI fluency learning series, a peer community and a Claude Lab program, reaching a network of over 100,000 teachers and alumni.
  • Anthropic grant to picoCTFAnthropic · to Carnegie Mellon University's picoCTF · $1 million over three years · 2025Part of Anthropic's commitments under the White House pledge on AI education: funding for CMU's free, hands-on cybersecurity challenges for middle and high school students, focused on underserved communities.
  • Global AI Opportunity FundGoogle.org · to Nonprofits and NGOs delivering AI education and training worldwide · $120 million · 2024Announced by Sundar Pichai at the UN Summit of the Future to bring AI education and training to communities around the world, in local languages, through nonprofit and NGO partners.
  • Google $1 billion for U.S. AI education and trainingGoogle · to U.S. colleges, nonprofits and education programs · $1 billion over three years (including $150 million in grants) · 2025A three-year commitment to U.S. education and job training, with $150 million set aside for AI education and digital wellbeing grants, Gemini for Education offered to every U.S. high school, and an AI for Education Accelerator grown to 200 colleges.
  • Google grant to Code.org for AI curriculumGoogle · to Code.org · $3 million · 2025Announced at the September 2025 White House AI Education Taskforce event as part of Google's $1 billion U.S. education commitment, the grant supports Code.org in reworking its computer science curriculum and adding AI features.
  • Google grant to National Applied AI ConsortiumGoogle · to National Applied AI Consortium, led by Miami Dade College · $2 million · 2025Funding to the National Applied AI Consortium, led by Miami Dade College, to expand its mentoring to 30 community colleges in 20 states, helping them build applied AI programs and a national AI talent pipeline.
  • Google.org AI education funding (GenerationAI and partners)Google.org · to ISTE (GenerationAI), 4-H, aiEDU, CodePath and STEM From Dance · More than $25 million · 2024Funding across five U.S. groups to reach over 500,000 educators and students: ISTE's GenerationAI teacher training, rural AI programs with 4-H, aiEDU's AI literacy work in rural and Indigenous communities, CodePath's college AI courses and AI for girls of color.
  • Google.org robotics and AI grants for middle schoolersGoogle.org · to FIRST and the REC Foundation · $10 million · 2023Grants to help 300,000 U.S. middle schoolers join robotics programs and to bring AI into the programs' curricula, with a focus on rural students, students of color and English learners.
  • Microsoft ElevateMicrosoft · to K-12 schools, community and technical colleges, and nonprofits · More than $4 billion in cash and technology over five years · 2025Microsoft's five-year pledge of cash plus AI and cloud donations, including the National Academy for AI Instruction with the AFT, an Elevate Academy aiming to give 20 million people AI credentials, and support for Code.org's Hour of AI.
  • National Academy for AI InstructionMicrosoft (lead), OpenAI (founding partner) and Anthropic, with the AFT and UFT · to American Federation of Teachers and its 1.8 million members · $23 million (reported: $12.5M Microsoft, $10M OpenAI, $500K Anthropic) · 2025A teachers' union academy in Manhattan offering free AI training, courses and credentials, aiming to reach 400,000 educators in five years. Some observers questioned a union taking money from the companies whose tools it will teach.