Amazon funds computer science courses across the U.S.

An e-tail giant is supporting computer science education in more than 2,000 high schools.

The Amazon Future Engineer program is funding full-year intro and advanced placement (AP) computer science courses, primarily for public Title I schools that have never offered AP computer science courses before. Benefiting more than 100,000 high school students in all 50 states and Washington, D.C., Amazon Future Engineer is providing access to these courses in more than 2,000 schools through its curriculum providers Edhesive and Code.org.

Amazon’s funding also provides preparatory lessons, tutorials, professional development for teachers, fully sequenced and paced digital curriculum for students, and live online support every day of the week for both teachers and students. All educators and students participating in this program have access to a no-cost membership with AWS Educate, Amazon’s global initiative to provide students comprehensive resources for building skills in cloud technology. Students will receive content to learn about cloud computing and access to the AWS cloud for their coding projects.

“We applaud the teachers who took the initiative to bring these courses to their deserving students, and we are humbled to be a part of the important work they do in their classrooms across the country every single day,” said Jeff Wilke, CEO worldwide consumer, Amazon. “This is an important milestone for our Amazon Future Engineer program and its quest to make sure more students, especially those from underserved and underrepresented communities, have the access to and the opportunity to dive deep into an exciting computer science education.”

Launched in November 2018, Amazon Future Engineer is a four-part childhood-to-career program that each year aims to inspire more than 10 million kids to explore computer science; provide over 100,000 young people in over 2,000 high schools access to intro or advanced placement computer science courses; award 100 students with four-year $10,000 scholarships, and offer guaranteed, paid Amazon internships to gain work experience.

Amazon Future Engineer is part of Amazon’s $50 million investment in computer science/STEM education. In addition, Amazon Future Engineer has donated more than $10 million to organizations that promote computer science/STEM education across the country.