Google is distributing $25 million in grants aimed at supporting nonprofit work that will use artificial intelligence to help achieve United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals such as reducing air pollution, increasing global food security, and improving maternal health care.
The company’s philanthropy arm, Google.org, said Tuesday that it would provide the grant funding to 15 AI projects over the next three years. Google.org announced the grants last year as part of its Global Goals Impact Challenge.
The winners include Jacaranda Health, a Kenya-based nonprofit focused on maternal and child health care. It received $1.4 million for a project that would use machine learning to refine its SMS-based digital health service that triages thousands of messages sent daily in English and Kiswahilli to ensure mothers in need of health care are connected with clinically trained agents that can provide assistance. The agents themselves are human, not AI. The funding will also be used to deploy the organization’s services in four new African languages.
About the author
Stephanie Beasley@Steph_Beasley
Stephanie Beasley is a Senior Reporter at Devex, where she covers global philanthropy with a focus on regulations and policy. She is an alumna of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism and Oberlin College and has a background in Latin American studies. She previously covered transportation security at POLITICO.
