Bill Gates, Amazon and Google Urge Followers To Share Data On Teacher Friends

theodp writes: Facebook may be facing the threat of a multi-billion dollar FTC fine for privacy lapses that included allowing companies to obtain users' email addresses from their friends, but that didn't discourage Bill Gates from taking to Twitter to urge his 46.5 million followers to give up the names and email addresses of teachers so they can be contacted by tech-bankrolled Code.org for a chance to receive a 'Computer Science Scholarship' (attend Professional Development workshops). Or Amazon. Or Google. 'The success of our professional learning program depends on the work of our partners to spread the word,' explained Code.org in a Medium Post. 'Corporate partners like Amazon, Infosys, and Google are rallying their employees and communities to nominate a teacher, and so are fellow teachers, parents, and students. We couldn't do it without you! Code.org (and these scholarships) are supported by: Amazon, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Facebook, Google, Infosys Foundation USA, Microsoft Code.org has prepared almost 100,000 educators to teach our courses, and they give our program rave reviews. We welcome teachers from all subject areas-no CS experience needed!'

In May, Code.org announced it was crowdsourcing a database of U.S. K-12 schools that teach -- or don't teach -- CS, with a goal to 'gather data for 100% of U.S. schools by the end of 2018.' The database would be used by the nonprofit and the CS community to 'make our shared vision [for every school to teach computer science] a reality.' Several months later, Amazon disclosed its involvement with the data collection effort, explaining it 'will help us bring access to the schools that need it most.' Amazon on Thursday announced it had selected 1,000 high schools to receive Amazon-funded CS classes and will be tapping another lucky 1,000 schools in the next few months. An Amazon press release said the company hopes to 'inspire and educate 10 million children and young adults each year from underprivileged, underrepresented, and underserved communities to pursue careers in the fast-growing field of computer science and coding' through its Amazon Future Engineer program, which the e-tailer describes as 'a four-part, childhood-to-career program.'

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