BOSTON, Feb. 06, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Scratch Foundation — a non-profit organization dedicated to providing young people with digital tools and opportunities to imagine, create, share, and learn — announced today that the LEGO Foundation has granted $7.8 million to support the Scratch Foundation’s global programmatic work, research, and innovative product development to address inequities in creative learning experiences for more than one million children, ages 5-12, worldwide.
“In our fast-changing world, creative learning is critical if we are to prepare children for the challenges of tomorrow,” said Dr. Margaret Honey, President and CEO of the Scratch Foundation. “We are very grateful for this generous grant and are thrilled to extend our long-standing partnership with the LEGO Foundation, solidifying our joint commitment to providing more children and educators worldwide with creative learning through play opportunities.”
This substantial funding marks the continuation of a successful and long-standing collaboration among the Scratch Foundation, the LEGO Foundation, and The LEGO Group. Aligned with The LEGO Group's Sustainability 2025 goals, this initiative underscores their commitment to being a global leader in advocating for children's rights to learn and play.
“At the LEGO Foundation, we are driven by making learning more accessible, inclusive, and playful as children naturally learn while playing. It has been impressive to experience how Scratch and ScratchJr encourage children to engage, collaborate and be creative, the definition of learning through play. We are truly excited to continue our well-established partnership with the Scratch Foundation and the LEGO Group to the benefit of more than a million children worldwide,” said Sidsel Marie Kristensen, CEO at the LEGO Foundation.
This grant will support the Scratch Foundation in the following areas:
Programs: Expanding the Scratch Education Collaborative (SEC)—a transformative initiative aimed at strengthening local organizations' commitment to equitable creative computing—to build networks of local strategic partners who can champion creative learning and co-design learning opportunities with educators around the world. To date, the SEC has worked with more than 170 organizations in 40+ countries.
Research: Conducting research to better understand and measure how children engage with Scratch, and to support and extend the Responsible Innovations in Technology for Children (RITEC) framework. The Foundation will collaborate with research partners, including the Joan Ganz Cooney Center, and Rutgers University, among others, to accomplish this work.
Product Development: Modernizing the Scratch platform in order to meet important objectives including securing long-term sustainability amid dramatic growth in users worldwide; developing new, innovative, and evidence-based features; improving the user onboarding experience; and continuing to be a leader in the creative learning movement.
The Scratch Foundation looks forward to continuing its partnership with the LEGO Foundation and the LEGO Group to accelerate the reach of learning through play globally.
Media Contact
Carlos Diaz Barriga, Director of Marketing and Communications at the Scratch Foundation
carlos@scratch.mit.edu
About the Scratch Foundation
The Scratch Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing young people with digital tools and opportunities to imagine, create, share, and learn. Through innovation and collaboration, the Scratch Foundation spreads creative, caring, collaborative, equitable approaches to coding and learning around the world. Scratch, the world’s largest coding community for children, was originally developed by the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab and publicly launched in 2007. The platform provides millions of young people from all backgrounds with the opportunity to develop their voices and express themselves by creating their own stories, games, and animations.
About the LEGO Foundation
The LEGO Foundation shares the mission of the LEGO Group: to inspire and develop the builders of tomorrow. The Foundation is dedicated to building a future in which learning through play empowers children to become creative, engaged, lifelong learners. Its work is about re-defining play and re-imagining learning. In collaboration with thought leaders, influencers, educators and parents the LEGO Foundation aims to equip, inspire and activate champions for play. learningthroughplay.com
