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"Microsoft Co-founder Bill Gates has announced that his charity, the Bill &amp; Melinda Gates Foundation, is launching a $20 million grant designed to get entrepreneurs to develop new technologies to help students obtain their college degrees.\nThe Gates Foundation is seeking to get entrepreneurs involved in tackling the issues surrounding America's struggling education system. The foundation has already put billions toward education-related grants, and Bill Gates was a prominent character in Waiting for Superman, a new documentary that analyzes the failures of the American education system.\nThe Next Generation Learning Challenges fund will be divided into grants ranging from $250,000 to $750,000, focused on technologies that emphasize blended learning models, deepen student engagement and learning through interactive application, high-quality open courseware and learning analytics for monitoring student progress.\nThe deadline for the program is November 17; grants will be announced in March 2011.  While the Gates Foundation will provide funds for the project, the nonprofit organization EDUCAUSE will run the program.  It will award grants every six to 12 months.\nAccording to Gates, it isn't limiting the grants to any specific type of organization.  He believes that  non-profits will primarily apply for grants related to blended learning models, but that he hopes there will be a mix of private companies and startups for grants related to deepening student engagement and learning."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2010/10/11/gates-foundation-announces-20-million-fund-to-improve-education-with-tech/>