$1.1 Million in ED Grants Available to Ed Tech Companies

  • By Dian Schaffhauser
  • 02/06/20

The U.S. Department of Education has $1.1 million in grants available to for-profit ed tech companies. The Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program awards funding to organizations for "the research, development and evaluation of commercially viable educational technology products." Funding is made available in two phases: up to $200,000 for prototype development and evaluation in the first phase, and up to $900,000 for "full-scale" development of the product and evaluation in the second phase. Applications for the first phase are due by March 3, 2020.

Those projects that have been funded have introduced numerous forms of education innovation, including gaming, adaptive assessments, virtual and augmented reality, 3D-printing, simulations, virtual worlds, AI adaptive tutors, data dashboards and assistive technologies. All have gone through rigorous levels of research with the expectation that they'll be eventually be commercialized.

Proposals are accepted in three areas: education products for grades pre-K-16, supporting student learning, teacher instruction and classroom management; special education products for pre-K-12; and products for school administration for K-12.

To learn more about the current funding program, visit the Small Business Innovation Research site. The application is available here on the federal contracting site.

About the Author

Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.

Featured

  • digital dashboard featuring a shield icon, graphs, a world map, and network nodes

    IBM Introduces Agentic AI Governance and Security Platform

    IBM has launched a new software stack for enterprise IT teams tasked with managing the complex governance and security challenges posed by autonomous AI systems.

  • laptop displaying a phishing email icon inside a browser window on the screen

    Phishing Campaign Targets ED Grant Portal

    Threat researchers at cybersecurity company BforeAI have identified a phishing campaign spoofing the U.S. Department of Education's G5 grant management portal.

  • magnifying glass highlighting a human profile silhouette, set over a collage of framed icons including landscapes, charts, and education symbols

    AWS, DeepBrain AI Launch AI-Generated Multimedia Content Detector

    Amazon Web Services (AWS) and DeepBrain AI have introduced AI Detector, an enterprise-grade solution designed to identify and manage AI-generated content across multiple media types. The collaboration targets organizations in government, finance, media, law, and education sectors that need to validate content authenticity at scale.

  • server racks, a human head with a microchip, data pipes, cloud storage, and analytical symbols

    OpenAI, Oracle Expand AI Infrastructure Partnership

    OpenAI and Oracle have announced they will develop an additional 4.5 gigawatts of data center capacity, expanding their artificial intelligence infrastructure partnership as part of the Stargate Project, a joint venture among OpenAI, Oracle, and Japan's SoftBank Group that aims to deploy 10 gigawatts of computing capacity over four years.