The Huffington Post: The American Dream Can Only Be Fulfilled If Our Top Students Have the Opportunity to Attend Our Top Colleges – By Michael R. Bloomberg
October 29, 2014
This week, Bloomberg Philanthropies is setting a new national goal: Increasing the percentage of high-achieving, low- and moderate-income students who attend top colleges from approximately one-third to one-half in just four years. To help reach that goal, we are launching a new initiative that aims to help as many as 65,000 of these students find a school that matches their abilities.
Read moreThe New York Times: A New Push to Get Low-Income Students Through College
October 28, 2014
As data has made clear how many top-performing students from poor and middle-class families fall through the cracks, a range of institutions have set out to change the situation. Dozens of school districts, across 15 states, now help every high school junior take the SAT. Delaware’s governor has started a program to advise every college-qualified student from a modest background on the application process. The president of the College Board, which administers the SAT and has a decidedly mixed record on making college more accessible, says his top priority is college access.
On Tuesday, a handful of institutions will announce an ambitious new effort on this front. Led by Bloomberg Philanthropies, the coalition is setting a specific goal for which it can be held accountable. Today, only about one in three top-performing students from the bottom half of the income distribution attends a college with a high six-year graduation rate (at least 70 percent). Within five years, the Bloomberg coalition wants to raise that to one in every two students.
Read moreForbes: Bloomberg Commits $125 Million To Combat Global Road Traffic Deaths
September 30, 2014
Traffic fatalities are one of the world’s leading causes of preventable death, and the number is expected to increase. To help combat this trend, Bloomberg Philanthropies announced a new $125 million funding competition.
The foundation will invite low- and middle-income cities and countries to compete for grants to implement life-saving road safety legislation, infrastructure and practices, part of the new phase of its Global Road Safety initiative to reduce fatalities and injuries from road traffic crashes.
Read moreThe Wall Street Journal: Bloomberg Funds Road Safety in World Cities
September 29, 2014
Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has a new message for the developing world’s metropolises: make your roads safer.
Mr. Bloomberg is expected to announce Monday that his philanthropic organization will spend $125 million during the next five years on programs to reduce traffic deaths and injuries in 10 cities in low- and middle-income countries.
Traffic fatalities are a major cause of preventable death globally—in the top 10 with killers such as heart disease and HIV/AIDS.
Read moreNPR: Philip Morris Sues Uruguay Over Graphic Cigarette Packaging
September 15, 2014
Uruguay’s University of the Republic, in collaboration with a professor from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, did a study that showed that between 2005 and 2011 in Uruguay, smoking has gone down 4.3 percent annually.
They’ve also done studies that have shown that less pregnant women are smoking and that the birthrate has gone up because of it.
Actually, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg donates millions of dollars to developing countries that are trying to stop smoking. His foundation has paid for these studies, as well as a big chunk of Uruguay’s legal fees.
Read moreFast Company: How America’s Murder Capital Is Using Innovation Strategy To Reduce Violent Deaths
September 11, 2014
The innovation delivery method was developed by Bloomberg Philanthropies and Nesta, the U.K.’s innovation foundation, as one model to increase the ability of mayors to develop bigger ideas that address the major challenges facing many cities today. Modeled on the work of former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg as well as other cities around the world, it basically involves a team of in-house consultants at a City Hall tasked with analyzing data and bringing in global expertise to brainstorm and implement new approaches to tackling intransigent local problems. In 2011, Bloomberg Philanthropies funded five cities, including New Orleans, to trial the approach.
Read moreThe Washington Times: Bloomberg offers digital funding for 6 museums
September 9, 2014
Bloomberg Philanthropies says it’s expanding its funding for cultural institutions’ digital projects to help increase visitors’ access to their resources.
The nonprofit says it is committing $17 million to six museums.
Read moreThe Wall Street Journal: Bloomberg Philanthropies Gives Museums $17 Million Push Toward Digital
September 8, 2014
Bloomberg Philanthropies is set to announce on Tuesday that it is expanding its grant funding for cultural institutions’ digital projects, with $17 million for museums in New York and around the world.
At the Brooklyn Museum, staffers stationed at a hub will use an app to field questions in real time as visitors move through the galleries. At the American Museum of Natural History, a new app will offer a glimpse of the science happening behind the scenes. And at the Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, a digital pen will allow visitors to save information on their favorite objects in the collection, and create their own designs.
Other recipients of the expanded grant program, now called Bloomberg Connects, include the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Science Museum in London and Singapore’s Gardens by the Bay.
Read moreThe New York Times: Michael Bloomberg’s Harder Sell
August 24, 2014
Mr. Bloomberg, 72, has vowed to give away his $32.8 billion fortune before he dies. In doing so, he hopes to sharply reduce high smoking rates in Turkey, Indonesia and other countries; bring down obesity levels in Mexico; reduce traffic in Rio de Janeiro (and Istanbul); improve road safety in India and Kenya; prevent deaths at childbirth to mothers in Tanzania; and organize cities worldwide to become more environmentally friendly and efficient in delivering services.
Read moreThe New York Times: African Leaders Sit Down With American Investors
August 6, 2014
The conference was co-sponsored by the Commerce Department and the foundation of former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York, who told reporters: “It has become unfashionable to be a business person in the U.S. And Africa desperately wants to build a business class because that’s where the jobs are going to come from.”
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