Fortune: Inside a NYC museum’s radical $81 million reboot
December 16, 2014
Take, for instance, the critical role played by Bloomberg Philanthropies in helping to finance the digital aspects of the renovation.
“When I first went to them, the conversations weren’t about money,” Baumann recalls. “They would say to me, ‘Caroline, this is the future of museums, so of course we’re interested. The money came later, but they have been partners from the start.”
Read moreCNN: Michael Bloomberg: Cities drive innovation
December 15, 2014
More and more cities are becoming engines of policy innovation, searching for bold new solutions to tough problems that Washington has failed to address. Coming up with innovative new ideas requires creative thinking based on rigorous data analysis. And then, once the best ideas are selected, the hard work begins — implementing them.
Successful innovation depends as much on the ability to generate ideas as it does the capacity to execute them. The trouble is, many mayors have small staffs who are already stretched thin just keeping the trains running on time. It is often impossible for them to devote the kind of time and energy that is necessary to research, develop and implement innovative new policies.
Read moreThe Economist: Test-tube government : Governments are borrowing ideas about innovation from the private sector
December 8, 2014
A new report published by Nesta, a British charity devoted to promoting innovation, and Bloomberg Philanthropies shows how popular these government innovation labs have become. They can be found in a striking variety of places, from developing countries such as Malaysia to rich countries like Finland, and in the offices of mayors as well as the halls of central government.
Read moreBBC: Drowning: ‘Hidden childhood killer’
November 17, 2014
Michael Bloomberg, Mayor of New York City and founder of Bloomberg Philanthropies, an organisation that provided funding for the report, said: “I believe that you can’t manage what you don’t measure and there’s never been a comprehensive effort to measure drowning around the world until now.
“The more evidence we can gather, the better we’ll be able to tailor our prevention efforts.”
Read moreStraits Times: Gardens by the Bay launches 1st visitor mobile app sponsored by Bloomberg Philanthropies
November 17, 2014
Gardens by the Bay has launched a mobile app that is a guide, educational tool and game for its visitors.
Its first app is available in five languages – English, Mandarin, Malay, Tamil and Japanese – and is sponsored by Bloomberg Philanthropies.
Read moreThe Washington Post: Download latest app before the symphony
November 3, 2014
Bloomberg Philanthropies gave $17 million to five institutions this year “to produce innovative projects . . . that use cutting edge technology and enable visitors to share content.”
Read moreThe 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.
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