Comcast CEO Brian Roberts Donates $5M For Laptops

Comcast Corp. CEO Brian Roberts, his wife Aileen and their family are donating $5 million for the Philadelphia public school system to buy laptops so students can start being taught remotely during the coronavirus pandemic, the Philadelphia Business Journal reports.

The Roberts

The donation, made to the Fund for the School District of Philadelphia, will support the purchase of 50,000 Chromebooks which will be distributed alongside 40,000 laptops already in school buildings. The computers will be distributed between April 13 and April 17. In the intervening time, the school will prepare the laptops and train teachers to support remote learning.

“We’re living in an unprecedented time and COVID-19 is presenting our society with new challenges every day,” the Roberts said in a statement.

“When we heard that many Philadelphia students weren’t going to be able to learn from home without laptops, we quickly decided we wanted to help and provide these teachers, parents and students with the technology they need to begin learning online within just a few weeks. In good times or bad, now all of our Philadelphia students will have access to technology to help them succeed.”