Siegel Family Endowment Awards Grants to Explore Equitable Alternatives to Traditional Education

NEW YORK, Oct. 25, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Siegel Family Endowment, a foundation which provides support to organizations working at the intersections of learning, workforce, and infrastructure, announced today new grants awarded to Education Reimagined, Reimagine America's Schools, the Stanford d.School K-12 Lab, and Transcend Education. Through its grantmaking and infrastructure-focused research, the foundation has shown the interdependence of the physical, digital, and social dimensions of infrastructure. These latest grants apply Siegel Family Endowment's "multidimensional" lens to the learning space, supporting organizations that are reimagining the structure of the K-12 education system.

"The pandemic and its impact on learning should be a wake-up call for us all: our current system does not educate all students equally, nor does it adequately equip young people to succeed academically or professionally," said Katy Knight, Executive Director of Siegel Family Endowment. "We need to critically reassess and re-prioritize today's education system. Through our multidimensional infrastructure framework, we can strategically and comprehensively invest in organizations that reimagine education and build an education infrastructure that serves all students."

This new set of grants will support the work of forward-looking organizations focused on creating a more equitable education system that provides a greater number of students with better opportunities and outcomes:

• Education Reimagined works to remodel the education system from a one-size-fits-all structure to a learner-centric system that is responsive to individual student needs. Siegel Family Endowment's grant will allow the organization to pilot new education ecosystems where learning is not restricted to a single school building, but instead includes physical, social, and digital infrastructure elements like public spaces, community members, digital networks, and virtual learning opportunities.
• Reimagine America's Schools creates new, more holistic models for the physical learning environment through improved design. Investment by the foundation will fund a new initiative, "Community Schools 3.0", which aims to increase equality in disadvantaged neighborhoods by integrating schools within communities more seamlessly, both virtually and physically with "20-minute neighborhoods."
• Stanford d.School K-12 Lab is an incubator where new solutions and models of education are tested. Focused on reducing education inequality, support from the Siegel Family Endowment will enable educators and designers to continue experimenting with future-forward approaches to education in collaboration with young people and communities.
• Transcend Education provides a connection between innovative learning models and the educators and schools that are seeking these new approaches. New funding from the foundation will allow for the development of a new digital platform where school communities can access the latest education solutions, as well as social infrastructure expansion that will grow the Transcend Design Community and direct design services for schools' physical infrastructure development.

About Siegel Family Endowment
Siegel Family Endowment aims to understand and shape the impact of technology on society by supporting organizations working at the intersections of learning, workforce, and infrastructure. The foundation partners with leaders in civil society, academia, government, and social enterprise on knowledge-building projects that prioritize inquiry-driven approaches. Siegel Family Endowment was founded in 2011 by computer scientist and entrepreneur David M. Siegel, a co-founder of Two Sigma.

Contact:
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SOURCE Siegel Family Endowment