Facebook Donates Laptops To Bay Area School

Bridging the "Digital Divide"

Dozens of Bay Area 8th graders will be able to update their Facebook pages tonight by logging onto their brand new MacBook laptop computers.

Courtesy of Facebook.

The Menlo Park social networking giant didn't have to look far when it decided to donate dozens of laptops - Cesar Chavez Academy is in nearby East Palo Alto. At an assembly Thursday afternoon, Facebook employees, along with local educators and Representative Jackie Speier, passed out the laptops to the very happy students.

"I wanna use it for high school and college," said 8th grader Evelyn Romero, "for the work that I really need to do."

With STEM education talked about so frequently in the Valley, the donation is really a way to begin to bridge the digital divide. Most schools have laptops; it's how things get done these days. As Facebook CIO Tim Campos says, "Could Mark Zuckerberg create Facebook if he didn't have a computer?"

No. He went to a school that had them. Now, so does Evelyn Romero.

Scott logs on to Twitter @scottbudman

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