Digital Equity Accelerator
What is Digital Equity?
Digital equity will be achieved when every person has equitable and inclusive access to the tools, skills, and knowledge needed to participate in the digital economy.
Canada's goal
Canada prides itself on its superior social safety net but has yet to address the affordability and adoption challenges of providing high-speed broadband internet access to low-income households and northern and Indigenous communities. To tackle this, the federal government has set a goal of connecting 98% of Canadians to high-speed internet by 2026 and 100% by 2030, a target to meet their goals.
HP's Digital Equity Accelerator
To complement this work HP is working to accelerate equitable access to hardware, connectivity, relevant, quality content, and digital literacy for groups that face the biggest divide. Established in 2022, the HP Digital Equity Accelerator helps build capacity for local nonprofit organizations and support the people they serve in the quickly changing digital landscape. The Accelerator provides selected nonprofit organizations USD$100,000 capacity-building grants, HP technology (about USD$100,000 value), and a six-month virtual program, including training, mentorship, and technical consultations, designed to help strengthen capacity and scale digital equity impact. Through 2023, the Accelerator’s efforts have helped organizations reach an additional 8.1 million people across 17 countries by providing access to technology and digital skills.
HP's efforts in digital equity have been recognized by the prestigious Time Team of the Year Award for 2022. This award highlights HP's commitment to bridging the digital divide and promoting digital inclusivity worldwide. You can learn more about this award
In 2024, the HP Digital Equity Accelerator is supporting 3 non-profits in Canada
Access to Success runs Canada's premier accelerator for accessibility startups. Their unique program, called ATS Labs, helps companies create and scale life-changing technology for people with disabilities. By fostering a culture of accessibility, Access to Success empowers individuals to reach their full potential and live their best lives. Their initiatives also include research and advocacy to drive systemic change and promote disability inclusion to #EnableEveryone.
The funds, hardware, and programming from HP will help unlock the next phase of growth at Access to Success. “Not only did the funds help us expand our programming for accessibility-focused startups, HP's own programming from the Digital Equity Accelerator has helped us resolve critical roadblocks for our organizational growth. Most excitingly, HP's hardware funding will help us set up the new Centre for Accessibility Innovation, a flagship co-working space and innovation hub in Toronto dedicated to accessibility innovations. With HP's support, we aim to benefit 150,000 people with disabilities in 2025.”
Jays Care Foundation, the charitable arm of the Toronto Blue Jays, uses the game of baseball to give kids across Canada a place on a team where they belong. Jays Care believes that baseball for development programming can play an important role as an effective low-cost intervention to address the pressing mental and physical health challenges for children and youth across the country. Proudly working in all ten provinces and all three territories, Jays Care runs baseball for development programming for more than 59,000 children and youth annually. Through its Field Of Dreams program, Jays Care has also invested nearly $15 million into building or refurbishing more than 160 community baseball diamonds across Canada. Jays Care is recognized as a top 100 Charity in Canada and are proud two-time winners of Major League Baseball’s Commissioner’s Award for Philanthropic Excellence.
Jays Care is using the funding from the HP Digital Equity Accelerator to create a learning management system to facilitate best in class sport for development training for Jays Care staff across the country. Jays Care is using the hardware component of the HP Digital Equity Accelerator program for youth in their programs who struggle with digital access issues.
Chapter One is a global non-profit that closes the reading gap by providing children with one-to-one support at the time they need it the most, focusing on underserved Indigenous schools and communities throughout Canada. Since 2022, HP Canada has partnered with Chapter One to help expand its 1:1 literacy tutoring program across the country. Every year, HP employees also serve as Online Reading Volunteers, to help struggling students improve their reading skills and confidence. Volunteers read with the same child each week during the school year, via Chapter One’s bespoke platform at dedicated reading stations installed in participating classrooms.
With the support of the 2024 HP Digital Equity Accelerator, Chapter One is tripling the number of children receiving High Impact Tutoring at home, from 500 to 1,500 students by December 2025. These children live in underserved and isolated Indigenous communities and receive daily 1:1 High Impact Tutoring from Chapter One’s trained paraprofessional tutors on families’ smartphones, via the organization’s proprietary online literacy platform. Chapter One is also doubling online readership of its Global Free Library, which houses a collection of original e-storybooks co-created with Indigenous communities. Brought to life by Indigenous writers and illustrators, the storybooks feature audio clips of Elders speaking foundational words in the original language of the communities. HP funded the creation of a story called Weaving Cedar with Auntie as part of this program.
Where we’re headed
HP’s education programs and digital learning initiatives, including the Digital Equity Accelerator, aim to open up access for people across the world—with a focus on creating opportunities for women and girls, the aging, people with disabilities, educators, and the historically marginalized.
Education
100 million
We aim to reach a milestone 100m adult learners & students via educational programs
Through a diverse array of programs and digital initiatives, HP is enabling better learning outcomes for people around the world.
Building the workforce of tomorrow in Canada
ComKids
Since 1998, ComKids has been supporting youth in low-equity, underserved communities; providing essential digital infrastructure, educational content, and support for those facing significant barriers to digital inclusion, digital literacy, and academic success.
Since 2015, HP Canada has been the official Technology Partner of ComKids, ensuring participating youths receive the latest HP laptop while providing value to the charity. Our employees volunteer their time at celebrations, and fundraising events and also provide support to the ComKids staff through 40 Days of Doing Good initiatives.
Learning for a Sustainable Future
HP Canada has been supporting Canadian charity Learning for a Sustainable Future (LSF) since 2012 to help facilitate the transformation of teaching and learning to address the complex environmental, social, and economic challenges of the 21st century.
HP Canada helped LSF create the Resources 4 Rethinking (R4R) database of sustainability resources for educators, which includes over 1,600 lesson plans, books, videos, outdoor activities and apps/games in French and English that have all been thoroughly reviewed by their peers. R4R benefits over 130,000 educators across the globe annually.
Parents Engaged in Education
Parents Engaged in Education is a nonprofit that fuels the academic achievement of over 1,500 schoolchildren from low-income families in the Greater Toronto Area.
HP Canada supported the nonprofit in establishing Canada’s first Education Bank and helped fund their fully equipped technology centre, which offers coding, robotics, and 3D-printing classes to students. The centre is also home to the EdBears Robotics Team, which won a national competition in 2022, also funded by HP Canada. Our employees regularly volunteer their time, since 2020, to mentor the schoolchildren and support their career discovery.
T. L. Kennedy Secondary School
T. L. Kennedy Secondary School is located near our headquarters in Mississauga, Ontario, and caters to schoolchildren from diverse backgrounds.
HP Canada awarded the school with a technology grant to support its robotics team, and regularly extends its financial support to the organization while our employees volunteer to mentor students to support their career discovery.
Youth Without Shelter (YWS)
YWS is a 53-bed emergency shelter residence for youth experiencing homelessness between the ages of 16-24 in Etobicoke, Toronto. YWS’ goal for each resident is to strive for employment and affordable housing by the time they are ready to move out. HP Canada employees regularly volunteer at YWS in various functions, from fundraising to cooking meals. We have also provided YWS with a technology grant that enables greater IT access and educational opportunities for youth in the ‘Stay in School Program’.
HP Learning Initiative for Entrepreneurs (HP LIFE)
HP LIFE offers over 32 free IT and business skills courses in 8 languages to help people all around the world build skills for the future.
HP Canada regularly promotes HP LIFE among learners, aspiring entrepreneurs, and job seekers in the country, and contributes to its course content by sharing its expertise on global business trends.
Schulich School of Business – York University
In 2003, HP Canada endowed a chair in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) to Schulich School of Business, to help educate the next generation of business leaders on the importance of CSR.
Educaide
Educaide is a Canadian charity that provides financial assistance and support to students facing economic barriers to education in Quebec. They offer scholarships, bursaries, and educational resources to help students access and succeed in post-secondary education. By reducing financial obstacles, Educaide enables students to focus on their studies and achieve their academic and career goals. Their mission is to ensure that financial limitations do not hinder a student's potential to succeed and contribute to society. HP’s partnership with Educaide enables young scholarship holders to have access to a computer.
Creating equity via literacy
HP is partnering with NABU, a non-profit working to disrupt the cycle of poverty with a low-bandwidth reading app, to publish books in children’s native languages.
Unlocking female students’ potential
Partnering with Girl Rising, we aim to equip 10 million students and teachers with new, inclusive curriculum and technology solutions in the U.S., India, and Nigeria.
How we're doing
1.9M
Young women in Nigeria, India & the US impacted with Girl Rising through 2021
674K
Children impacted via literacy programs in association with NABU through 2021
584K
Teachers & students empowered in Nigeria to-date via HP’s Mentor a Teacher
Economic investment
$17.57m*
given in 2021, comprising monetary and HP product contributions
Through both financial investment and the purchase of HP technology and products, we use economic investment to widen economic opportunity and help the young and disadvantaged grow their skillsets.
Giving back with the HP Foundation
In 2021, donations totalling $10m* by the HP Foundation were used to grow equity for marginalized communities across the world.
40 Days of Doing Good
Almost 3,700 employees globally took part in HP’s 40 Days of Doing Good, volunteering more than 26,000 hours on 171 community projects.
Disaster recovery and resilience
We supported response efforts for the Haiti earthquake, the US, Tunisia, Greece and Turkey wildfires, Belgium, Netherlands, and Germany floods, and Hurricane Ida, among other natural disasters.
Contributions to the global community
HP Partners with NABU and Girl Rising
This partnership will empower children around the world with books in mother tongue languages.
Social impact in Haiti
Through our ocean-bound plastics supply chain, we are generating income opportunities and supporting children’s education.
Technology and training for Syrian refugees, Lebanon
With the Clooney Foundation for Justice, UNICEF, and Google.org, we are supporting refugees, students, and teachers.
World on Wheels (WOW) in rural India
Our mobile learning labs overcome the power, infrastructure, and equipment challenges that hamper educational opportunity.
HP Learning Studios in Azraq Refugee Camp, Jordan
HP technology supports educators to craft unique learning experiences and helps students to solve real-world problems.
Tech Hubs
Empowering students in Southeast Asia, who otherwise do not have access to technology, to learn essential computer skills
How we're doing
692K
HP employee volunteering hours contributed since 2016, of a target 1.5m by 2025
$389K
In HP Foundation grants related to COVID-19 in 2021
$494K
Donated by the HP Foundation during HP’s 40 Days of Doing Good to support employee-nominated educational charities in 2021
R&D investment
$1.9 billion
Invested in research and product development in 2021 to improve lives through access to transformative technology
From PCs to 3D printed prosthetics, HP is innovating in healthcare, putting clinician and patient needs first and widening access to advanced medical tech.
3D printing power harnessed
We’re expanding the potential of 3D printing by manufacturing everything from face shields and respirator parts to prosthetic limbs.
A revolution in cancer cell isolation
HP’s Microfluidics Lab team works to develop a new method for research purposes to isolate rare cancer cells.
Inclusive design as the new normal
One in seven people globally has a disability. HP’s accessibility product testing is opening a dialogue about best practice and industry-wide change.
Our $1.5bn* annual R&D investment supports new product innovations and the radical work done at HP Labs.
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Affiliations and memberships
Reference
HP belongs to or affiliates with many organizations that address global citizenship issues.
Policies and standards
Reference
Our policies set out the standards and principles that guide our business.
Corporate giving
Reference
Our support is strategically chosen and we do not respond to requests from individuals or non-profit organizations.
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Footnotes and disclaimers
- We enable better learning outcomes by supporting education through provision of learning and digital literacy programs and solutions.
- Our programs aim to accelerate digital equity through providing access to at least one of the following: hardware, connectivity, content, or digital literacy.
- Includes valuation of employee volunteer hours, employee donations, HP Foundation match, and HP Foundation grants.
- Data includes HP’s matching contributions and contributions from the HP Foundation to other organizations.
- Product donations are valued at the internet list price. This is the price a customer would have paid to purchase the equipment through the HP direct sales channel on the internet at the time the grant was processed. Valuation rates of employee volunteer hours are based on CECP standards.