Microsoft Opens Its Wallet, Donates $2M And 200 Tablets To Youth Organizations

‘Tis the season of giving. NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang and his wife Lori recently announced a $1 million donation to non-profit City Year. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation granted $500,000 to CARE in India. Napster founder and former Facebook President Sean Parker gave $24 million to Stanford to build an allergy research facility. 

Today, Microsoft joined that list by donating $2 million in software to NBC-sponsored charities. 

HP Stream 7 with Windows 8.1

And, to put some icing on the cake, Microsoft also donated 200 HP Stream Windows tablets to the same charities so they’ll have hardware to run that software. Microsoft’s New York District General Manager Reid Downey gave NBC viewers a look at the 7-inch HP Stream tablets, which run Windows 8.1 and have Office 365. 

This isn’t Microsoft’s first donation to the annual Holiday Toy and Gift Drive on NBC’s TODAY show. In fact, Microsoft has donated for the past 14 years. This year, the donation is part of Microsoft’s YouthSpark program, which has committed to helping 300 million youth find opportunities in education, entrepreneurship, and employment globally.

The YouthSpark program estimates that it has already about 227 million young people and hopes to hit its goal of 300 million in 2015.