The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, together with Banco Santander Consumer Portugal, has decided to support the Student Keep project, which aims to gather the necessary technological devices for students who currently cannot access distance learning.

The lack of connectivity and/or technological devices are an obstacle for thousands of students that have not been able to keep up with distance learning during the pandemic.

Student Keep is a platform that does the matching between the supply and the demand for technological devices and counts on the help of the Ministry of Education for the distribution of this equipment among vulnerable students.

The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation has been supporting this project since the conception of the platform and will keep on supporting it through funding and the promotion of a campaign that intends to raise the awareness of both companies and the general population for the importance of donating computers, tablets, hotspots or mobile phones. In this endeavour, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foudation was joined by Banco Santander Consumer Portugal.

This support is an initiative under the Covid-19 Emergency Fund created by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and open to other partners. It intends to mitigate the effects of the pandemic across five main areas of intervention: Healthcare, Science, Civil Protection, but also Education and Culture.

The platform Student Keep is a part of the movement #tech4COVID19, which joins several technological companies and social entrepreneurs in voluntary projects in the fields of Healthcare, Education, Technology and Social Support. Since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, #tech4COVID19 has already launched more than 20 initiatives and mobilized about five thousand voluntaries.