Nietzel, M. (2022, January 20). University Of Hawaii Receives Record Gift From Mark Zuckerberg, Priscilla Chan. Forbes. Retrieved February 6, 2022, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltnietzel/2022/01/20/university-of-hawaii-receives-record-gift-from-mark-zuckerberg-priscilla-chan/?sh=45ae34946a90
Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, and his wife, Dr. Priscilla Chan, are giving $50 million to the University of Hawaii’s school of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology. This is the largest donation that the school has ever received. Part of this money will go towards Hawaii’s coral reef restoration and the training of coral scientists and ocean conservationists. This will be done by creating new internships, mentoring, and research fellowships.
Even though the health of our oceans is a huge issue right now, most wealthy people in technology chose to not donate to this cause or help out in any way. I think it is great that Mark Zuckerberg did this because so much can be done to help with this amount of money. Hopefully their generosity inspires others to donate to help save coral reefs and our oceans. With more people researching the reef, they will most likely find more ways to conserve marine life.
Great post Ava. I agree that hopefully Mark’s kind actions will inspire others who have a great deal of wealth to help fund the restoration of ecosystems that we seem to be damaging every day. Are there any other people you know of with a lot wealth that are donating to help restoration?
After further research I found that Jeff Bezos pledged to spend $1 billion on the conservation oceans and land. This was in September of 2021, before Mark Zuckerberg’s donation. This is huge because Bezos could inspire other people in the tech world to do the same.