14 DAY TRIAL // The winning school of the School Pride reality show which debuted on October 15th on NBC will receive a complete tech makeover from Microsoft. The Redmond company announced that students attending Whatcom Middle School in Bellingham, WA will be able to take advantage of an overhauled computer lab with 25 brand new computers.
The reality show was designed to raise awareness of the extremely poor state of the infrastructure of some schools in the US.
At the same time, education organizations could participate in the show in order to have a chance at getting schools renovated and equipped properly.
“Back in October we told about a cool contest to give one lucky school a total tech makeover as part of NBC’s new reality series, School Pride,” revealed Microsoft’s Brandon LeBlanc.
“Well, we have a winner. On Dec. 1, School Pride selected Whatcom Middle School in Bellingham, WA as the lucky winner of a new computer lab. Whatcom was selected via an online November vote, and bested 4 other worthy schools. In addition to 25 new PCs, Whatcom will also receive a $2,500 cash prize.”
Students at Whatcom will be able to start using the new PCs from the software giant immediately, even though they have been currently distributed among three different schools.
“Whatcom is currently closed for renovation. Until the school reopens, the PCs will find homes in the three other local schools where Whatcom Middle School students are temporarily based. On behalf of all of us in Windows, congrats Whatcom Middle School,” LeBlanc added.
Microsoft has been involving itself more and more into drawing attention to the state of the education system in the US, while emphasizing the need for the private environment to do more to help out students.
The software giant is also one of the companies spearheading a revolution in education designed to prepare students for the workplace of tomorrow.