Google has announced a $1.25 million grant to the Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory, housed at the Nelson Mandela Foundation.
The grant will aid the preservation and digitisation of thousands of archival documents, photographs, audio recordings and film clips from Mandela's life.
“We are delighted that Google has come on board to help ensure that our Mandela Portal becomes a world-class source of accurate and reliable information about Madiba,” says Verne Harris, head of the Centre of Memory.
Based in Johannesburg, the Nelson Mandela Foundation Centre of Memory is committed to documenting records about the life of the statesman.
Google's grant will assist to expand the online Mandela archive and make it available to global audiences, scholars and researchers.
The multimedia archive will also include Mandela's letters and correspondence with family, comrades and friends; prison diaries; and notes he made while leading the negotiations that led to the end of apartheid in SA.
Tutu too
A grant of the same size has also been made to the Desmond Tutu Peace Centre, in Cape Town, for the documentation and digitisation of Desmond Tutu's archives, and an interactive digital learning centre.
“Google wants to help bring the world's historical heritage online, and the Internet offers new ways to preserve and share this information,” said Google SA country manager Luke McKend.
“Our grants to the Nelson Mandela Centre and to the Desmond Tutu Peace Centre will facilitate new digital archives for SA's past, giving the global public an unprecedented opportunity to engage with the history of some of the most extraordinary leaders of our time.
“We are also delighted to be announcing additional grants, which will help many more people across SA and Africa access the Internet and benefit from access to information.”
The other recipients of grants include the Charitable Giving Fund of Tides Foundation, the Tertiary Education and Research Network of SA, the Nigeria ICT Forum and the Network Startup Resource Centre.
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