Google: Investing in Education . . .

Google recently released some interesting information concerning its economic impact in the United States.  It is very impressive.  Google released its Economic Impact Report for 2021 and announced its investment of over $9.5 billion in U.S. Offices and data centers.  Notably, Google states in a blog post:

Google’s offices and data centers provide vital anchors to our local communities and help us contribute to their economies. In the U.S., over the past five years, we’ve invested more than $37 billion in our offices and data centers in 26 states, creating over 40,000 full-time jobs. That’s in addition to the more than $40 billion in research and development we invested in the U.S. in 2020 and 2021.

Google also notes that:

Today we are also releasing our 2021 Economic Impact Report, which reflects Google’s wider contribution to the economy. The report shows we helped provide $617 billion in economic activity for millions of American businesses, nonprofits, creators, developers and publishers last year. In addition, the Android app economy helped create nearly two million jobs last year, and YouTube’s creative ecosystem supported 394,000 jobs in 2020.

We also continue to help people get the skills they need to succeed in today’s economy, from our role as a founding member of the Michigan Central innovation district in Detroit to our $100 million Google Career Certificates Fund — a new financial model for helping people access education and digital skills.

The Google Career Certificates programs and Fund is an ambitious project:

The goal is to enable Social Finance to reach more than 20,000 American workers. This investment in America’s future has the potential to drive $1 billion in wage gains.

This fund is a new kind of financing model. We’ll invest Google capital and Google.org grants and provide our Career Certificate program. Social Finance will provide funding to nonprofit partners like Merit America and Year Up, who in turn will provide services like career coaching, living stipends and job placement support. And we’ll connect students to an employer consortium of more than 150 companies who are looking to hire workers with these skills.

It’s all designed around student success. They will receive all of this at no upfront cost. And will only pay it back once they find a job earning at least $40,000 a year. Social Finance will then redistribute those repayments to future learners, making this model more sustainable.

NFTs and Financing the Future of Potential Stars

NFTs are getting a lot of press.  For sure, NFTs have made a big splash in the art world.  I had an interesting conversation with a friend today about financing young athletes through the monetization of their right of publicity since the NCAA (and states) have begun allowing collegiate athletes to profit from their image etc.  One interesting issue concerns aspiring professional tennis players.  Often those players must make a decision between attempting to finance a shot at a professional career—a very expensive prospect, or go to college and see what develops.  Notably, as a friend mentioned to me, there are numerous excellent young tennis players who cannot finance the expenses to start a pro-career—expenses such as travel, coaching and trainer fees, hotel etc.  Many have to give up on a promising career because of a lack of funding.  Interestingly, this is a sport where economic class plays a big role—kids with less resources are unable to be developed and never get a legitimate shot at the pro-tour.  Allowing young players to monetize their right of publicity without damaging college prospects may be an interesting way for them to gather resources to support a professional career in the future and develop (maybe crowd-funding works).  Local businesses, family, friends and others could invest in young players early.  But, what if we could sweeten the deal?  What if we could use NFTs to create a market for, as an example, electronic playing cards for young athletes?  Can you imagine what the NFT “playing card” for an athlete such as a young Andre Agassi, Messi, Ronaldo, or Michael Jordan may be worth after they develop in the future?  There are a lot of details to sort out, but you can see how a market can develop creating an enormous amount of value and good (and yes, a potential for bad).  See here for Topps entry into the NFT market for trading cards: Topps Digital Launching Baseball Card NFTs (beckett.com).  What if we could expand the concept further?  There's no doubt that we are at a place where maximizing the potential of human resources is our greatest challenge.  This could be a way to help.  Extend it to brilliant children to finance their education?  IP and NFTs at their best?  It's an interesting thought experiment.