Mark Zuckerberg And John Doerr Donate $1M To Expand The Hour Of Code Campaign

Mark Zuckerberg Hour of Code

In the three weeks that the campaign has been up on IndieGogo, Code.org‘s effort to crowdfund training for teachers to increase the number of students participating in the Hour of Code has raised about $294,000, 6% of the campaign’s stated $5 million goal.

That number is about to get a significant boost, with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan donating $500,000. John and Ann Doerr are also pitching in $500K, and Code.org has also informed TechCrunch that serial entrepreneur Rich Barton is making a donation of $25K.

Code.org gave itself plenty of time to reach its goal — the IndieGogo campaign ends December 14. With 47 days left, it’s now well past the $1 million mark and that’s before matching donations come in from Bill Gates and Microsoft, Reid Hoffman, Salesforce, Google, and others. Code.org says that if it hits the $5 million mark, it can expand the Hour of Code to reach 100 million students. That seems like an awfully lofty goal, especially considering the non-profit says the campaign would help train approximately 10,000 teachers, but considering the lack of exposure most students get to computer science in K-12 schools, even a partial win would be impressive.