The Economist: Test-tube government : Governments are borrowing ideas about innovation from the private sector
December 8, 2014
A new report published by Nesta, a British charity devoted to promoting innovation, and Bloomberg Philanthropies shows how popular these government innovation labs have become. They can be found in a striking variety of places, from developing countries such as Malaysia to rich countries like Finland, and in the offices of mayors as well as the halls of central government.
Read moreBBC: Drowning: ‘Hidden childhood killer’
November 17, 2014
Michael Bloomberg, Mayor of New York City and founder of Bloomberg Philanthropies, an organisation that provided funding for the report, said: “I believe that you can’t manage what you don’t measure and there’s never been a comprehensive effort to measure drowning around the world until now.
“The more evidence we can gather, the better we’ll be able to tailor our prevention efforts.”
Read moreStraits Times: Gardens by the Bay launches 1st visitor mobile app sponsored by Bloomberg Philanthropies
November 17, 2014
Gardens by the Bay has launched a mobile app that is a guide, educational tool and game for its visitors.
Its first app is available in five languages – English, Mandarin, Malay, Tamil and Japanese – and is sponsored by Bloomberg Philanthropies.
Read moreThe Washington Post: Download latest app before the symphony
November 3, 2014
Bloomberg Philanthropies gave $17 million to five institutions this year “to produce innovative projects . . . that use cutting edge technology and enable visitors to share content.”
Read moreThe Huffington Post: The American Dream Can Only Be Fulfilled If Our Top Students Have the Opportunity to Attend Our Top Colleges – By Michael R. Bloomberg
October 29, 2014
This week, Bloomberg Philanthropies is setting a new national goal: Increasing the percentage of high-achieving, low- and moderate-income students who attend top colleges from approximately one-third to one-half in just four years. To help reach that goal, we are launching a new initiative that aims to help as many as 65,000 of these students find a school that matches their abilities.
Read moreThe New York Times: A New Push to Get Low-Income Students Through College
October 28, 2014
As data has made clear how many top-performing students from poor and middle-class families fall through the cracks, a range of institutions have set out to change the situation. Dozens of school districts, across 15 states, now help every high school junior take the SAT. Delaware’s governor has started a program to advise every college-qualified student from a modest background on the application process. The president of the College Board, which administers the SAT and has a decidedly mixed record on making college more accessible, says his top priority is college access.
On Tuesday, a handful of institutions will announce an ambitious new effort on this front. Led by Bloomberg Philanthropies, the coalition is setting a specific goal for which it can be held accountable. Today, only about one in three top-performing students from the bottom half of the income distribution attends a college with a high six-year graduation rate (at least 70 percent). Within five years, the Bloomberg coalition wants to raise that to one in every two students.
Read moreForbes: Bloomberg Commits $125 Million To Combat Global Road Traffic Deaths
September 30, 2014
Traffic fatalities are one of the world’s leading causes of preventable death, and the number is expected to increase. To help combat this trend, Bloomberg Philanthropies announced a new $125 million funding competition.
The foundation will invite low- and middle-income cities and countries to compete for grants to implement life-saving road safety legislation, infrastructure and practices, part of the new phase of its Global Road Safety initiative to reduce fatalities and injuries from road traffic crashes.
Read moreThe Wall Street Journal: Bloomberg Funds Road Safety in World Cities
September 29, 2014
Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has a new message for the developing world’s metropolises: make your roads safer.
Mr. Bloomberg is expected to announce Monday that his philanthropic organization will spend $125 million during the next five years on programs to reduce traffic deaths and injuries in 10 cities in low- and middle-income countries.
Traffic fatalities are a major cause of preventable death globally—in the top 10 with killers such as heart disease and HIV/AIDS.
Read moreNPR: Philip Morris Sues Uruguay Over Graphic Cigarette Packaging
September 15, 2014
Uruguay’s University of the Republic, in collaboration with a professor from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, did a study that showed that between 2005 and 2011 in Uruguay, smoking has gone down 4.3 percent annually.
They’ve also done studies that have shown that less pregnant women are smoking and that the birthrate has gone up because of it.
Actually, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg donates millions of dollars to developing countries that are trying to stop smoking. His foundation has paid for these studies, as well as a big chunk of Uruguay’s legal fees.
Read moreFast Company: How America’s Murder Capital Is Using Innovation Strategy To Reduce Violent Deaths
September 11, 2014
The innovation delivery method was developed by Bloomberg Philanthropies and Nesta, the U.K.’s innovation foundation, as one model to increase the ability of mayors to develop bigger ideas that address the major challenges facing many cities today. Modeled on the work of former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg as well as other cities around the world, it basically involves a team of in-house consultants at a City Hall tasked with analyzing data and bringing in global expertise to brainstorm and implement new approaches to tackling intransigent local problems. In 2011, Bloomberg Philanthropies funded five cities, including New Orleans, to trial the approach.
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