Facebook is donating about $1 million in virtual reality technology to Arkansas with a focus on low-income high schools.
State officials touted the technology as an educational tool for students and the donation as a sign that Arkansas is on technology companies’ radar thanks to Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s computer science initiative.
Officials from Facebook joined Hutchinson on Thursday to make the announcement at Little Rock's Central High School. Erin Egan, vice president of U.S. public policy for Facebook, said the Arkansas announcement marks the beginning of a national program.
"We looked around the country in which states were really interested in bringing computer science to the classroom," she told reporters. "Gov. Hutchinson has been a leader there ,and so it was natural for us to pick Arkansas as the first state for us to launch this TechStart initiative."
The company is donating 500 Oculus Rift virtual reality kits to about 250 Arkansas schools. Students will be able to program the headsets, create virtual reality content and explore educational software.
The kits include computers and sensors to track students’ movements for the virtual reality headsets.
"Whenever they can touch the technology, can put it on and they can see the reality — the virtual reality — of what coding can do, that's going to inspire a lot of students to say this is a future that I want to be involved in," Hutchinson told reporters.
Read Friday's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for full details.