Adobe joins the Obama ConnectED bandwagon

President Obama has been working on his ConnectED Initiative for a while. The goal of that initiative is to improve the education system in the US and help education move into a more technology focused world. The initiative has added a couple new firms to the mix, including one of the larger software firms out there.

One of the firms include Prezi, a cloud startup that aims to compete with PowerPoint and Keynote. The major software firm that has joined is Adobe. Prezi has committed $100 million in EduPro licenses. Those licenses will be granted to educators and high schools around the country. Adobe is offering over $300 million in free software to students and teachers.

The Adobe licenses will be for software like Photoshop Elements, Premiere Elements, Presenter, Captive, EchoSign, and other teacher training resources. With these two firms committing product to ConnectED, the investment in the project totals over $1 billion.

Other tech firms that have committed to the project include Apple, Microsoft, AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, Autodesk, and O'Reilly Media. The goal is to help schools and students get familiar with technology so it will be easier for students to use technology after they graduate in work and college.

SOURCE: TechCrunch