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Zuckerberg, Gates lead funding round for education not-for-profit

The organization, EducationSuperHighway, steers schools toward speedier, more secure broadband connections.

Don Reisinger
CNET contributor Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has covered everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Besides his work with CNET, Don's work has been featured in a variety of other publications including PC World and a host of Ziff-Davis publications.
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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates have dropped cash into a not-for-profit through their respective foundations.

EducationSuperHighway raised $9 million in a recently closed funding round, which was led by Zuckerberg's Startup:Education fund and included participation from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, EducationSuperHighway told TechCrunch on Wednesday. According to TechCrunch, the nonprofit will use the funds for everything from lobbying government to expanding its broadband-speed testing initiative.

EducationSuperHighway's Web site claims that 80 percent of public schools in the US "lack fast enough Internet speeds to prepare our students for increasingly digital education." The not-for-profit offers a school speedtest on its site and aims to help those schools with slow broadband speeds to improve them. The organization achieves that goal by helping them weave through high-speed Internet "roadblocks."