Nas Teams Up With Microsoft, Google to Offer Tech Scholarships

Nas is empowering the youth through technology. The veteran rhyme-slinger is partnering with Microsoft, Google and others to give tech scholarships to African-Americans and Latino students.

According to Betabeat, Nas’ company, QueensBridge Venture Partners, is participating in the Opportunity Fund program, which provides financial aid for minority students who want to become programmers, engineers and developers in the tech world.

General Assembly (GA), a New York tech vocational school, created this initiative to bring diversity to technology.

“This is the start of what hopefully will be a contribution to what will be a more diverse and accessible community worldwide,” said GA CEO Jake Schwartz.

"One of the biggest concerns is that what we’ve seen is that the students who do the best are the ones with the most skin in the game," he continues. "It’s very hard otherwise for students to succeed. It requires commitment and focus."

Students who attend GA through the Opportunity Fund will also have to spend over 100 hours teaching coding to kids in underprivileged neighborhoods.

“Being able to sort of create a program where these scholarship students have to tutor, we kill two birds with one stone,” said Schwartz.

Now that’s illmatic.