Meet the five Giving through Glass winners

We believe technology can help nonprofits make a difference more easily, and connect people to the causes they care about. It's with this in mind that we launched Giving through Glass—a contest for U.S. nonprofits to share ideas for how Google Glass can support the impact they're having every day.

Today, we’re announcing the five winners: 3000 Miles to a Cure, Classroom Champions, The Hearing and Speech Agency, Mark Morris Dance Group and Women's Audio Mission. The winners were selected from more than 1,300 proposals, and each will take home a pair of Glass, a $25,000 grant, a trip to Google for training, and access to Glass developers who can help make their projects a reality.

Here’s what our winners are planning to do with Glass:

Classroom Champions will give students in high-needs schools a look through the eyes of Paralympic athletes as they train and compete, helping kids build empathy and learn to see ability where others too often see only disability. Bay Area-based Women’s Audio Mission will give instructors Glass to use in its music and media-based Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math training program for women and girls, creating a more immersive lab experience for students online and in person.

Two programs focus on using Glass in therapeutic settings. The Hearing and Speech Agency will use Glass to pilot new ways to improve communication access for people who have speech language challenges, hearing loss and autism—and support those who teach and care for them. And the Mark Morris Dance Group will create a Glass app that will build on their award-winning Dance for PD® initiative to help people with Parkinson’s disease remember and trigger body movements in their daily lives.

Finally, Glass will head across the U.S. by bicycle to help raise money and increase awareness for brain cancer research. For the first time, supporters of participants in the 3000 Miles to a Cure Race Across America will be able to see and experience it through a racer’s eyes and the racer will be alerted to every message of encouragement and donation supporters send.

Developers are already working with these inspiring groups, and next week these five nonprofits will descend on Google Glass' Base Camp in San Francisco for training, and to connect with their Google mentors. Stay tuned for updates on how the projects unfold!