The St. Petersburg Foundation, home of the AI Center of Excellence (AICOE), has been accepted into Microsoft Elevate, Microsoft’s initiative supporting nonprofits with technology, AI tools, training and other resources.

The acceptance gives the Foundation access to Microsoft’s nonprofit grants and discounts, including resources across Microsoft Azure, Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, GitHub and other Microsoft platforms.

For AICOE, the relationship closely aligns with its work helping communities, nonprofits, educators and civic organizations build practical capacity around artificial intelligence.

Microsoft Elevate focuses on expanding access to AI skills and technology while helping organizations use those capabilities to increase their impact. The initiative includes AI training and resources designed specifically for nonprofit organizations and the people who lead them.

AICOE is developing a similar model locally through the St. Petersburg Science Center, where AI education, workforce development and community capacity building will be central parts of the Center’s programming.

“Access to powerful AI technology is only useful when organizations also have the knowledge and capacity to put it to work,” said Joe Hamilton, founder of AICOE. “Microsoft Elevate gives us another set of resources we can bring into that effort as we build AICOE and help organizations throughout our community become capable, responsible users of AI.”

AICOE will begin evaluating the Microsoft resources available through the program and identifying opportunities to incorporate them into its nonprofit training, civic AI and community education initiatives.

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