The Zhou & Eesley Family Foundation supports computer science and entrepreneurship education in communities that mainstream programs overlook — across the Pacific, Southeast Asia, East Africa, and the Middle East.
We work directly with teachers, university faculty, and community leaders to bring computer science and entrepreneurship training to students and founders who don't typically have access to it — with particular focus on women, underrepresented founders, and ventures advancing the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
We are small. We move slowly on purpose. We build long-term relationships with the people doing the work on the ground, and we follow their lead.
Working with teachers on Molokai to bring AI and computer science curriculum into local classrooms — designed around place-based pedagogy and the island's own context.
Volunteer teaching at two middle schools in rural Hsinchu, organized in partnership with ITRI — bringing AI and entrepreneurship education to students an hour outside Taiwan's high-tech capital.
In December 2024, the Foundation ran programming in Vietnam — inspired and co-taught by Bao Phan, a former student of co-founder Chuck Eesley — in partnership with Fulbright University Vietnam, UEH University, and an HKU/AWS workshop on AI Innovation & Trends.
AI literacy and design thinking workshops for educators and students in partnership with the Penang Science Cluster, leading Malaysian universities, the U.S. Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, and the All-Party Parliamentary Group on the SDGs. The 2025 Penang program trained roughly 25 teachers, reaching on the order of 2,500 students through a 100:1 per-teacher multiplier model.
In June 2023, the Foundation taught at the LOHADA orphanage in Tanzania alongside James Juma — a former student of co-founder Chuck Eesley who built the connection — and Abisola, a former Stanford PhD student who co-taught. The Foundation also raised funds for a tractor for the orphanage.
Supporting MIT MEET — a program that brings Israeli and Palestinian high school students together for advanced computer science and entrepreneurship education, with the conviction that shared work on technology can build the relationships their region needs.
Funding microloans for refugee entrepreneurs in Uganda alongside research on what makes entrepreneurship training work for displaced founders. Delivered in partnership with Challenges Uganda (microlending pilot and mentorship) and Makerere University Business School (curriculum and research).
The Foundation's first university partnership. Launched during the pandemic, the SFSU Mentorship Program connected Computer Science majors with SFSU alumni for mock technical interviews and career guidance. The Foundation's direct involvement has since wound down, but the program continues today within the SFSU CS department and its alumni network — sustained by the relationships the partnership helped activate.
Every program is shaped by the educator, farmer, or faculty member on the ground. We don't drop in curriculum and leave.
Our role is to fund, connect, and occasionally teach — not to brand the work or take credit for it.
Alongside grants, the Foundation makes mission-related investments in entrepreneurs and funds whose work expands education access.
This past December, the Zhou & Eesley Family Foundation ran a program at the Penang Science Cluster in Malaysia. Roughly twenty-five teachers came in for training in AI literacy and design thinking.…
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Foundation programming reached approximately 2,500 students in Penang alone in 2025 — through roughly 25 teachers we trained, a 100:1 multiplier per teacher. Across the courses Chuck has taught at Stanford and online, our co-founders have together reached more than 200,000 students globally. See the full impact report →
Aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals on Quality Education (SDG 4), Decent Work and Economic Growth (SDG 8), and Reduced Inequalities (SDG 10). The $2.7T figure reflects Stanford-wide alumni research, not Foundation programming — included as context for the bet that education compounds.
We don't run an open RFP. But we read every email, and we follow up when there's a fit.
