Google donates £550,000 to Bletchley Park Trust (fwd)

NEWS RELEASE

14 December 2011

GOOGLE DONATES £550,000 TO HELP ACCOMPLISH BLETCHLEY PARK RESTORATION VISION

Bletchley Park Trust significantly closer to raising match funding needed to
unlock Heritage Lottery Fund grant of £4.6 million for restoration of WW2
Codebreaking Huts Search engine Google, has announced a very generous donation
of £550,000 towards the match funding needed for the Bletchley Park Trust to
embark on the first stage of a £15 million project to transform the site into a
world-class heritage and education centre.

Google's backing draws the Bletchley Park Trust nearer to its goal of developing
the site, both to educate and inspire generations to come and as a permanent
testament to the brilliant people who worked there.  Once the remaining funding
is in place the Trust will get underway with the restoration of iconic
codebreaking huts 1, 3 and 6 and create a world-class visitor centre and
exhibition in the currently derelict Block C.  This development will not only
conserve buildings of highly-significant heritage value and but also
considerably improve the educational offering and visitor experience at
Bletchley Park.

Peter Barron, Director of External Relations for Google, said, "The Bletchley
Park Trust has been doing great work to honour Alan Turing and the codebreakers
who helped shorten the second world war and to educate the next generation about
the history of modern computing.  We are delighted to make this charitable
donation to help support the next phase of this important project"

Simon Greenish, CEO of the Bletchley Park Trust, said, "We are tremendously
grateful to Google for bringing us considerably closer to achieving our
development aims.  We have received other generous contributions towards the
project but this is the largest single element of the partnership funding and
absolutely vital in potentially getting the project underway much sooner than
might otherwise have been

the case.  It would be wonderful if other donors follow Google's example to help
preserve our computing heritage.  We could then proceed as soon as possible with
restoration of the profoundly historically significant codebreaking huts".

The Bletchley Park Trust is one of several dozen organisations receiving grants
from Google.org at the end of 2011 and the grant is part of over $100 million in
total charitable giving from Google in 2011.

- ENDS -

Editor's Information

The Heritage Lottery Fund announced a £4.6 million grant for the Bletchley Park
Trust in October 2011.  It is a pre-condition that in order to draw down the
funding to commence the current stage of the £15 million project, the Trust must
have raised the match funding required to complete the package.

In addition to the Google grant and a number of other awards from Trusts and
Foundations, individuals are also supporting the Trust's 'Action This Day!'
campaign to help raise the match funding.  To donate please go to
www.bletchleypark.org.uk <http://www.bletchleypark.org.uk>


http://www.bletchleypark.org.uk/news/docview.rhtm/653670

http://www.techradar.com/news/world-of-tech/google-hands-550000-to-bletchley-park-1047671

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