Below is a list of companies that are offering their services and tools for free or discounted for a limited time in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. This page will be updated regularly as more announcements are made.
Last updated on April 13th, 2020.
Wi-Fi
Charter Cable – Free Spectrum Broadband
Charter Cable will offer free Spectrum broadband and Wi-Fi access for 60 days to households with K-12 and/or college students who do not already have a Spectrum broadband subscription, and installation fees will be waved for new student households. For eligible low-income households without school-aged children, Charter continues to offer “Spectrum Internet Assist”, a low-cost broadband program delivering speeds of 30 Mbps. They are also opening its Wi-Fi hotspots across their service area for public use. To enroll in the free broadband service or Internet Assist, call 1-844-488-8395 and use the “new service” or “add service” option.
Internet Essentials from Comcast
In response to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) emergency, Internet Essentials has increased speeds to 25/3 Mbps for all customers for no additional fee – no action is required. In addition, new Internet Essentials customers will receive two free months of Internet service, which is available to all qualified low-income households for $9.95 per month plus tax. Apply by April 30, 2020. Read more information on how to apply for Internet Essentials.
Otter.ai
Otter.ai is a web application that provides speech to text transcription for live speaking as well as for uploaded audio/video files. A free account comes with 600 minutes every month. Otter.ai is now offering a two month free trial for their Teams account that comes with 6,000 minutes every month, live interactive transcripts for Zoom, and other features.
Accessibyte
Accessibyte offers assistive technology apps for the Chromebook, iPad, Mac, Windows, and Android devices. Each app has visual and audible accessibility built right into the browser, and supports students students who are visually impaired, deaf/hard-of-hearing, or who have learning disabilities. Accessibyte is offering 45 days of free access to their full range of apps.
CamScanner
CamScanner is a mobile app that turns your android or iPhone smartphone camera into a mobile scanner. It offers built-in auto-enhancing that makes PDFs look clear and sharp and optical character recognition (OCR) that converts images to text files. To support distance teaching and learning during the coronavirus pandemic, CamScanner decides to make premium free for all educators and students. Read more details about how to redeem a premium account for CamScanner.
Verbit.ai
Verbit.ai provides transcription and captioning services for audio and video content as well as live captioning. Verbit has announced its new integration with Zoom that provides embedded transcription and live video captioning within the Zoom application that can be used for live lectures or sessions with students. In an effort to support the transition to distance learning, Verbit has approved an emergency fund that will run through April 9th which will provide live captions within the Zoom platform. This feature will be free to all institutions that require captions to provide inclusivity and accessibility to all students. Read more about Verbit’s integration with Zoom here.
Contact Giovahnna Ziegler at giovahnna.z@verbit.ai to take advantage of this one time opportunity.
Cengage
For U.S. higher education institutions experiencing unplanned, mid-semester impacts due to COVID-19, Cengage is offering students free access to all Cengage digital platforms and 14,000 ebooks through Cengage Unlimited for the remainder of this semester. Read more on how students can access Cengage Unlimited during COVID-19.
Adobe
Term-active CUNY students can now download Adobe Creative Cloud applications to their personal devices. Students can go to creativecloud.adobe.com and use their CUNY Login username to authenticate and select which Adobe Creative Cloud applications to install. Student instructions on accessing Adobe Creative Cloud are available online.
Adobe also announced free 90 day access to Adobe Connect. Adobe Connect is a web conference software that has the ability for instructors to host online virtual classrooms. Read more information on how Adobe Connect is extending support in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.
InferCabulary
InferCabulary is providing two months of free access to its online visual vocabulary tool that helps students use critical thinking to learn deep meanings of nuanced words for themselves by analyzing and interpreting the common thread among carefully chosen images and provided captions. The approach, which mimics avid readership, is designed to teach the many contexts of new words in a fraction of the time, which in turn, accelerates student comprehension across the curriculum. Sign up to InferCabulary free access.