The Raspberry Pi Foundation is a registered educational charity based in the UK. The Foundation's goal is to advance the education of adults and children, particularly in the field of computers, computer science and related subjects.
The idea behind a tiny and affordable computer for kids came in 2006, when Eben Upton, Rob Mullins, Jack Lang and Alan Mycroft, based at the University of Cambridge's Computer Laboratory, became concerned about the year-on-year decline in the numbers and skills levels of the A Level students applying to read Computer Science. From a situation in the 1990s where most of the kids applying were coming to interview as experienced hobbyist programmers, the landscape in the 2000s was very different; a typical applicant might only have done a little web design.
By 2008, processors designed for mobile devices were becoming more affordable, and powerful enough to provide excellent multimedia, a feature they felt would make the board desirable to kids who wouldn't initially be interested in a purely programming-oriented device.