Google Student Blog: Community

Open beta: How the next step for Google+ is great news for you

September 22, 2011

Hangouts with extras: Group projects just got a whole lot easier. Video chat with your friends while using screen sharing and Google Docs integration to work collaboratively in real-time or doodle just for fun.

Hangouts On Air: Only 10 people at a time can participate in a Google+ Hangout, but now, many more can be involved using Hangouts On Air, which broadcast live Hangouts in the Google+ stream. Perfect for panel discussions, large events, office hours, lectures, or master classes, this allows you and your friends to tune into an event without worrying about getting a seat...or even leaving your room. We’re starting with a limited number of broadcasters, but any member of the Google+ community can tune in.

Search on Google+: Find people who share your interests and expand your Google+ network.

Hangouts on mobile: Not at your computer but need to be part of a conversation? Now you can join a video chat from your Android phone by tapping on an existing hangout when it appears in your stream. This will be coming to iOS devices soon.

herePosted by Toby Stein, Google+ Community Manager

Celebrating Pride 2011

June 28, 2011

Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog.legalizationMardi Gras in Sydneysupported Pink Dot in Singaporelgbtmarriage equalitypride 2011partneredIt Gets Bettergross-up on imputed taxes for health insuranceFamily and Medical Leave Actdo the sameGayglers*LGBT stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender but, without letting the acronym get too unwieldy, is also intended to include people who identify as queer, asexual or intersex, amongst others.

Join us on the bridge for International Women's Day 2011

February 24, 2011

International Women’s DayJoin me on the Bridge

And this year we’re offering new online resources to make it simple for you, your friends and your classmates to participate in bridge events. To attend a bridge event, check our map to see all the events that have already been planned. Or you can use our event toolkit to plan your own event on the bridge of your choice.

Maybe consider organizing a bridge event on or near your campus. The event toolkit we've put together makes it super easy for campus women's organizations, sororities or other groups to plan an event using ready-made posters and t-shirt designs. And remember to take lots of videos and upload them to the map on March 8th!

On our International Women’s Day 2011 site, you can also donate to Women for Women International and more than 40 other incredible organizations working in the fields of women’s economic security, education, empowerment, equality, health and safety.

Hope to see you on the bridge on March 8!
Update 4:39PM: Added YouTube video.

Posted by Kate Hurowitz, International Women's Day team

RISE and shine in Europe!

August 17, 2010

Googlers are living proof of the value of a STEM education (science, technology, engineering & maths). That's why we're enthusiastic about supporting it for all students.

We're launching the Google RISE awards (Roots in Science & Engineering) in Europe!

The Google RISE Awards are designed to fund, promote and support STEM education initiatives for students, especially those from underrepresented groups in the technology industry, such as female engineers, minority groups, people with disabilities or students who are economically disadvantaged.

We're now accepting applications for monetary awards (from 500 - 10,000 EUR) and requests for non-monetary support (such as a Google speaker or volunteer). Eligible organisations are non-profit or academic institutions or self-ogranised student groups with programs that impact STEM at the pre-university of university level. We're looking forward to receiving some creative and exciting proposals!

Apply now at www.google.com/riseawards!

Posted by Eleanor Mulligan, EMEA Diversity & Inclusion Programs Manager

Announcing Juicy Ideas 2010

March 9, 2010

Juicy Ideas CompetitionReady?

Set? Research publicly available data, come up with a business plan for that data.

Juice! Create a software application that uses the data to benefit your community, and upload a demo video to Youtube. You'll be judged on the app and the video.

The contest period runs from today through April 11 2010, so get started at www.juicyideas.com!

Helping Haiti respond to the earthquake

January 14, 2010

If you haven't yet read the post on the Official Google Blog about how you can contribute to relief efforts in Haiti as they respond to this week's catastrophic earthquake, here's more information about how Google is working to help and how you can get involved.
In order to help the people of Haiti respond to this catastrophe, Google is donating $1 million to organizations on the ground that are rescuing those still trapped and providing clean water, food, medical care, shelter and support to those affected. We'd like to make it easy for anyone moved by the tragedy to respond as well, so we've included a link on our homepage to information, resources and ways you can help, including information on how to donate to organizations including: Direct Relief, Yele Haiti, Partners in Health, Red Cross, World Food Program, Mercy Corps, Save the Children,Lambi Fund, Doctors Without Borders, The International Rescue Committee.
You can also use the below buttons to donate to UNICEF or CARE.

Donate to CARE
Donate to UNICEFIn addition, Map Maker data has been made available to U.N. organizations and the team is working with the Map Your World Community to encourage Map Maker users with on the ground knowledge to help update the map of Haiti with disaster response data. We've received requests from relief organizations and our users to publish recent satellite imagery of the country. One of our imagery partners, GeoEye, has provided us with post-earthquake imagery from Haiti. You can check our Lat Long blog for further updates.

We've also reached out to the YouTube community for help. A Spotlight on the homepage and a ticker across the entire site drives traffic to videosfrom Oxfam and the American Red Cross, where you can make donations to relief efforts. We're also keeping a running playlist of the video footage coming out of Haiti on Citizentube; you can find a broad collection of citizen reports, news wire clips and personal stories of some of the victims.

Posted by Jacquelline Fuller and Prem Ramaswami for the Google Crisis Response Team

Happy Earth Day!

April 22, 2009

Earth Dayhere

YouTube's Live Green Channelgetting a houseplantUniversity of Maine at FarmingtonClimate Savers Computing InitiativePower Down for the Planetthe pledgehttp://www.powerdownfortheplanet.org/

More on Halloween and the Election

November 6, 2008

It’s been a busy week at Google between Halloween last Friday (or Googleween as we like to call it) and the election on Tuesday. Halloween 2008 was celebrated in true Google style with lots of creative costumes and pumpkin carving. From current events to technology, Googlers costumes ranged from the simple to the elaborate. And of course our dogs got in on the fun too!

A Googler dressed as T-Mobile's G1, the first phone to support Google's Android platform.

Plymouth Cafe's pumpkin carving contest entry: Seed of Pumpkin

A bumblebee Doogler (Googler dog)

Jellyfish

Michael Phelps shows off his 8 gold medalsOur favorite student submitted costume comes from Ashley Tjader and Ashley Reid from theUniversity of South Carolina who dressed up as their favourite childhood lunch items.

Thanks, Ashley and Ashley, for sharing your Halloween fun with us!The biggest news this week, of course, is the culmination of the 2008 US Presidential election. According to Rock the Vote, American youth turned out in record numbers to cast their votes. A whopping 55% of voters ages 18-29 voted in the 2008 election, up from 49% in 2004. No matter how you voted, we hope you were one of the 133 million people to get their voices heard during this historic election. To see how Google got involved and helped to get out the vote, visit our 2008 Election site or check out our blog post from just a few days ago. And congratulations to President Elect Barack Obama and Vice President Elect Joe Biden on their victory!Posted by Jessica Bagley, University Programs Team

Get out the vote!

November 4, 2008

1)Get informed2008 Election siteYouTubehistorical voting resultsGoogle MapsIn QuotesAudio IndexingPresidential Candidates gadget2) Vote
U.S. Voter Info sitem.google.com/electionsan hour off to voteVideo Your VoteMcCainObama3) Watch resultsGoogle Maps Election GalleryElections section

Celebrities get out the vote with Google Maps

October 30, 2008

As you may have seen in one of our previous posts, we recently launched a site called 2008 US Voter Info on Google Maps that shows users everything from their polling place to their custom registration information. It's been quite popular across the web, embedded in several websites and linked to from all types of news and blog sites. Additionally, there's one unique place where it has made an exceptional impact, and that's within a celebrity-infused PSA YouTube video titled "5 Friends."

The first video was launched in early October, around the time when registration deadlines were approaching. With the election only a few days away, the same cast has come back to record yet another video, encouraging citizens to get five more friends to vote. Celebrities featured in the video include: Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Cruise, Cameron Diaz, Snoop Dogg, Harrison Ford, Julia Roberts, Ben Stiller, Will Smith, Steven Spielberg, Justin Timberlake, “Borat”, Zach Braff, Colin Farrell, Neil Patrick Harris, Scarlett Johansson, Shia LeBeouf, Tobey Maguire, Ryan Reynolds, and Jason Segal.

We're excited to have collaborated in this process and hope that more citizens will be able to get the information they need on election day, thanks to the virality of such tremendous get-out-the-vote efforts. So what are you waiting for? Tell five more friends to vote! There's not much time left.

Posted by Brittany Bohnet, Google Elections Team

Greater access to voting information

October 22, 2008

how people like you have increasingly been searching for voting information, like how to register and where to vote.

It's hard to believe that in 2008, information so important to U.S. citizens and the democratic process isn't well organized on the web.US Voter Info site

We developed the site in the hope that it will increase voter participation. We were helped by a number of partners, including many state and local election officials, the League of Women Voters, the Pew Charitable Trusts, and others involved in the Voting Information Project.

Are you registered to vote? What's the best way to obtain an absentee ballot? When people visit the site, answers to these questions appear. And anyone with a website can provide the same information. The US Voter Info gadget places a simple search box that expands to show a full set of voter information when someone enters an address.

We are also offering a simpler way to find out where to vote. By entering a home address, citizens across the country will be able to find their polling place for election day.

To further encourage voter participation, we've opened up this data to third-party sites and developers through an API developed by Dan Berlin, one of our open-source engineers. We're excited to share this information, and hope that others will find it useful in encouraging citizens to vote.

Organizing information is our mission. We do that every day with web content, and we want to do the same thing with information to inform and empower voters and to help them get to the polls this election season.

Posted by Brittany Bohnet, Google Elections Team

New Technology Roundtable Series

October 6, 2008

Google Technology Roundtable SeriesLarge-Scale Search System Infrastructure and Search QualityJeff DeanAmit SinghalMap ReduceJerry ZhaoMatt AusternThe Intelligent CloudApplications of Human Language TechnologyFranz Josef Och[Cross-posted on the Google Research Blog.]Posted by Alfred Spector, VP of Research and Special Initiatives

Science outreach returns

October 3, 2008

workshopGoogle Earth Conference

University of MichiganScientific Applications for Google Earth Conference is scheduled for October 22nd and 23rd in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The two-day event will bring together researchers and students from all over the country to discuss the scientific uses of virtual globes and how that technology is enabling newer and richer data interaction experiences for both expert and novice users.
Keynote speakers include Tim Killeen, Assistant Director for Geosciences at the National Science Foundation, and Dan Adkins, former Director of the National Science Foundation Office of Cyberinfrastructure.

Like the Boulder event, Google engineers will be on hand to work directly with students and scientists on ways to overcome technical problems and to provide training for those interested in advanced techniques with KML. Of course we'll be sure to wear maize and blue! Registration for the event is now open, details are available on the conference website. Spots are limited so be sure to check it out soon.

Google Earth Contest

The second initiative is a contest targeting scientific content in KML. The KML in Research

contest is open to both students and professionals. We think this will be a fun way for people working with KML to get some exposure for their work and perhaps win some prizes!

So get out your best research ideas and bring your data to life with KML and Google Earth. In addition to prizes, winners will have their work showcased at the American Geophysical Union's annual Fall meeting on December 15th!

For great examples of the kind of entries we are hoping for, check out John Bailey's Science Archive and as always, the Google Earth Gallery.

Posted by Ryan Falor, Systems Engineer

Now's the time: Register to vote

October 2, 2008

Census reportVoter Info Mapm.google.com/electionsVoting Information ProjectLeague of Women Voters

Posted by Brittany Bohnet, Associate Product Marketing Manager

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