Official Blog
Insights from Googlers into our products, technology, and the Google culture
On IDPD, working toward a more accessible and inclusive world
December 3, 2015
We
believe
in a world built for everyone, which is why we launched the global
Google Impact Challenge: Disabilities
earlier this year. The Impact Challenge is a Google.org initiative to invest $20 million in nonprofits who are using technology to make the world more accessible for the 1 billion people living with disabilities.
Today, as part of the program, we’re proud to celebrate the U.N. International Day of Persons with Disabilities with three new grants, totalling $2.95 million. Through our grants, the Royal London Society for Blind People will develop the
Wayfindr
project, helping visually impaired people navigate the London underground; Israeli NGO
Issie Shapiro
will distribute Sesame, an app that allows people with mobility impairments to control a smartphone using only head movements; and, finally, German grantee Wheelmap will expand its accessibility mapping efforts worldwide. This week, many Googlers around the world will also
join
Wheelmap’s Map My Day campaign to help out.
We’ve also collected 11
tips
that help people with disabilities get more out of their favorite Google products. (Why 11? It’s a play on “a11y”, tech-speak for “accessibility.”)
Much of the accessibility work we do is driven by passionate Googlers from around the world. To give you a look at what motivates us to make Google, and the world, more inclusive, we asked four Googlers from our Disability Alliance to share more about what they’re working on:
Kiran Kaja, Technical Program Manager, London:
Being blind from birth, I’ve always been excited by devices that talk to you or allow you to talk back to them. Today, I work on Google’s Text to Speech team developing technologies that talk to people with disabilities. I’m also helping improve eyes-free voice actions on Android so that people with low vision can accomplish standard tasks just by talking to their phone. This not only helps people with disabilities, but anyone whose hands are busy with another task—like cooking, driving or caring for an infant. The advances we’re making in speech recognition and text to speech output promise a bright future for voice user interfaces.
Paul Herzlich, Legal Analytics Specialist, Mountain View:
As a wheelchair user from a spinal cord injury, I'm passionate about the potential impact of technology to solve disability-related issues. Outside of my job, I'm working alongside a team of mechanical and electrical engineers, UX designers, and medical professionals to develop a new technology called SmartSeat, which I hope to bring to life in tandem with Google.org through its
Google Impact Challenge: Disabilities
. SmartSeat is a device that notifies wheelchair users when they have been sitting in the same position for too long by using force sensors connected to a mobile app, thereby helping these users prevent pressure sores. You can watch a video of the early prototype on
YouTube
.
Aubrie Lee, Associate Product Marketing Manager, Mountain View:
Like many other disabled people, I’ve spent most of my life as the minority in the room. In high school, I attended a state forum on disability and felt what it was like to be in the majority. Now, I work to create that feeling for other disabled people. I started the Googler Disability Community, a group that works on changing Google’s physical environment and workplace systems to help make our company truly inclusive. Outside of my job, I enjoy exploring the beauty in disability through
photography
and poetry. My own disabilities and the way they influence my interactions with others provide endless inspiration for my art.
Pablo Pacca, Language Market Manager, São Paulo:
I’m in charge of making sure Google’s products are translated well into Brazilian Portuguese for the 180+ million Brazilians who don’t speak English. I’m also an activist and advocate for accessibility and inclusion, both as a blogger on disability issues and the lead for the Google Brazil People with Disabilities (PwD) group. At PwD Brazil, we educate Googlers about disability issues, and work to foster a more accessible office space and inclusive work environment across the company.
Posted by Jacquelline Fuller, Director of Google.org
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Z0HyNg4JKLg/VmBrQ9NUuRI/AAAAAAAARh0/jIyoeeYBgFA/s1600/DSC_8076.jpg
Jacquelline Fuller
Director
Google.org
Dressed in code
September 8, 2015
Increasingly, the worlds of fashion and technology are becoming intertwined—from wristbands that track your heart rate to responsive fabrics that adjust to your temperature. And just like you can sew together different pieces of fabric to make a dress, or choose different items from your closet to create an unexpected outfit, you can also put together code to make something that’s never existed before.
Today, as New York’s Fashion Week kicks off, fashion and technology are coming together in a new way.
Made with Code
and
ZAC Zac Posen
are teaming up to show how computer science can push the boundaries of what’s possible in the world of fashion. A dress designed by Zac Posen and with designs coded online by teen girls will debut as the finale look of Zac’s show—and hopefully inspire young girls who have an interest in fashion to see what code can help them create.
Made with Code started with the mission of inspiring girls to try coding and to see it as a means to pursue their dream careers—regardless of what field those careers are in. For this project, girls from organizations like Black Girls Code, the Flatiron School, Girls Who Code and Lower East Side Girls Club, coded designs for an LED dress using an introductory coding project online. Fashion engineer and Made with Code mentor,
Maddy Maxey
, coded and fabricated the LED technology of the dress, working alongside Zac as he designed. When the dress goes down the runway, it will displays girls’ patterns in 500 LED lights, using a
micro controller
specially tuned to match Zac’s Spring Summer 2016 runway collection—from Catalina Blue to Acid Yellow. Meanwhile, 50 girls will get seats at the show to see their designs light up the runway.
In the past year, we’ve seen many encouraging signs that more girls are exploring computer science. More than 5 million coding projects have been tried since Made with Code began a year ago. And Googlers, teen girls and partners like Girls Inc, Technovation and Girl Scouts have thrown 300+ Made with Code
parties
across the U.S., reaching tens of thousands teen girls in person. But with less than one percent of high school girls still expressing interest in computer science, it’s obvious we have so much more work to do—so, let’s start now. After today, girls all over the country can also head to
madewithcode.com
to create their own design. We hope the digital dress inspires more teens to discover what they can make with code.
Posted by Pavni Diwanji, VP of engineering for Kids and Families
Join our global Pride celebration: #AndProud
June 18, 2015
Pride is one of the world’s greatest celebrations of diversity, one that we’re excited to support every year. For 2015, we’re doing something a little different: we’ve created an online parade, #AndProud, so that people from around the world can celebrate Pride together.
To join the global parade, visit
Androidify
, where you can create your own Android character with a fun new Pride wardrobe. During the weekend of June 27-28 your character will party side-by-side with others from around the world in the online parade.
But the celebration doesn’t end there. While the virtual parade happens online, thousands of Googlers will hit the streets of San Francisco, London and New York to show their support in those citywide Pride festivals. Some of the best #AndProud characters will appear on big screens as part of Google’s pride floats in all three cities.
From left to right, Sam Smith, Tom Daley and Jessie J celebrating the #AndProud parade
In addition to #AndProud and our floats in SF, London and NYC, we’re celebrating Pride in our offices around the
world
, and in all
sorts
of ways across our
products
. We’re excited to be able to extend the celebration and give people around the world a new way to share their Pride.
Hope to see you at the parade!
Posted by Eddie Kalletta and Rich Terry, #AndProud parade marchers
Doing more on diversity
May 5, 2015
When we
released
the composition of our workforce almost a year ago, it confirmed what many people suspected: the tech industry needs to do a lot more when it comes to diversity. Since then, the question I get asked most is—so what are you doing about it?
You may have heard about some of the work we’ve been doing:
embedding engineers
at Historically Black Colleges and Universities;
partnering with Hollywood
to inspire girls to pursue careers in computer science; building
local initiatives
to introduce coding to high school students from diverse communities; and expanding our employee unconscious bias
training
.
But these programs represent only a sampling of all the work that is going on behind the scenes. If we’re really going to make an impact, we need a holistic plan. Today, we want to
share
our diversity strategy, which is focused on four key areas:
Hire diverse Googlers:
In the past, our university-focused hiring programs have relied heavily on a relatively small number of schools. But, we know those schools aren't always the most diverse. For example, while
14% of Hispanic college enrollment is at 4-year schools
, Hispanics make up just
7% at the 200 most selective schools
. In the past two years, we've doubled the number of schools where we recruit, to promote student diversity. This year, nearly 20 percent of the hires we make from a university are from these new campuses.
Foster a fair and inclusive culture:
We want to ensure that we have an environment where all Googlers can thrive. We’ve raised awareness around
unconscious bias
—half of all Googlers have participated in our unconscious bias workshops—and we’ve now rolled out a hands-on workshop that provides practical tips for addressing bias when we see it. We’re also drawing on the idea of
20 percent
time to enable employees to use their time at work to focus on diversity projects. In 2015, more than 500 Googlers will participate in Diversity Core, a formal program in which employees contribute—as part of their job—to the company’s diversity efforts.
Expand the pool of technologists:
Making computer science (CS) education accessible and available to everyone is one of our most important initiatives. Our
CS First
program is designed to help anyone—a teacher, a coach, or volunteer—teach kids the basics of coding. And since
research
tells us that to inspire more girls, we need to show them that computer science isn’t just for boys, we started
Made with Code
—and we’re working with the entertainment industry to
change the perceptions around CS
and what it means to be a computer scientist.
Bridge the digital divide:
We also want more underrepresented communities, including women and minorities, to share the benefits of the web, and to have access to the economic engine it provides. The
Accelerate with Google Academy
helps business owners get online, grow and drive economic impact.
With an organization of our size, meaningful change will take time. From one year to the next, bit by bit, our progress will inch forward. More importantly, our industry will become more inclusive, and the opportunities for currently underrepresented groups will grow. We’ll share our updated diversity data for 2015 soon. We’re gradually making progress across these four areas, and we’re in it for the long term.
Posted by Nancy Lee, Vice President, People Operations
Google RISE Awards support girls and minorities in tech—from Australia to Mexico
February 2, 2015
(Cross-posted on the
Google for EDU Blog
)
When Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people need support, they turn to their daughters. In a culture whose history goes back 50,000 years, 70 young girls are using technology to give their families a new way to call for help in emergencies. Last year, Engineers Without Borders Australia taught a group of students to build an emergency response beacon using basic hardware and some code to transmit a user’s location and distress message via radio.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people make up less than 3 percent of Australia’s population, and they’ve historically faced discrimination in society, including in education. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, dropout rates exceed 60 percent in certain regions and Aboriginal students are, on average, 2.5 years behind their peers in scientific and mathematical literacy. The problem is often compounded for girls, who tend to be left out of educational opportunities.
So
Engineers Without Borders Australia
(EWBA) set out to close the educational and digital divide, developing a program which brings together Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal girls to create emergency beacons from scratch by coding a Raspberry Pi to work with an LED, GPS module and FM transmitter. It will also work through issues of stereotyping and discrimination, and help the girls to better understand each other’s worlds.
This is just one example of an organization doing extraordinary work to make computer science (CS) education available to women and other underrepresented minorities. Computer science has tremendous potential to make a real difference in the world—but only when more people can access and harness it.
That’s the idea behind Google’s
RISE Awards
, through which we support organizations in their work to inspire students around the world with CS. Since 2010, more than 200 organizations have received an award, and this year,
37 organizations
are receiving a cumulative $1.5 million to keep this vital effort humming along. Our partners facilitate programs and activities including teaching girls about the
intersection of coding and music production in California
, promoting computational thinking through
game-design in Mexico
, and
inspiring children in Brazil to program alongside their parents
.
This year, three nonprofits will receive a new “RISE Partnership Award”—a grant to work with one or two partner organizations to help grow their CS outreach to a wider scale. One of the three is Engineers Without Borders Australia, which plans to work with MEET—an organization with expertise on how coding skills can build relationships and break down stereotypes—to integrate their curriculum to reach up to 2,000 girls across Australia, including in Aboriginal communities.
With access to hands-on CS education, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander girls are preparing themselves for the digital economy, contributing to the diversity of our future’s technology, and taking concrete steps to rise above the inequities their community has faced for decades. They’re not alone. We hope that through the RISE Awards and
our other efforts
to support diversity in technology, these girls and others like them can have an even greater impact. We can’t wait to see it.
Posted by Roxana Shirkhoda, K12/Pre-University Education Outreach
This year the holidays are Made with Code
December 2, 2014
Cross-posted on the
Google for Education Blog
Carol-singing, hot chocolate, latkes and ice skating are all things that get us into the spirit of the holidays. But now there’s a new way to deck the halls: with code.
Earlier this year, we introduced a program called Made with Code to inspire millions of girls to try coding, and help them understand the creative things they can do with computer science. Starting today on
madewithcode.com
, girls can use the introductory programming language Blockly to animate the lights of the state and territory trees that will decorate President’s Park, one of America’s 401 national parks and home to the White House, through the holiday season.
The programmed lights will debut at the
92nd annual National Christmas Tree Lighting ceremony
, which will be
livestreamed
by the White House on Thursday and air on PBS nationally throughout December in partnership with the National Park Foundation and National Park Service. The tradition of the tree lighting ceremony dates back to 1923 when President Calvin Coolidge lit the first fir tree outside the White House, and this is the first year kids from across the country will be in control of the state and territory holiday tree lights!
As the mom of two girls, I know that technology is a pathway for their future success. Still, even as coding becomes more important, less than 1% of high school girls say they’re interested in pursuing computer sciences in college. But I'm also an engineer, so I’ve seen firsthand how exciting CS can be. I fell in love with code early—my dad was an engineer and he encouraged me to enter a programming competition in the seventh grade. I gave it a shot, and I’ve never looked back. Ever since that day, I’ve known that when I program something, I’m creating something totally new for the world.
That’s what Made with Code is about: discovering that creating something new and exciting—whether it’s a holiday tree, a video game or a driverless car—can be accomplished with the power of code.
But it’s also about building an ecosystem of support for girls through parents and teachers, and to show girls other women who are using CS to achieve their dreams. This challenge also kicks off Google’s commitment to CSEdWeek, a week dedicated to inspiring students to get interested in computer science that’s become one of the biggest education initiatives online. Over the coming week, thousands of Googlers will join the
hour of code
, and announce a few other special projects that we will fund through the holiday season and coming year.
I’m heading to Washington, D.C. this week to be a part of the ceremony, and I’m looking forward to watching the designs from girls across the country lighting up the nation’s capital—and inspiring my daughters and so many others with the power of code.
Posted by Pavni Diwanji, Vice President, Engineering
You don’t know what you don’t know: How our unconscious minds undermine the workplace
September 25, 2014
When YouTube launched their video upload app for iOS, between 5 and 10 percent of videos uploaded by users were upside-down. Were people shooting videos incorrectly? No. Our early design was the problem. It was designed for right-handed users, but phones are usually rotated 180 degrees when held in left hands. Without realizing it, we’d created an app that worked best for our almost exclusively right-handed developer team.
This is just one example of how unconscious biases influence our actions every day, even when—by definition—we don’t notice them. These biases are shaped by our experiences and by cultural norms, and allow us to filter information and make quick decisions. We’ve evolved to trust our guts. But sometimes these mental shortcuts can lead us astray, especially when they cause us to misjudge people. In the workplace, for example, the
halo effect
can cause us to inflate performance ratings or
in-group bias
can lead us to overlook great talent.
Combatting our unconscious biases is hard, because they don’t feel wrong; they feel right. But it’s necessary to fight against bias in order to create a work environment that supports and encourages diverse perspectives and people. Not only is that the right thing to do, but without a diverse workforce, there’s a pretty good chance that our products—just like that early YouTube app—won’t work for everyone. That means we need to make the unconscious, conscious.
The first step is education; we need to help people identify and understand their biases so that they can start to combat them. So we developed a workshop,
Unconscious Bias @ Work
, in which more than 26,000 Googlers have taken part. And it’s made an impact: Participants were significantly more aware, had greater understanding, and were more motivated to overcome bias.
In addition to our workshop, we’re partnering with organizations like the
Clayman Institute
and the
Ada Initiative
to further research and awareness. We’re also taking action to ensure that the decisions we make at work—from promoting employees to marketing products—are objective and fair. Here are four ways we're working to reduce the influence of bias:
Gather facts.
It’s hard to know you’re improving if you’re not measuring. We collect data on things like gender representation
in our doodles
and
at our conferences
.
Create a structure for making decisions.
Define clear criteria to evaluate the merits of each option, and use them consistently. Using the same standards to evaluate all options can reduce bias. This is why we use
structured interviews
in hiring, applying the same selection and evaluation methods for all.
Be mindful of subtle cues.
Who’s included and who’s excluded? In 2013, Googlers pointed out that of the dozens of conference rooms named after famous scientists, only a few were female. Was this our vision for the future? No. So we changed Ferdinand von Zeppelin to Florence Nightingale—along with many others—to create more balanced representation. Seemingly small changes can have big effects.
Foster awareness. Hold yourself—and your colleagues—accountable.
We’re encouraging Googlers to call out bias. For example, we share a “bias busting checklist” at performance reviews, encouraging managers to examine their own biases and call out those of others.
As we
shared
back in May, we’re not where we should be when it comes to diversity. But in order to get there, we need to have this conversation. We have to figure out where our biases lie, and we have to combat them. Tackling unconscious bias at work is just one piece of making Google a diverse workplace, but it’s absolutely essential if we’re going to live up to our promise to build technology that makes life better for as many people as possible.
Posted by Laszlo Bock, SVP of People Operations, and Brian Welle, Ph.D., Director of People Analytics
Getting to work on diversity at Google
May 28, 2014
We’ve always been reluctant to publish numbers about the diversity of our workforce at Google. We now realize we were wrong, and that it’s time to be candid about the issues. Put simply, Google is not where we want to be when it comes to diversity, and it’s hard to address these kinds of challenges if you’re not prepared to discuss them openly, and with the facts. So,
here are our numbers
:
There are lots of reasons why technology companies like Google struggle to recruit and retain women and minorities. For example, women
earn roughly 18 percent
of all computer science degrees in the United States. Blacks and Hispanics each make up
under 10 percent of U.S. college grads
and each collect fewer than 10 percent of degrees in CS majors. So we’ve invested a lot of time and energy in education.
Among other things, since 2010 we’ve given more than $40 million to organizations working to bring computer science education to women and girls. And we’ve been working with historically black colleges and universities to elevate coursework and attendance in computer science. For example, this year Google engineer Charles Pratt was in-residence at Howard University, where he revamped the school’s Intro to CS curriculum.
But we’re the first to admit that Google is miles from where we want to be—and that being totally clear about the extent of the problem is a really important part of the solution. To learn more about our work on diversity—for our workforce, for the web and for the tech leaders of the future—visit
google.com/diversity
.
Posted by Laszlo Bock, Senior Vice President, People Operations
Update
May 31:
We updated the language of this post to correct the number of degrees black and Hispanic students earn in CS majors, which are 8 percent and 6 percent respectively, according to the National Science Foundation.
Celebrating inspiring women around the world
March 8, 2014
Picture the women in your life—the women you admire. Your grandma. Your daughter.
Toni Morrison
.
Maria Klawe
.
Temple Grandin
.
Malala
.
Somaly Mam
. International Women's Day is an opportunity to celebrate these phenomenal women and all the others around the world—to recognize their impact on society, and to focus on what still needs to be done to achieve gender equality. Today, Google is joining in and showcasing inspiring women of the past and present through a series of events, new content on the Cultural Institute and—of course—a doodle. Join us in celebrating women worldwide!
Celebrating technical women on stage at global Women Techmakers events
To help increase visibility, community and resources for technical women, we’re launching a series of 100+
Women Techmakers
events in 52 countries to celebrate and support passionate techmakers around the world. Starting today and throughout March, the event series will feature panel discussions with talented female technology leaders, hands-on career planning workshops, networking opportunities and more. To learn more about the program and find an event near you, visit
g.co/womentechmakers
.
Shining a light on women in history and their collective impact
The
Google Cultural Institute
is launching
Women in Culture
,
a new channel featuring exhibits that tell stories of women—some familiar and some lesser-known—and their impact on the world. Starting today, you can browse
18 new exhibits
, from both new and existing Cultural Institute partners, including:
Showcasing Great Women
by The National Women’s Hall of Fame
Makers
by WETA (Makers.com: the largest video collection of women’s stories ever)
Frida Kahlo: ¡Viva la vida!
by Museo Dolores Olmedo
Pioneering Musicians: Women Superstars of the Early Gramophone Era
by Archive of Indian Music
Pathways to Equality
by the National Women’s History Museum
The Struggle for Suffrage
by English Heritage
Profiles for Peace
by the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security
This Mad, Wicked Folly: Victorian American Women
by the Meserve-Kunhardt Foundation
World Changing Women
by Vital Voices
The painting
Black Mesa Landscape, New Mexico / Out Back of Marie’s II
contributed by the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum
Since history has so often been biased, leaving out or sidelining contributions from women, the channel is also integrated with the rest of the Cultural Institute collections, making it easier for people to discover even more amazing stories about women throughout history.
A homepage homage
Women have been underrepresented in the history-telling of almost all fields: science, school curricula, business, politics—and, sadly, doodles. In addition to our
continued effort
for doodle diversity and inclusion, today’s truly International Women’s Day doodle features a host of more than 100 inspiring women from around the world, including the
President of Lithuania
,
a brave Pakistani education activist
,
the most recorded artist in music history
,
an ever-curious explorer
and
dozens more
.
Happy International Women’s Day!
Posted by Kyle Ewing, People Operations
Help inspire the next generation of technology creators: Apply for a 2014 RISE Award
August 1, 2013
Inspiring the next generation of scientists and engineers is crucially important—breakthroughs don't happen without people to make them. We want students to not just be consumers of technology, but also creators of it; to enrich not only their own lives, but those of their communities. That's the motivation behind the
Google RISE
(Roots in Science and Engineering) Awards.
Given once a year, Google RISE Awards are designed to promote and support education initiatives to increase engagement in science and technology, especially computer science. Google grants awards of $15,000 - $50,000 USD to non-for-profit organizations around the world working to expand access to these fields for K-12/Pre-University students, specifically girls and underrepresented groups.
In 2013, 30 organizations
received
RISE grants—with projects ranging from robotics contests in Germany to programming challenge days for girls in New Zealand. In June, we brought all of our partners together for a Global Summit. It was an inspiring meeting, and since the Summit several organizations have begun to work together to expand their reach.
For example, our RISE partners in Nigeria,
WAAW Foundation
and
W-TEC
, have teamed up to organize a one-week residential Advanced STEM Camp. The program launched this week and will provide 27 public school girls exposure to robotics. Over in Argentina, an
organization
already connecting Belgium to Argentina is is now collaborating with
another
on programming workshops for students and teachers. And organizations in
Liberia
and
India
are sharing resources to overcome common challenges in access to technology for girls.
The hard work of RISE organizations has also drawn support from leading figures such as
President Obama
, Ireland’s
Taoiseach Enda Kenny
and
HRH Prince Andrew
.
We’re looking for more organizations to partner with in 2014.
Submit
your application by September 30, 2013. You can submit your application in English, French, Japanese, Russian or Spanish; all eligible countries are listed on our
website
. Show us what you can do to get students excited about STEM and CS!
Posted by Marielena Ivory, K12/Pre-University Education Outreach
Celebrating Pride 2013
July 2, 2013
Thousands of Googlers, Gayglers (LGBT Googlers), and their families and friends took to the streets last month to participate in Pride parades and celebrations around the globe. Pride had a special buzz this year, as DOMA and Prop 8 were struck down by the Supreme Court three days before the parades, marking an important step toward equal rights for all.
We supported our fellow Gayglers and others around the world with recording-breaking attendance at parades in San Francisco (well over 1300 Googlers and allies) and New York (500+ participants). In other parts of the world, we marched in celebrations in London, Budapest, Dublin, Tel Aviv, and
Tokyo Rainbow Week 2013
. We floated along the canals in Amsterdam Pride parade, marched in the Mardi Gras parade in Sydney and will gather in Hong Lim park for Singapore's 3rd annual
Pink Dot celebration
.
New York Pride Parade
We had some big firsts this year all around the world as well:
Gayglers hosted a
Pride@Google Speaker Series
for the month of June, where speakers ranging from NFL stars to community leaders to Prop 8 Plaintiffs Kris Perry and Sandy Stier came to share their messages at Google.
LGBT celebrations were held for the first time in Hyderabad and Google was there! In India, our contingent of over 30 people made it to the
cover
of many local newspapers.
Though we have participated in Sao Paulo’s Pride parade in previous years, this year, Google was proud to be the first corporate sponsor thanks to the hard work of the Sao Paulo Gayglers. More than 100 Googlers marched—doubling participation from last year.
Google participated for the first time in celebrations in Mexico City, Paris and Hamburg.
We kicked off a collaboration with two founding partners called '
We Are Open
' in Hungary that joins together companies, organizations and communities that are committed to openness. More than 100 organizations signed up to make a stand for diversity and we'll show our united front at Budapest Pride on Saturday, July 6.
London Gayglers
Our LGBT efforts are not just once a year during Pride, either. Earlier this year, we worked with Creative Lab to create a grassroots employee video for TheFour.com, an organization supporting marriage equality in the four U.S. states where it was on the ballot this past year. Google also co-wrote an article to the United States Supreme Court explaining why Gay Marriage is Good for Business. We supported the citizens of France by hosting marriage ceremonies over Hangouts and we recently launched a YouTube Spotlight Channel and campaign, #ProudtoLove, dedicated to celebrating LGBT Pride.
We’re proud of all our Googlers and excited about what was accomplished this year! We’re glad to have ended Pride month on such an inspiring note of equality. For more photos, click
here
.
Posted by Heather Cain, Diversity Team
Congratulations to the 2013 Google Anita Borg Memorial Scholars
May 21, 2013
Dr. Anita Borg
revolutionized the way we think about technology and worked to dismantle the barriers that keep women and minorities from entering the computing and technology fields. In her lifetime, Anita founded the Institute for Women and Technology (now
The Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology
), began an online community called
Systers
for technical women, and co-founded the
Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing
. We’re proud to honor her memory through the
Google Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship
, established in 2004.
Today we’d like to recognize and congratulate the 30 Google Anita Borg Memorial scholars and the 30 Google Anita Borg Memorial finalists for 2013. The scholars, who attend universities in the
United States
and
Canada
, will join the annual Google Scholars’ Retreat this summer in New York City, where they will have the opportunity to attend tech talks on Google products, network with other scholars and Googlers, participate in developmental activities and sessions, and attend social activities. This year, the scholars will also have the opportunity to participate in a scholars’ edition of 24HoursOfGood, a hackathon in partnership with local non-profit organizations who work on education and STEM initiatives to make progress against a technical problem that is critical to their organization’s success.
Find out more
(PDF) about our winners, including the institutions they attend. Soon we’ll select the Anita Borg scholars from our programs
around the world
. For more information on all our scholarships, visit the
Google Scholarships site
.
Posted by Azusa Liu, Student Development Programs Specialist
Voices of women in technology
March 7, 2013
A diverse workforce is critical in helping us build products that can help people change the world. That includes diversity of all life experiences, including gender.
Women were some of the first programmers
and continue to make a major impact on the programming world today. We think it’s important to highlight the great work women are doing in computer science, to help provide role models for young women thinking about careers in computing.
Tomorrow is
International Women’s Day
, and as one of our contributions to the celebration, we’re proud to support
Voices Global Conference
, presented by
Global Tech Women
. As part of this 24-hour live streamed event, Google will provide more than a dozen hours of free talks featuring women working in computer science, beginning today. To access the full schedule and our ongoing broadcasts, see our section on the
Voices website
, which will be updated throughout the day.
The Voices Global Conference is the brainchild of Global Tech Women’s founder Deanna Kosaraju, who also started
India’s Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing
in 2010 with grant support from Google. The India conferences, which provide a forum for women to share their professional and research work in computing, have grown rapidly, with more than 800 attendees in 2012. So when Deanna proposed this global, 24-hour streamed conference, we knew it was a great opportunity to help women and other audiences around the world learn more and get inspired about the contributions women are making to technology and computer science.
Our sessions will feature a range of material, from new episodes of the
Women Techmakers
series and interviews with women leaders like the head of
Lexity
India
Mani Abrol
, to discussions focusing on technologies like
Google Compute Engine
. For a sneak peek of the type of content we’ll be providing, check out Pavni’s story below, produced in conjunction with PBS’
MAKERS
series. I’ve provided advice to many young people in India interested in studying computer science and pursuing their own dreams—so Pavni’s tenacity, coupled with the encouragement and support she received from her father, resonated with me. We’re excited to share her story and others like it alongside technical conversations and discussions on women in technology as part of this conference.
I hope you’ll join us for our sessions—and in the meantime, you can
learn more
about our efforts to support women at Google and beyond.
Posted by Beryl Nelson, Software Engineering Manager
Celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month
October 15, 2012
September 15 marked the beginning of Hispanic Heritage Month and the start of our third year celebrating the Hispanic community through events and community outreach initiatives. Googlers from our Corporate Social Responsibility Team, Diversity & Inclusion Team, Engineering Industry Team, the Hispanic Googler Network (HGN), and our Community Partners worked together to host 20+ events focused on this year’s theme of Latinos in Technology.
We kicked things off at the
U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (USHCC) National Conference
, where two members from our
Google Accelerate team
worked one-on-one with business owners during matchmaking sessions to consult on the best use of Google tools for their enterprises. Googler Eliana Murillo spoke on a panel titled “Beyond Social Media: The Potential of Technology & the Internet in a Global Economy,” where she shared how tools like
Google Analytics
,
YouTube
and
Google for Nonprofits
can be useful for businesses.
In early October, we ran a
Hispanic Heritage Month 2012 Hangout on Air
on the
Life at Google page
with the Latino Community Foundation (LCF). Raquel Donoso (CEO of LCF) and Googlers Hector Mujica (HGN member) and myself shared the history of the partnership and what our respective goals are. They also talked about the Family Health Day at Google & Olympic Games event, which we held at our Mountain View, Calif. headquarters that same week. Health is a
pressing issue
(PDF) in the Hispanic community; at this event, part of the Binational Health Week, we encouraged guests to have healthier lifestyles by teaching them some easy exercises, how to be active and eat healthy. More than 380+ community members and 50+ Googlers attended.
Last week we wrapped up a series of networking events in partnership with the
Society of Hispanic Engineers (SHPE)
, where more than 400+ technical professionals came to our Seattle, Cambridge, Chicago, Los Angeles, Austin, New York, and Mountain View Offices to network and learn about how Google is supporting the local hispanic technical community.
Finally, today the Hispanic Googler Network is hosting the Bay Area Latino Employee Resource Group (ERG) Networking Reception in Mountain View. The
Honorable Aida Alvarez
, Chair of the Latino Community Foundation of the Bay Area, will speak to 300+ guests from local Hispanic ERGs in the Bay Area about what LCF is doing to build a better future for Latino children, youth and families in the Hispanic community.
Though the month officially comes to an end today, we’ll continue to support the Hispanic community as a lead sponsor in the
LATISM '12 conference
, taking place in two weeks. LATISM ‘12 connects Latinos in social media, technology, education, business and health fields to increase their online footprint through the web and Google's tools for small businesses and communities. We’re also participating in the
Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers Conference
and will soon open up applications for our
Hispanic College Fund Google scholarship
.
We’ve had a great time celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month, and are already looking forward to next year’s events. We invite you to view the recaps, photos and hangouts on our
Life at Google page
on Google+ and to visit our
Diversity & Inclusion site
where you can see more of what we do.
Posted by Sylvia Bonilla Zizumbo, Hispanic Googler Network Chair and Strategic Partnerships Lead
A world of opportunity at the G(irls)20 Summit
May 22, 2012
We’re pleased to have Farah Mohamed join us today to talk about her organization, the G(irls)20 Summit, of which Google is a proud sponsor. The mission of the G(irls)20 Summit is to showcase how girls and women can impact a country’s economic prosperity, political stability and social innovation. - Ed.
Research shows that investing in girls and women can help the global economy. Consider the following examples:
According to
Plan UK
, an extra year of education increases a girl’s income by 10 to 20% and is a significant step on the road to breaking the cycle of poverty.
In Kenya, adolescent pregnancies cost the economy $500 million per year, while investing in girls could potentially add $32 billion to the economy (
NIKE Foundation, 2009, Girl Effect
).
If men and women had equal influence in decision-making , an additional 1.7 million children would be adequately nourished in sub-Saharan Africa (
International Labour Organization, 2009
).
These are significant estimates, and they highlight a real opportunity for global economic growth. That’s why the G(irls)20 Summit is working with Google and many other corporate and foundation partners to empower girls and women.
Launched in 2010 at the
Clinton Global Initiative
, the G(irls)20 Summit precedes the G20 Leaders Summit, and brings together one girl aged 18 to 20 from each G20 country plus the African Union. The delegates attend workshops and participate in panel discussions to come up with tangible, scalable solutions for how to engage and empower girls and women around the world. Then, at the end of the summit, they lead a press conference and present a set of recommendations for the G20 leaders to consider.
This year, the Summit will take place in Mexico City from May 28-31. But the impact of the Summit will be ongoing, thanks in part to the power of the Internet and social media. Take past Summit participants July Lee of the U.S. and Noma Sibayoni of South Africa, who launched
Write With A Smile
to encourage teens to continue with their education. Or Riana Shah of India who co-founded Independent Thought & Social Action (
ITSA India
), an education reform organization that aims to empower socially responsible youth leaders. And the African Union’s Lilian Kithiri continues to persevere creating awareness around reproductive health to communities living in the rural areas of Kenya.
There are a few ways you can experience the Summit:
Join us
in Mexico City on May 28
Sign up for your number
in support of girls and women
Join the conversation via our live stream on
www.girls20summit.com
on May 28, 29 and 31
Whether you’re a girl, boy, woman or man, we all have a role to play in empowering girls and women. As UN Under Secretary-General Michelle Bachelet once said, “gender equality and women’s empowerment are goals in their own right and central to all other goals—must be more than a mantra. It must become a lived reality for women and men and boys and girls in all countries.”
Posted by Farah Mohamed, President & CEO, G(irls)20 Summit
A look inside our 2011 diversity report
May 18, 2012
We work hard to ensure that our commitment to diversity is built into everything we do—from hiring our employees and building our company culture to running our business and developing our products, tools and services. To recap our diversity efforts in 2011, a year in which we partnered with and donated $19 million to more than 150 organizations working on advancing diversity, we created the
2011 Global Diversity & Talent Inclusion Report
. Below are some highlights.
In the U.S., fewer and fewer students are graduating with computer science degrees each year, and enrollment rates are even lower for women and underrepresented groups. It’s important to grow a diverse talent pool and help develop the technologists of tomorrow who will be integral to the success of the technology industry. Here are a few of the things we did last year aimed at this goal in the U.S. and around the world:
We held our third annual
HBCU (Historically Black Colleges and Universities) Faculty Summit
at Google New York, hosting 50 professors and administrators from 16 HBCUs, who came together to collaborate, share insights and engage with Googlers.
We helped 100,000 students and faculty at 22 HBCUs in the U.S. “go Google;” they now use
Google Apps for Education
.
To date, 3,000 students in 77 countries have received
Google scholarships
and we also expanded our scholarship programs for women in technology.
We piloted the
Top Black Talent U.K. program
to help the U.K.’s top black engineering and business students transition into the tech industry. We also partnered with the
African Caribbean Society
to offer 100 students workshops and mentoring with Googlers from engineering, sales and marketing.
We not only promoted diversity and inclusion outside of Google, but within Google as well.
We had more than 10,000 members participate in one of our
18 Global Employee Resource Groups (ERGs)
. Membership and reach expanded as Women@Google held the first ever Women’s Summit in both Mountain View, Calif. and Japan; the Black Googler Network (BGN) made their fourth visit to New Orleans, La., contributing 360 volunteer hours in just two days; and the Google Veterans Network partnered with
GoogleServe
, resulting in 250 Googlers working on nine Veteran-related projects from San Francisco to London.
Googlers in more than 50 offices participated in the Sum of Google, a celebration about diversity and inclusion, in their respective offices around the globe.
We sponsored 464 events in 70 countries to celebrate the anniversary of International Women's Day. Google.org collaborated with Women for Women International to launch the
“Join me on the Bridge” campaign
. Represented in 20 languages, the campaign invited people to celebrate by joining each other on bridges around the world—either physically or virtually—to show their support.
Since our early days, it’s been important to make our tools and services accessible and useful to a global array of businesses and user communities. Last year:
We introduced
ChromeVox
, a screen reader for Google Chrome, which helps people with vision impairment navigate websites. It's easy to learn and free to install as a Chrome Extension.
We grew
Accelerate with Google
to make Google’s tools, information and services more accessible and useful to underrepresented communities and diverse business partners.
On Veterans Day in the U.S., we launched a new platform for military veterans and their families. The
Google for Veterans and Families website
helps veterans and their families stay connected through products like Google+,
YouTube
and
Google Earth
.
We invite you to take a look back with us at our
2011 diversity and inclusion highlights
. We’re proud of the work we’ve done so far, but also recognize that there’s much more to do to. These advances may not happen at Internet speed, but through our collective commitment and involvement, we can be a catalyst for change.
Posted by Yolanda Mangolini, Director, Global Diversity & Inclusion/Talent & Outreach Programs
Mind the Gap: Encouraging women to study engineering
February 2, 2012
Women make up more than half the global population, but hold fewer than a third of the world’s engineering jobs. In the U.S., female students comprise fewer than 15 percent of all Advanced Placement computer science test takers. Even in high-tech Israel, few girls choose computer science. Not only is this a loss to companies like Google and everyone who benefits from a continually developing web; it's also a lost opportunity for girls.
Beginning in 2008, a group of female engineers at Google in Israel decided to tackle this problem. We established the “Mind the Gap!” program, aimed at encouraging girls to pursue math, science and technology education. In collaboration with the
Israeli National Center for Computer Science Teachers
, we began organizing monthly school visits for different groups of girls to the
Google office
and annual tech conferences at local universities and institutes. The girls learn about computer science and technology and get excited about its applications, as well as have a chance to talk with female engineers in an informal setting and see what the working environment is like for them.
Since we started this program over three years ago, we’ve hosted more than 1,100 teenage girls at our office, and an additional 1,400 girls at three annual conferences held in leading universities. These 2,500 students represent 100 schools from all sectors and from all over the country: Tel Aviv, Haifa, Tira, Beer-Sheva, Jerusalem, Nazareth and more; what they have in common is the potential to become great computer scientists.
The
results
are encouraging. For instance, some 40 percent of the girls who participated in last year’s conference later chose computer science as a high school major.
We encourage people in other countries, at other companies and in other scientific disciplines to see how they could replicate this program. You can read more at the
project site
. Currently, we are working with the
Google in Education
group to expand the program to more offices globally and get even more young women excited about computer science. The difference we can make is real: At one of our first visits three years ago, we met a 10th grade student named Keren who enjoyed math but had never considered computer science as a high school major. Last month, Keren informed us that the visit made such an impact on her, she decided to change her major to computer science. “Talking to women in the field helped me change my mind,” she said.
Posted by Michal Segalov, Software Engineer at Google’s R&D Center, Israel
Generating Genius in the U.K. with young black talent
July 22, 2011
On July 14, Google U.K. launched a partnership with
Generating Genius
at an event in our London office. Google director Adrian Joseph, Member of Parliament Simon Hughes and advisor on culture and youth Munira Mirza spoke alongside Generating Genius founder Tony Sewell. They stressed the importance of encouraging students from underrepresented backgrounds to receive higher education degrees and inspiring them to become innovators in the technology industry. Afterward, two program participants shared their Generating Genius experiences and their plans for university this fall.
Joining forces with Generating Genius is part of our ongoing commitment to provide exceptionally talented young black students from London’s inner city schools with the key computing and technology skills needed to apply for the very best computer science degrees. We believe it’s crucial to get students engaged in computer science early and enable them to become creators—not just consumers—of technology.
Students accepted into the Generating Genius program are guided via mentors through engineering summer schools and weekend programs for a full five years (from 13 to 18 years of age). Early results of the program have been fantastic: all of the first participants to graduate from the program have received offers to attend elite universities this autumn. Ninety-five percent of them are the first in their families to go on to higher education. Google's funding is enabling Generating Genius to include girls this year for the first time, as well as helping to expand upon the computer science component of the program.
Director of Generating Genius Tony Sewell (center) and two students who have completed five years in the program and are now headed to elite universities to study computer science and physics.
This partnership follows on the heels of the
Top Black Talent Program
that we kicked off in April, which recruits talented computer science students from African Caribbean Society chapters at U.K. universities for a mentoring program at Google. Paired with a Google mentor, the students attended a series of talks and workshops, including career-focused sessions with resume and interviewing advice and technical discussions that provided real-life insights into the tech industry.
You can hear more from Googlers, executives, scholars and partners about our programs and initiatives for minority students by watching our
You Tube video
. For further details on the Top Black Talent program or to register for the next cohort of Top Black Talent students, please
get in touch
. And for more on our general education outreach, visit
google.com/edu
.
Posted by Eleanor Mulligan, Diversity & Inclusion Programs Manager
Celebrating Pride 2011
June 28, 2011
More than a thousand Googlers participated in Pride celebrations in a dozen cities to support equality and remember the sacrifices of those who have made life better for members of the LGBT* community today. While we celebrated the
legalization
of marriage equality in New York, the state where the gay rights movement in the United States began more than 40 years ago, our participation was especially global this year: we were at
Mardi Gras in Sydney
, Australia for the first time and
supported Pink Dot in Singapore
. From San Francisco to Dublin to Tel Aviv to Boston, we stepped out in large numbers for Pride parades around the world in a colorful swirl of Gaygler and Android Pride t-shirts. As in years past, we featured a month-long easter egg in our search results worldwide to celebrate Pride, adding a rainbow next to the search box for a number of Pride-related queries including [
lgbt
], [
marriage equality
] and [
pride 2011
].
But it’s not just during Pride week that we celebrate and promote equality and diversity. We’ve
partnered
with various organizations and earlier this year employees contributed
their stories
to the
It Gets Better project
.
In addition to our external efforts, we’re also working from within. Recently, we extended domestic partner benefits in regions such as China and Hong Kong. Last year, Google adopted a policy promoting benefits equality through a
gross-up on imputed taxes for health insurance
. We provided the equivalent of the
Family and Medical Leave Act
for same-sex domestic partners and updated the definition of infertility. Happily, over the last year we’ve been approached by many organizations looking to
do the same
.
Gayglers
around the globe created this video to increase awareness about the LGBT community at Google, and we're happy to share it with you today.
Posted by Cynthia Yeung, Strategic Partner Development Team
*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.
Future female engineers come together in the Technovation Challenge
May 17, 2011
(Cross-posted on the
Students Blog
)
I was only 12 years old when I was introduced to
BASIC
, my first programming language, and it influenced my entire career path. Now working as a female engineer in a male-dominated industry, I recognize the importance of getting women interested in science and technology at a young age. In March, I decided to get involved as a mentor in the
Technovation Challenge
—an outreach program that gives high school girls a chance to explore computer science and engineering as well as grow their confidence and entrepreneurial skills while being guided by women mentors in the field.
The Technovation Challenge is a nine-week course for teams of high school girls to design a mobile app prototype, write a business plan and pitch their proposal to a panel of judges—which includes tech leaders and VCs—at one of many events held around the country.
One of the biggest obstacles in getting students involved in computing is the technical expertise that’s usually needed to program software. So I was excited to learn that
App Inventor for Android
, which makes it easy for anyone to create mobile apps for Android-powered devices, would be part of the Challenge this year. Rather than reading about CS, the girls were able to directly participate in engineering to quickly prototype mobile apps, without getting bogged down by the nitty-gritty of programming. Whether the girls were brainstorming ideas for their apps, fleshing out their business plans or hacking away at their prototypes, I was inspired by their creativity and determination.
A team of girls build their mobile prototype using Android App Inventor
At the regional pitch night in Mountain View in April, I was floored by not only my team’s presentations, but by all 50 girls competing. It was hard to believe that these confident young women—with their solid business plans and app prototypes—had joined the program just nine weeks ago with no background in entrepreneurship or programming. My team pitched a social education app—a chemistry-based game like
Jeopardy!
that students can play with friends in order to prepare for tests.
This Saturday, May 21, marks the culmination of the program, when the regional winners will convene on our
Mountain View campus
for the national pitch night. Here, they’ll compete to have their app professionally developed and distributed on the Android Market by demoing their prototypes, presenting their business plans and ultimately convincing industry leaders that their startup is worth investing in.
The Technovation Challenge tackles the computing world’s gender gap head on, giving girls early exposure to tech in a fun, engaging environment that develops their skills and confidence. I’m proud to mentor high school girls interested in engineering and technology, and I hope their experience in this program today will inspire them to become the tech leaders of tomorrow.
Posted by Shubhie Panicker, Software Engineer and Technovation Challenge mentor
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