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
Big ideas for an even better Bay Area
September 29, 2015
Converting a liquor store into a community-based learning and tutoring center. Providing millions of dollars of 0% interest loans to small businesses. Breaking the poverty- to-prison cycle by building a residential alternative to prison for young adults. This is just a sampling of the big ideas that local nonprofits submitted for our second annual
Google Impact Challenge: Bay Area
.
Today, after reviewing hundreds of submissions, we’re unveiling 10 finalists chosen together with our panel of
advisors
—a group that includes the San Francisco Chronicle’s Editor-in-Chief Audrey Cooper, The Golden State Warriors’ Harrison Barnes, The San Francisco Giants’ Hunter Pence, and CEO of the San Francisco Foundation, Fred Blackwell.
Representing San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, Santa Clara, San Mateo and more, these organizations span the Bay Area. Learn more about these groups and their ideas for change:
This year, finding and funding new ideas will be just one part of the Google Impact Challenge: Bay Area. We are also reinvesting in a few of our 2014 finalists.
The Ella Baker Center
,
Beyond12
,
Lava Mae
, and Bay Area Community Resources in collaboration with
Instituto Familiar de la Raza
all were funded last year, and will receive between $250,000 and $1,000,000 in additional funding this year. We’re very pleased to continue supporting organizations focused on homelessness, youth employment, and racial justice—big problems that Google.org works to tackle with local organizations, year-round.
What happens next is in your hands! Anyone can vote for the new projects they think will have the most impact on the Bay Area. Again, the top four will receive $500,000 in grant funding, the remaining six will get $250,000 each. 15 additional organizations will each receive $100,000 and all nonprofits will be connected with Googler volunteers and coworking space in San Francisco. We’ll announce winners on October 21.
To vote, visit
g.co/bayareachallenge
or check out
one of our voting stations across the Bay Area
.
When creative, socially-conscious minds and the Bay Area’s innovative spirit join forces, big things can happen. Congratulations to all finalists, and best of luck the rest of the way!
Posted by David Drummond, Senior Vice President of Corporate Development, Alphabet
Matching your donation to humanitarian relief for refugees and migrants
September 15, 2015
My name is Rita Masoud and I am a refugee. I was born in war-torn Kabul, Afghanistan. When I was seven, my family and I fled to Europe with our belongings in a single suitcase, hoping for a safer and better future. Our journey involved many dark train and bus rides, as well as hunger, thirst, cold and fear. Fortunately, we received asylum in The Netherlands, where I grew up in a safe environment and was able to find my way in life. Today, I work for Google in California.
I was lucky. But as the refugee and migrant crisis has grown, many people like my family are desperate for help. Last week, Google announced a €1 million (~$1.1 million) donation to organizations who are providing front-line humanitarian relief to refugees and migrants around the world. Today, we're inviting you to
join us
. To double the impact of your contribution, we’ll match the first €5 million (~$5.5 million) in donations globally, until together we raise €10 million (~$11 million) for relief efforts.
Your donation will be distributed to four nonprofits providing aid to refugees and migrants:
Doctors Without Borders
,
International Rescue Committee
,
Save the Children
and
UN High Commissioner for Refugees
. These nonprofits are helping deliver essential assistance—including shelter, food and water, and medical care—and looking after the security and rights of people in need.
Visit
google.com/refugeerelief
to make your donation. Thank you for giving.
En route from Afghanistan, with my family and some belongings. You can read more about my journey
on my blog
.
Update September 18:
In just two and a half days, you've helped us reach our goal to raise €10 million (~$11 million). Thank you for your contributions to help refugees and migrants in need.
Posted by Rita Masoud, Product Marketing Manager, Google.org
Building even better communities with the Google Impact Challenge: Bay Area
June 23, 2015
What if low-income kids had the same opportunity for jobs in the tech sector as students from the best computer science departments? What could that mean for their futures, or the future of their communities?
That’s the question asked by Oakland-based Hack the Hood, whose mission is to inspire Bay Area kids to pursue careers in technology. Hack the Hood trains young people by hiring them to build websites for small businesses in their communities. After applying for the Google Impact Challenge last spring, Hack the Hood went to work with $500,000 in Google.org funding and nearly 100 Googler volunteers. In the past year they’ve expanded their programs in SF, Oakland and Richmond to reach six times as many young people.
Last year we awarded $5 million to help “hometown hero” organizations like Hack the Hood make a greater impact. Today we’re announcing the
2015 Challenge
, and issuing an open call for nonprofits who are asking big “what ifs” about how they can improve their communities and put innovative solutions to work in the Bay Area.
Click to find out more about last year's finalists
The Bay Area region has always been defined by the people who live here: people who question the status quo to help move our communities forward. From Harvey Milk’s fight for LGBT rights to Alice Waters’ movement for sustainable food to the technological advances of Silicon Valley, the Bay Area has long been at the forefront of positive social change.
We saw this passion in the 1,000+ nonprofit proposals we received for the 2014 Impact Challenge, and we see it in the 25 finalists. We see it in
C.E.O.
, which is training formerly incarcerated people to reenter the workforce; in
Lava Mae
’s commitment to bringing showers with dignity to the homeless; and in
Mission Asset Fund
’s providing low-income people with zero-interest loans. We see it in our neighbors who are striving for a better Bay Area for all.
As this is our home, and thousands of Googlers live and work here, we want to work together towards an even better Bay Area. The Google Impact Challenge will be accepting proposals from nonprofits through Thursday July 23, 2015 at 11:59 p.m. PDT. To learn more or to nominate a nonprofit visit
g.co/bayareachallenge
.
Update October 21:
826 Valencia, Bayview/Hunters Point Community Legal, City Year, The Hidden Genius Project, Kiva and the Reset Foundation received the top votes in the 2015 Impact Challenge: Bay Area. You can learn more about these organizations on our
website
.
Amazingly, after more than 400,000 votes—an increase of more than 2X from last year—we had a virtual tie for fourth place. So six organizations, instead of four, will each receive $500,000. Overall that means the total amount funded has increased to $5.5 million.
Congratulations to all of the nonprofits that participated in the Challenge and work every day to make the Bay Area better for everyone. And thanks to everyone who voted!
Posted by Jacquelline Fuller, Director, Google.org
Which animal are you? Take the Google Doodle Earth Day Quiz
April 22, 2015
You can search Google for answers to all kinds of animal questions:
What does an aye-aye eat?
Where do narwhals live?
How long is a toco toucan's beak?
And this Earth Day, you can turn to Google for the answer to something that you’ve always
needed
to know:
which animal are you???
Clicking on this year’s Earth Day logo (or searching for “
Earth Day quiz
”) presents one of the Internet’s favorite pastimes: a totally scientific and 1,000% accurate personality quiz. Take the time to answer a few questions to determine and share your Earth Day animal. And, of course, you’re only a search away from learning more about nature’s precious pals and interesting inhabitants (FYI:
kakapo is the heaviest parrot
).
If you need proof of the accuracy of our quiz, look no further than the testimonials of some of our wildlife-loving, quiz-taking friends like
Ed Norton
,
Jared Leto
, and
Maggie Q
. Dame Jane Goodall took the quiz and had this to report:
Once you’ve gotten to know your deepest self (and animal avatar), we hope you’re inspired to help make a real difference this Earth Day. For the month of April, we’re partnering with our friends at
Google.org
, who will match donations to the following animal-loving organizations up to $20,000. That means every $1 you donate to one of these great groups is worth $2 to protect wildlife around the world. Chip in what you can at the
Jane Goodall Institute
,
Maasai Wilderness Conservation Trust
,
World Wildlife Fund
,
WildAid
,
Zoological Society of London
and
Virunga Fund
.
Happy Earth Day!
Posted by Ryan Germick, Doodle Team Lead, Giant Squid
Meet the five Giving through Glass winners
July 9, 2014
We believe technology can help nonprofits make a difference more easily, and connect people to the causes they care about. It's with this in mind that we launched Giving through Glass—a contest for U.S. nonprofits to share ideas for how Google Glass can support the impact they're having every day.
Today, we’re announcing the five winners:
3000 Miles to a Cure
,
Classroom Champions
,
The Hearing and Speech Agency
,
Mark Morris Dance Group
and
Women's Audio Mission
. The winners were selected from more than 1,300 proposals, and each will take home a pair of Glass, a $25,000 grant, a trip to Google for training, and access to Glass developers who can help make their projects a reality.
Here’s what our winners are planning to do with Glass:
Classroom Champions
will give students in
high-needs schools
a look through the eyes of Paralympic athletes as they train and compete, helping kids build empathy and learn to see ability where others too often see only disability. Bay Area-based
Women’s Audio Mission
will give instructors Glass to use in its music and media-based Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math training program for women and girls, creating a more immersive lab experience for students online and in person.
U.S. Paralympic Gold Medalist Josh Sweeney visits a Waller, Texas school
as part of a Classroom Champions program
Two programs focus on using Glass in therapeutic settings. The
Hearing and Speech Agency
will use Glass to pilot new ways to improve communication access for people who have speech language challenges, hearing loss and autism—and support those who teach and care for them. And the
Mark Morris Dance Group
will create a Glass app that will build on their award-winning
Dance for PD®
initiative to help people with Parkinson’s disease remember and trigger body movements in their daily lives.
Finally, Glass will head across the U.S. by bicycle to help raise money and increase awareness for brain cancer research. For the first time, supporters of participants in the
3000 Miles to a Cure Race
Across America will be able to see and experience it through a racer’s eyes and the racer will be alerted to every message of encouragement and donation supporters send.
Developers are already working with these inspiring groups, and next week these five nonprofits will descend on Google Glass' Base Camp in San Francisco for training, and to connect with their Google mentors. Stay tuned for updates on how the projects unfold!
Posted by Jacquelline Fuller, Director of Google.org
Meet the Bay Area Impact Challenge winners
June 4, 2014
Ten days ago, voting
opened
for Google’s first
Bay Area Impact Challenge
, and now the tally is in. On the ballot? Ten amazing nonprofit proposals to make a difference in our community.
Between May 22 and June 2, nearly 200,000 votes poured in (191,504 to be exact)—adjusted for population, that makes it the highest voter turnout we’ve had in a Challenge to date. Now we’re unveiling the winners. Each will receive $500,000 in funding and support from Google:
Hack the Hood
will address digital equity by training low-income youth to build websites for local small businesses, actively supporting them to launch their own tech careers.
Center for Employment Opportunities
will develop a tech platform to prepare formerly incarcerated people for employment in a digital world.
The Health Trust
will create new distribution channels for people to get affordable produce, expanding options for street vendors, corner stores, and farmers' markets for underserved areas.
Bring me a book
will give kids access to digital books, in multiple languages, while creating a supportive online community for parents and caregivers.
Hack the Hood celebrates their win with community advisor Reverend Cecil Williams
But everyone wins in this competition: The six remaining finalists will each receive $250,000, and we also gave an additional 15 nonprofits around the Bay Area $100,000 each.
Finally, all 25 Google Impact Challenge nonprofits will receive one year of accelerator support at our first-ever impact lab, a co-working space launched in partnership with
Impact Hub SF
, a shared workspace for entrepreneurs committed to positive social and environmental change.
Nonprofits will have access to networking events, meeting space, and development workshops in the Impact Hub SF, as well as membership to all U.S. Hub locations. We also plan to host community events for the Bay Area nonprofit community throughout the year—so check out our
website
or follow us on
Google+
to stay in the loop.
Now the work really begins, and we’re excited to continue to build on our ongoing efforts to give back to the community.
Posted by Jacquelline Fuller, Director of Google.org
Bright ideas for an even better Bay Area
May 22, 2014
Local nonprofit heroes are making a difference in our community, and we want to do more to support them. As part of that mission, we recently launched a
Bay Area Impact Challenge
with a question: working together, what can we do to make the Bay Area an even better place to live?
Provide training and job opportunities for people with disabilities. Match surplus medical supplies with community clinics. Bring mobile showers and toilets to the homeless. These are just a few of the nearly 1,000 thoughtful and creative proposals we received.
A panel of
community advisors
—Honorable Aida Alvarez, Secretary Norman Mineta, Chief Teresa Deloach Reed, Reverend Cecil Williams and Barry Zito—joined Googlers to narrow down the pool to the 10 top finalists. Each project was selected for its community impact, ingenuity, scalability and feasibility.
Now we need your help deciding which projects to support. Which one do you think will make the biggest impact in our community?
Vote now
for the four ideas that inspire you.
Your votes will decide which projects get up and running in a big way—with $500,000 going to each of the top four projects, and $250,000 to the next six. An additional 15 nonprofits that entered the Challenge have already received $100,000 each in support of their work.
Cast
your vote
by 11:59 p.m. PST on June 2, and join us in celebrating the community spirit that makes the Bay Area a great place to call home.
Posted by Jacquelline Fuller, Director of Google.org
Ok Glass… Let’s celebrate Earth Day
April 22, 2014
Part of honoring Earth Day is celebrating the people who dedicate their lives to protecting our planet’s most vulnerable species. You’ll find one of those people in the tall grasslands of Nepal’s
Chitwan National Park
, where Sabita Malla, a senior research officer at World Wildlife Fund (WWF), is hard at work protecting rhinos and Bengal tigers from poaching. She spends her days collecting data about wildlife in order to track the animals, assess threats, and provide support where needed. Now, she’s getting help from something a bit unexpected:
Google Glass
.
Last year, WWF started exploring how smart eyewear could help further its conservation mission in the Arctic and the Amazon as part of the
Giving through Glass
Explorer program. Now they’ve brought it to Nepal to see how it could help monitor wild rhinos. Take a peek:
Rhino monitoring can be a slow process, especially in habitats with tricky terrain, but data collection is crucial for making the right conservation decisions. Most parts of Chitwan National Park are inaccessible to vehicles, so Sabita and her team ride in on elephants, and have been collecting health and habitat data using pencil and paper.
Now custom-built Glassware (the Glass version of apps) called Field Notes can help Sabita do her work hands-free instead of gathering data in a notebook. That’s helpful for both accuracy and safety when you’re on an elephant. Using voice commands, Sabita and other researchers can take photos and videos, and map a rhino’s location, size, weight, and other notable characteristics. The notes collected can also be automatically uploaded to a shared doc back at the office, making it easier to collaborate with other researchers, and potentially a lot faster than typing up handwritten notes.
This is just one example of a nonprofit exploring how Glass can make their critical work easier. Today, we’re looking for more ideas from you.
If you work at a nonprofit and have an idea for how to make more of a difference with Glass, share your ideas at
g.co/givingthroughglass
by 11:59 PDT on May 20, 2014. Five U.S.-based nonprofits will get a Glass device, a trip to a Google office for training, a $25,000 grant, and help from Google developers to make your Glass project a reality.
To learn more about Google.org's ongoing collaboration with World Wildlife Fund, visit
this site
.
Posted by Jacquelline Fuller, Director of Google.org
‘Tis the season to give back
December 12, 2013
The holidays are here, and that means eggnog lattes, festive lights and spending time with the people you love. It’s also the season to give back and help make the world brighter for those in need. Today we’re unveiling six new
Global Impact Awards
—totaling $11.5 million in grants—to innovators using technology to tackle the world’s toughest challenges.
This year, we’re inviting you to get in the giving groove with
12 Days of Giving
—an interactive holiday calendar where you can explore a Google-backed cause, donate to what inspires you and unwrap a surprise each day—such as meeting Pamela the polar bear or experiencing how far people walk to reach clean water. To spread cheer throughout the year, download
OneToday
for a daily reminder to give back.
The 12 Days of Giving include our six newest Global Impact Awardees. Join me in celebrating these tech-fueled initiatives:
Zooniverse
: Advanced crowdsourced research hub that allows anyone, anywhere to help create scientific breakthroughs as a citizen scientist.
Kiva
: Finance lab that enables anyone to provide affordable loans to entrepreneurs, students and farmers in poor countries, to support people left out of traditional finance.
Landesa and FrontlineSMS
: Mobile system that transforms the inefficient and confusing process to establish land rights into an accessible, efficient way for poor farmers to get title to their land.
Get Schooled
: Online platform that provides free college prep for underserved students by aggregating resources on scholarships, tests and applications, and setting personal reminders for staying on track.
Samasource
: Platform to train data workers in developing countries and provide jobs.
DoSomething.org
: Comprehensive data initiative to empower more young people to lead and share powerful and effective social impact campaigns.
In 2013, we donated more than $100 million in grants, $1 billion in free ads and apps and 60,000 volunteer hours to nonprofits around the globe.
Posted by Jacquelline Fuller, Director of Google.org
The Endangered Languages Project: Supporting language preservation through technology and collaboration
June 20, 2012
The
Miami-Illinois language
was considered by some to be extinct. Once spoken by Native American communities throughout what’s now the American Midwest, its last fluent speakers died in the 1960s. Decades later, Daryl Baldwin, a citizen of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma, began teaching himself the language from historical manuscripts and now works with the Miami University in Ohio to continue the work of
revitalizing the language
, publishing stories, audio files and other educational materials. Miami children are once again learning the language and—even more inspiring—teaching it to each other.
Daryl’s work is just one example of the efforts being made to preserve and strengthen languages that are on the brink of disappearing. Today we’re introducing something we hope will help: the
Endangered Languages Project
, a website for people to find and share the most up-to-date and comprehensive information about endangered languages. Documenting the 3,000+ languages that are on the verge of extinction (about half of all languages in the world) is an important step in preserving cultural diversity, honoring the knowledge of our elders and empowering our youth. Technology can strengthen these efforts by helping people create high-quality recordings of their elders (often the last speakers of a language), connecting diaspora communities through social media and facilitating language learning.
The Endangered Languages Project, backed by a new coalition, the
Alliance for Linguistic Diversity
, gives those interested in preserving languages a place to store and access research, share advice and build collaborations. People can share their knowledge and research directly through the site and help keep the content up-to-date. A diverse group of collaborators have already begun to contribute content ranging from 18th-century manuscripts to modern teaching tools like
video
and audio language samples and knowledge-sharing articles. Members of the Advisory Committee have also provided guidance, helping shape the site and ensure that it addresses the interests and needs of language communities.
Google has played a role in the development and launch of this project, but the long-term goal is for true experts in the field of language preservation to take the lead. As such, in a few months we’ll officially be handing over the reins to the
First Peoples' Cultural Council
(FPCC) and
The Institute for Language Information and Technology
(The LINGUIST List) at
Eastern Michigan University
. FPCC will take on the role of Advisory Committee Chair, leading outreach and strategy for the project. The LINGUIST List will become the Technical Lead. Both organizations will work in coordination with the Advisory Committee.
As part of this project, research about the world’s most threatened languages is being shared by the Catalogue of Endangered Languages (ELCat), led by teams at the
University of Hawai’i at Manoa
and Eastern Michigan University, with funding provided by the National Science Foundation. Work on ELCat has only just begun, and we’re sharing it through our site so that feedback from language communities and scholars can be incorporated to update our knowledge about the world’s most at-risk languages.
Building upon other efforts to preserve and promote culture online,
Google.org
has seeded this project’s development. We invite interested organizations to join the effort. By bridging independent efforts from around the world we hope to make an important advancement in confronting language endangerment. This project’s future will be decided by those inspired to join this collaborative effort for language preservation. We hope you’ll join us.
Posted by Clara Rivera Rodriguez and Jason Rissman, Project Managers, The Endangered Languages Project
Giving back in 2011
December 14, 2011
As the holiday season approaches we thought it was a good moment to update you on some grants we're making to support education, technology and the fight against modern day slavery.
STEM and girls’ education
Science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) open up great opportunities for young people so we've decided to fund 16 great programs in this area. These include Boston-based
Citizen Schools
and
Generating Genius
in the U.K., both of which work to help to expand the horizons of underprivileged youngsters. In total, our grants will provide enhanced STEM education for more than 3 million students.
In addition, we're supporting girls’ education in the developing world. By giving a girl an education, you not only improve her opportunities, but those of her whole family. The
African Leadership Academy
provides merit scholarships to promising young women across the continent, and the
Afghan Institute of Learning
offers literacy classes to women and girls in rural Afghanistan. Groups like these will use our funds to educate more than 10,000 girls in developing countries.
Empowerment through technology
We've all been wowed by the entrepreneurial spirit behind the 15 awards in this category, all of whom are using the web, open source programming and other technology platforms to connect communities and improve access to information.
Vittana
, for instance, helps lenders offer loans to students in the developing world who have have a 99 percent repayment rate—potentially doubling or tripling a recipient's earning power.
Code for America
enables the web industry to share its skills with the public sector by developing projects that improve transparency and encourage civic engagement on a mass scale. And
Switchboard
is working with local mobile providers to help African health care workers create networks and communicate for free.
Fighting slavery and human trafficking
Modern day slavery is a multi-billion dollar industry that ruins the lives of around 27 million people. So we're funding a number of groups that are working to tackle the problem. For instance, in India,
International Justice Mission (IJM)
, along with
The BBC World Service Trust
,
Action Aid
and
Aide et Action
, are forming a new coalition. It will work on the ground with governments to stop slave labor by identifying the ring masters, documenting abuse, freeing individuals and providing them with therapy as well as job training. Our support will also help expand the reach of tools like the powerful
Slavery Footprint calculator
and
Polaris Project
’s
National Trafficking Hotline
.
To learn more about these organizations and how you can get involved, visit our
Google Gives Back 2011 site
and take a look at this video:
These grants, which total $40 million, are only part of our annual philanthropic efforts. Over the course of the year, Google provided more than $115 million in funding to various nonprofit organizations and academic institutions around the world; our in-kind support (programs like
Google Grants
and
Google Apps for Education
that offer free products and services to eligible organizations) came to more than $1 billion, and our annual company-wide
GoogleServe
event and related programs enabled individual Googlers to donate more than 40,000 hours of their own volunteer time.
As 2011 draws to a close, I’m inspired by this year’s grantees and look forward to seeing their world-changing work in 2012.
Posted by Shona Brown, SVP Google.org
Show your love for charities on Google+ this holiday season
December 7, 2011
We’ve been thrilled to see the ways nonprofit organizations use Google+ to raise awareness about their work, as well as the ways people connect with causes on Google+. In the past couple days, several entertainers have helped start a movement for this holiday season, drawing attention to their favorite charities on Google+ using the phrase
#CauseILoveEm
and creatively showing their followers what they love about these nonprofit organizations.
+Russell Brand
is asking fans to volunteer for two hours of charity work at
+Habitat for Humanity of Greater Los Angeles
,
+Los Angeles Animal Alliance
or one of four other local L.A. charities. In exchange, he and Sarah Silverman will give fans two hours of live comedy.
+Usher
and student participants in his New Look Leadership Academy asked people to do an international act of kindness and post descriptions of their acts including photos and videos as comments on
+Usher's New Look Foundation
. The acts with the most "+1"s will be re-posted by Usher and highlighted on the
New Look Foundation website
.
+Linkin Park
posted a new video asking people to spread about the word about
+Music For Relief
and their new
Power the World Give Light
campaign, which encourages people to donate to provide solar-powered light bulbs for families in Haiti without electricity. People who share
their website
online and drive the most clicks will be eligible to win prizes.
+Dolly Parton
and
+Dolly Parton's Imagination Library
, her early child literacy program that provides 700,000+ free books every month, are sharing
Champion Spotlight
stories about their community leaders and posting the 20 most inspiring
Imagination Moments
submitted by families who have benefited from this gift of reading.
Co-founder
+Hugh Jackman
and
+Laughing Man
Coffee & Tea asked people to share photos of themselves with Laughing Man's fair trade products (the profits of which go to charity) and to sound off on living their motto, "All Be Happy," using #CauseILoveEm to be included in a thank you photo album.
+Find Your Light Foundation
and
+Josh Groban
announced the
Fulfill-a-Wish
campaign, spotlighting the needs of nonprofit arts organizations from across North America in videos and posts, and asking for your help fulfilling these holiday wishes.
We hope you’ll join these folks and lots of others in the Google+ community who have already started sharing their favorite nonprofits this holiday season. Say which nonprofit you like and what you like about them in a public post using the phrase
#CauseILoveEm
and mentioning the nonprofit’s Google+ page by typing “+” and the nonprofit’s name. Be creative and post videos, images and stories that will convince others to love them too. Through the end of December on our
+Google for Nonprofits
page, we’ll re-share great examples of the ways people are recognizing their favorite nonprofits and highlight some nonprofits with which you might want to connect.
If the nonprofit you care about most isn’t yet on Google+, be sure to let them know about our
Google+ for Nonprofit community page
that they can use to get started and learn more. Thanks in advance for caring about these organizations and doing something small to help them grow and achieve their goals during the holiday season.
Posted by Mimi Kravetz, Google.org, Senior Product Marketing Manager
Using technology in crisis preparedness
August 31, 2011
(Cross-posted from the
Google.org Blog
)
In many ways, the arrival of Hurricane Irene last week drove home the importance of National Preparedness Month, an effort from the FEMA Ready campaign to encourage Americans to take steps to prepare for emergencies throughout the year. With people relying on the Internet worldwide, it’s not surprising that
Google search data
and a recently released
American Red Cross survey show
that people turn to online resources and tools for information and communication during major crises. First responders, who provide services in the aftermath of disasters, are also finding Internet and cloud-based tools and information useful—for improving their understanding of a situation, collaborating with each other and communicating with the public.
Today, in preparation for September’s National Preparedness Month, our Crisis Response team is introducing a new
Google Crisis Preparedness website
with information and educational tools on using technology to prepare for crises. On the site, you can see how individuals and organizations have used technology during crises in the past, including how two girls located their grandfather after the Japan earthquake and tsunami in March of this year and how Americorps tracked volunteers during the tornadoes in Joplin, Missouri in May of this year. There’s a section for responders with information on using Google tools in crises, such as collaborating efficiently using Google Docs, Spreadsheets and Sites, visualizing the disaster-related information with Google My Maps and Google Earth, and more.
Also, you can access a new public preparedness web resource launching today:
Get Tech Ready
, developed as a collaboration between FEMA, the American Red Cross, the Ad Council and Google Crisis Response. There, you’ll find tips on using technology to prepare for, adapt to and recover from disasters, for example:
Learn how to send updates via text and internet from your mobile phone in case voice communications are not available
Store your important documents in the cloud so they can be accessed from anywhere or in a secure and remote area such as a flash or jump drive that you can keep readily available
Create an Emergency Information Document using this
Ready.gov Emergency Plan Google Docs Template
, or by
downloading it
to record and share your emergency plans and access them from anywhere
We encourage you to take a moment now to see how simple, easy-to-use and readily-available technology tools can help you prepare for a crisis. You’ll be more comfortable using these tools in the event of a disaster if you’ve already tried them out—and even integrated them into your daily life.
Posted by Nigel Snoad, Crisis Response Product Manager
Examining the impact of clean energy innovation
June 28, 2011
At Google, we’re committed to using technology to solve one of the greatest challenges we face as a country: building a clean energy future. That’s why we’ve worked hard to be carbon neutral as a company, launched our
renewable energy cheaper than coal
initiative and have
invested
in several clean energy companies and projects around the world.
But what if we knew the value of innovation in clean energy technologies? How much could new technologies contribute to our economic growth, enhance our energy security or reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions? Robust data can help us understand these important questions, and the role innovation in clean energy could play in addressing our future economic, security and climate challenges.
Through Google.org, our energy team set out to answer some of these questions. Using
McKinsey’s Low Carbon Economics Tool
(LCET), we assessed the long-term economic impacts for the U.S. assuming breakthroughs were made in several different clean energy technologies, like wind, geothermal and electric vehicles. McKinsey’s LCET is a neutral, analytic set of interlinked models that estimates the potential economic and technology implications of various policy and technology assumptions.
The analysis is based on a model and includes assumptions and conclusions that Google.org developed, so it isn’t a prediction of the future. We’ve decided to make the
analysis and associated data
available everywhere because we believe it could provide a new perspective on the economic value of public and private investment in energy innovation. Here are just some of the most compelling findings:
Energy innovation pays off big:
We compared “business as usual” (BAU) to scenarios with breakthroughs in clean energy technologies. On top of those, we layered a series of possible clean energy policies (more details in the
report
). We found that by 2030, when compared to BAU, breakthroughs could help the U.S.:
Grow GDP by over $155 billion/year ($244 billion in our Clean Policy scenario)
Create over 1.1 million new full-time jobs/year (1.9 million with Clean Policy)
Reduce household energy costs by over $942/year ($995 with Clean Policy)
Reduce U.S. oil consumption by over 1.1 billion barrels/year
Reduce U.S. total carbon emissions by 13% in 2030 (21% with Clean Policy)
Speed matters and delay is costly:
Our model found a mere five year delay (2010-2015) in accelerating technology innovation led to $2.3-3.2 trillion in unrealized GDP, an aggregate 1.2-1.4 million net unrealized jobs and 8-28 more gigatons of potential GHG emissions by 2050.
Policy and innovation can enhance each other:
Combining clean energy policies with technological breakthroughs increased the economic, security and pollution benefits for either innovation or policy alone. Take GHG emissions: the model showed that combining policy and innovation led to 59% GHG reductions by 2050 (vs. 2005 levels), while maintaining economic growth.
This analysis assumed that breakthroughs in clean energy happened and that policies were put in place, and then tried to understand the impact. The data here allows us to imagine a world in which the U.S. captures the potential benefits of some clean energy technologies: economic growth, job generation and a reduction in harmful emissions. We haven’t developed the roadmap, and getting there will take the right mix of policies, sustained investment in technological innovation by public and private institutions and mobilization of the private sector’s entrepreneurial energies. We hope this analysis encourages further discussion and debate on these important issues.
Posted by Bill Weihl, Green Energy Czar, and Charles Baron, Google.org, Clean Energy Team
Webbing the gap between science and the public
June 27, 2011
We recently held an Innovation Workshop for the 2011
Google Science Communication Fellows
, a group of early to mid-career PhD scientists chosen for their leadership in climate change research and communication. The Fellows spent three days together alongside Googlers and external experts at the Googleplex in Mountain View, Calif. exploring the potential of information technology and social media to spur public engagement.
All 21 of the
2011 Fellows
are experienced science communicators, trained in using traditional media to bridge the gap between complex science and the general public. This workshop was an opportunity for them to explore new media communications optimized for the age of the web; or, as as I like to say, learning how to “web” the gap between the science community and the larger world in the digital age.
We organized the workshop around three themes:
Understanding the public.
This session introduced trending tools— like search,
Google Trends
and
Correlate
—that can be used to gather data from search queries and online discussions. If you’re curious,
watch
Google user experience researcher, Dan Russel, give the Fellows a 101 on how people search, and what they’re looking for.
Documenting your science story.
Here, the Fellows played around with
Google Earth
,
Fusion Tables
and
YouTube
to learn how to create interactive and engaging stories with science data, which could then be shared with a broad audience. For more on this, visit the
Science Communications Fellows talks page
on YouTube.
Joining the conversation.
In this session, Googler Chris Messina, a developer advocate, took the Fellows on a journey into the social web, illustrating by examples the power of the crowd in shaping ideas and building understanding across diverse social networks. You can view Chris’s outstanding talk
here
.
Several external experts participated in the workshop as well, including Andy Revkin,
Dot Earth
blogger and senior fellow of environmental understanding at Pace University. Andy gave a thought-provoking
keynote
the first evening, which also included a self-composed ditty about the fossil age (look out
Schoolhouse Rock!
).
Armed with new knowledge on “webbing the gap,” the Fellows are now developing project proposals to put what they learned into practice. Proposal selections will be made later this summer. You can learn more about tools for science communication in the digital age and the innovation workshop at our site
here
. Stay tuned for future opportunities for participating in this program.
Posted by Dr. Amy Luers, Google.org
Thousands of “hackers for good” build applications for humanity
June 20, 2011
(Cross-posted on the
Google.org Blog
)
Earlier this month, thousands of “hackers for good” gathered in more than 19 different global locations—from Berlin to Nairobi, and Sydney to Sao Paulo—to participate in
Random Hacks of Kindness #3
. These teams are now off and running, working with NGO and government advisors to finish their applications for humanity.
In partnership with Microsoft, Yahoo!, NASA and the World Bank, we founded RHoK in 2009 to build and support a community creating open source technology for crisis response. At RHoK #3, we expanded the mandate to include climate change, and we also recently
announced
that we’re broadening the scope in the future to tackle any development challenges.
Of the more than 75 solutions submitted for judging at this year’s
global events
, many are already on their way to making a difference around the world. The UN, in partnership with the Colombia government, is considering adopting the
shelter management system
developed at RHoK Bogota to aid the 3 million victims of winter flooding in South America. Of the nine hacks submitted for judging at
RHoK Sao Paulo
, two are already in use and two others may be further developed and incorporated into the restructuring of the National Weather Service. The winning application at RHoK Philadelphia, developed in response to a problem proposed by the World Bank Water group, is set for further development at the
WaterHackathon
, RHoK's first community-sponsored event, later this year.
At the RHoK Silicon Valley event at Google’s Mountain View campus, we selected three winners:
SMS Person Finder
enables anyone with a phone to interact with Person Finder, a software application that Google built to help people connect with their loved ones following a disaster. The
Google Crisis Response team
is working with this group to integrate their application into future Google Person Finder deployments
Hey Cycle
makes it easier for people to reuse and recycle items by setting up email alerts when free items that they’re looking for are entered on
freecycle.org
FoodMovr
connects people with excess food to others who need it through a simple
live application
We’re proud to be one of the founding partners and ongoing sponsors of Random Hacks of Kindness and look forward to seeing these application make a difference. Stay tuned for future RHoK events, and follow the progress of the community at
RHoK.org
.
Posted by Mimi Kravetz, Google.org Marketing
Using search patterns to track dengue fever
May 30, 2011
(Cross-posted on the
Google.org Blog
)
What does baseball have in common with gazebos? We’re not sure, except that people search on Google for both terms in
similar patterns
. Last week we introduced
Google Correlate
, an experimental tool enabling researchers to model real-world behavior using search trends. We’ve heard from many researchers who want to mine this data for new discoveries about economics and public health—much like we designed
Google Flu Trends
to give an early warning about flu outbreaks. We hope they’re able to make useful discoveries with Google Correlate.
While building Google Correlate, we used it to create an early warning system for another important disease.
Google Dengue Trends
in Bolivia, Brazil, India, Indonesia and Singapore provides an additional surveillance tool for a disease that affects about 100 million people each year. Dengue is a virus spread through mosquito bites that creates symptoms including high fever, severe headache and pain, rash and mild bleeding. There is no vaccine or treatment, so public health efforts are largely focused on helping people take steps to prevent being infected with the disease.
Singapore has an impressively timely surveillance system for dengue, but in many countries it can take weeks or months for dengue case data to be collected, analyzed and made available. During the
dengue outbreak
at last year’s
Commonwealth Games
, we discussed the need for timely dengue information. With help from
Professor John Brownstein
and
Emily Chan
from
HealthMap
, a program at Children’s Hospital Boston and Harvard Medical School, we were able to create our system. Using the dengue case count data provided by
Ministries of Health
and the
World Health Organization
, we’re able to build a model that offers near real-time estimates of dengue activity based on the popularity of certain search terms. Google Dengue Trends is automatically updated every day, thereby providing an early indicator of dengue activity.
The methodology for this system is the same as that for Google Flu Trends and is outlined in a newly published article in
PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases
.
We hope the early warning provided by Google Dengue Trends helps health officials and the public prepare for potential dengue outbreaks. For those who live in places where dengue is present, remember to follow the
advice of health officials
to prevent infection by wearing mosquito repellent and emptying any containers that lure mosquito larvae by gathering standing water.
Posted by Vikram Sahai, Software Engineer
Hacking for humanity in Silicon Valley and around the globe
May 24, 2011
(Cross-posted on the
Code Blog
and
Google.org Blog
)
Two years ago representatives from Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!, Hewlett-Packard, NASA and the World Bank came together to form the
Random Hacks of Kindness
(RHoK) program. The idea was simple: technology can and should be used for good. RHoK brings together subject matter experts, volunteer software developers and designers to create open source and technology agnostic software solutions that address challenges facing humanity. On June 4-5, 2011 we’ll hold the
third Random Hacks of Kindness global event
at five U.S. locations and 13 international sites, giving local developer communities the opportunity to collaborate on problems in person.
The RHoK community has already developed some applications focused on crisis response such as
I’mOK
, a mobile messaging application for disaster response that was used on the ground in Haiti and Chile; and
CHASM
, a visual tool to map landslide risk currently being piloted by the World Bank in landslide affected areas in the Caribbean.
Person Finder
, a tool created by
Google’s crisis response team
to help people find friends and loved ones after a natural disaster, was also refined at RHoK events and effectively deployed in Haiti, Chile and
Japan
.
We’re inviting all developers, designers and anyone else who wants to help “hack for humanity,” to attend one of the
local events
on June 4-5. There, you’ll meet other open source developers, work with experts in disaster and climate issues and contribute code to exciting projects that make a difference. If you’re in Northern California,
come join us
at the Silicon Valley RHoK event at
Google headquarters
.
And if you’re part of an organization that works in the fields of crisis response or climate change, you can
submit a problem definition online
, so that developers and volunteers can work on developing technology to address the challenge.
Visit
http://www.rhok.org/
for more information and to sign up for your local event, and get set to put your hacking skills to good use.
Posted by Carlos Cuesta, Developer Marketing Team
Using the power of mapping to support South Sudan
May 5, 2011
Last Thursday, the
Google Map Maker
team, along with the
World Bank
and
UNITAR/UNOSAT
, held a
unique event
at the
World Bank
Headquarters in Washington, D.C., and a
satellite event
in Nairobi at the same time. More than 70 members of the Sudanese diaspora, along with regional experts from the World Bank,
Sudan Institute
,
Voices for Sudan
,
The Enough Project
and other organizations gathered together to map what is expected to become the world’s newest country later this year: the Republic of South Sudan. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has asked the international community “to assist all Sudanese towards greater stability and development” during and beyond this period of transition.
South Sudan is a large but under-mapped region, and there are very few high-quality maps that display essential features like roads, hospitals and schools. Up-to-date maps are particularly important to humanitarian aid groups, as they help responders target their efforts and mobilize their resources of equipment, personnel and supplies. More generally, maps are an important foundation for the development of the infrastructure and economy of the country and region.
The Map Maker community—a wide-ranging group of volunteers that help build more comprehensive maps of the world using our online mapping tool, Google Map Maker—has been contributing to the mapping effort for Sudan since the referendum on January 9. To aid their work, we’ve published
updated satellite imagery of the region
, covering 125,000 square kilometers and 40 percent of the U.N.’s priority areas, to Google Earth and Maps.
The goal of last week’s event was to engage and train members of the Sudanese diaspora in the United States, and others who have lived and worked in the region, to use Google Map Maker so they could contribute their local knowledge of the region to the ongoing mapping effort, particularly in the area of social infrastructure. Our hope is that this event and others like it will help build a self-sufficient mapping community that will contribute their local expertise and remain engaged in Sudan over time.
We were inspired by the group’s enthusiasm. One attendee told us: “I used to live in this small village that before today did not exist on any maps that I know of...a place unknown to the world. Now I can show to my kids, my friends, my community, where I used to live and better tell the story of my people.”
The group worked together to make several hundred edits to the map of Sudan in four hours. As those edits are approved, they’ll appear live in Google Maps, available for all the world to see. But this wasn’t just a one-day undertaking—attendees will now return to their home communities armed with new tools and ready to teach their friends and family how to join the effort. We look forward to seeing the Southern Sudanese mapping community grow and flourish.
Posted by France Lamy, Program Manager, Google.org
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