From life-saving inventions to new ways of teaching, meet three Aussies who are using what they've learned on YouTube to create lasting change. 

When I was in school during the 90s, watching videos in the classroom was a highlight of any week. The teacher would roll in a television on a cart, pop in a VHS tape, and then we’d enjoy whatever scratchy nature documentary my teacher had checked out from the school video library. Sight, sound and motion have always had the power to engage students.
Now, teachers and students are taking it to a whole new level with YouTube. Every day, more and more people are turning to YouTube to learn with educational videos generating hundreds of millions of views. In fact, 81 percent* of Aussies watch videos to learn how to do something and content with 'how-to' in the title generated more than one billion hours of watch time in 2017, up 75 percent since 2015.
Charles, Macinley and Eddie are but three Aussies using YouTube to learn and follow their passions...

Barbering for Change 

After struggling in school and making some poor decisions when he was younger, Charles Lomu wanted to break the cycle and set his life on a new path--so after putting his kids to bed each night, he jumped on YouTube and watched hundreds of hours of content to learn how to become a barber. He discovered everything he needed to start cutting hair, before setting up a barbershop in his Western Sydney garage. But this isn’t your average barbershop, with his clients ranging from former inmates and young men at risk of falling into crime, to suburban blokes who find comfort confiding in him. Extending his dream even further, Charles also runs a barbering class at Granville Boys High School, working with disengaged students. He’s trying to give back to the community, not only through offering haircuts, but as someone to talk to--all with the hope of changing the problems that old world masculinity is causing in his local community. For Charles, it comes back to one simple mantra: “You don’t have to be certified to be educated, but you have to be experienced to be qualified.”

Inventing Armour to Battle Radiation 

18-year-old Macinley Butson is a remarkable young woman. Long interested in science, she started inventing from early childhood and at just 17 years of age created SMART Armour--a shield to reduce excess radiation for breast cancer patients going through treatment. It’s an invention that has the potential to change cancer treatments around the world. To develop the SMART Armour, Macinley relied on YouTube videos from various creators not just to help her better understand scientific journals and research but to learn the art of making scale maille.
Many of these learning stories are also powered by an incredible community of EduTubers like BrainCraft, Draw with Jazza, Tibees or WooTube, whose videos have demonstrated the appeal of content that enriches as well as entertains.

Sharing the Wonder of Mathematics 

Eddie Woo is a passionate mathematics teacher who so ardently believes in the importance of education that when one of his students was diagnosed with cancer and needed to take long periods of time off school, Eddie started recording his classes and uploading them to YouTube so the student wouldn’t miss out. His journey since has been remarkable. He now has over 580,000 subscribers from all around the world, 32 million video views, and is still uploading. Recently he won Local Australian of the Year and was named in the top 10 teachers in the world. But he too is a student of YouTube--turning to channels from around the world to hone his video production and presentation skills to ensure he is producing the best quality content for others. I recently spoke to Eddie and asked why YouTube? He simply responded: “YouTube is the epitome of what schools and teachers try to do. To be with the learner at their point of need. YouTube is there for me, it serves me, not the reverse. I learn because I want to not because someone told me to.”
We may not all become inventors, mathematicians or community champions but we can promise that anyone who wants to learn or teach will have ever greater opportunities to do both on YouTube. You can get started now with YouTube Learning.
Ashley Chang, Culture & Trends Manager, YouTube APAC, recently viewed "Quantum Computing Expert Explains One Concept in 5 Levels of Difficulty | WIRED". https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-paqKMwiWKb4/XNDgGZYcVtI/AAAAAAAACCs/DTKoG5vkK9IO6liJ95eUbTAgxS5zA9T6gCLcBGAs/s1600/Charles_Lomu_230.jpgAshley ChangCulture & Trends ManagerYouTube APAC
*Google/Ipsos ‘Human Stories Quantitative Study’, August 2017, Australia, n=2,529 males/female YouTube users aged 18-54

We all love looking back at family photos, but often the process of preserving and sharing our photos isn’t as fun as it is snapping them. If you’re that person who takes hundreds of photos at family gatherings (and sometimes forgets to share them), Google Home Hub can give you a helping hand this Mother’s Day.

Hub doubles as a digital photo frame that is easy to set up, automatically refreshes the photos that are displayed, and with the power of AI, features your best shots. Whether you’re taking photos or curating collections to make mum or gran smile, here are a few ways Google Home Hub can help you celebrate your most treasured memories together:

Automatically organise and share your memories with live albums... 

We take lots of photos and videos with the important people in our lives, but sharing those memories can take time. To help you curate and share your most treasured family memories, live albums with Google Photos lets you see your best and latest shots on Hub automatically. Just choose the people (and pets) you want to see, and Google Photos will automatically add photos of them to your album as you take them (avoiding duplicates and blurry shots).

… and keep mum and gran in the loop 

If your mum or gran loves constant photo updates of what your family gets up to, Hub can help you keep her in the loop. Instead of sending her photos via message every day, you can set up a live album on her Hub device with your Photos account so she can see your special moments as they happen. You still have full control of which photos she can see – only the highlights with certain people, or the ones you’ve selected as favourites. Now you’re off the hook for forgetting to send updates! See how to set up live albums and the photo frame feature here.

Dust off and digitise old prints 

We all have those old albums and boxes of photos, but we don’t take the time to digitise them because it’s time consuming and the result is often of low quality. With PhotoScan you can scan mum or gran’s favourite print photos for free and enjoy them on Hub. PhotoScan detects edges, straightens the image, rotates it to the correct orientation, and removes glare using the power of machine learning. Scanned photos can be saved in one tap to Google Photos to be organised, searchable, shared, and safely backed up at high quality—for free. And ta-da – you could unveil this collection as a surprise on Hub on Mother’s Day!

Search and replay the memories with a simple voice command 

You can finally say goodbye to endless scrolling on your phone to find photos you’re looking for! When you’re at Sunday lunch at home you can gather the family and say “Hey Google, show my photos with mum from last December” or “Show my photos with gran in the Blue Mountains” to bring up some of your favourite memories for everyone to enjoy.



Beyond the magic of Photos, Hub can also give mum the gift of inspiration. It can play her favourite music, guide her through recipes – and give her a yoga class!

Whether you're spending the day at home or out and about, we hope Hub and Google Photos can help add to your celebrations this Mother's Day.

As Australians head to the ballot box in coming weeks, they are searching for information on policies, parties and candidates.

We’re working with newsrooms to help journalists access these trends and explore what voters care about this election.

This isn’t about voting intentions, but it does provide unique insights into what people are searching for and what they care about at a local level.

Here’s how we’re helping journalists to use these trends tools.

Working with newsrooms 
The Google News Initiative is working with newsrooms to provide top searched issues, related searches and questions.

To make it easier for journalists to find this data, we’ve launched Google Trends Australian Federal Election 2019 page, which includes state-level data on the top issues searched in each region, such as the economy, education and healthcare (to name a few).



All the charts from the Google Trends pages are embeddable on any site and will continue to update even after they’re placed on your site.

Fighting misinformation 
Google has also supported First Draft to tackle misinformation at a global level since 2015, and together we’re committed to stemming the flow of misinformation and disinformation by working with news organisations, especially ahead of elections.

With support from the Google News Initiative, First Draft this week launched its first bureau in the Asia-Pacific region to assist journalists and publishers unearth and expose misleading, false and untrue claims.

Led by Anne Kruger, the Bureau will be based at the Centre for Media Transition at the University of Technology Sydney and will train and work with professional journalists and student-reporters across the country to develop the skills and expertise to reveal disinformation.

First Draft will work alongside the Walkley Foundation, which is leading a training effort to educate up to 4,000 journalists and journalism students across Australia and New Zealand in digital skills and verification in 2019.

As the Election draws closer, reporters want to understand what people - right across Australia - care about. We look forward to working with them to surface insights to help tell those stories.

Explore more Google Trends at google.com/trends and learn more about the Google News Initiative at g.co/newsinitiative. And stay tuned for more updates on the election from Google!

Posted by Nic Hopkins, News Lab Lead, Google Australia and New Zealand

Building a robot is pretty remarkable, all the more when it’s teams of high school students piecing it together in just 6 weeks to compete at an international competition.

Last month, more than 2,000 students from Australia, China, Vietnam, New Zealand, South Africa, Chinese Taipei, India, Indonesia, USA and Singapore took part in the FIRST Regional Robotics Competition at Sydney Olympic Park.

FIRST Robotics aims to inspire young people to become science and technology leaders, by engaging them in programs that build science, engineering and technology skills. Students work together to build robots that could complete particular challenges.



As part of the program, students receive help from mentors, including industry experts, engineers, school teachers, university students, lecturers, FIRST alumni and others.

A survey of past participants shows those that took part are more likely to study science, technology, engineering or mathematics at university and over 75 per cent of FIRST alumni are now studying or working in a STEM field - skills that are important for Australia's future workforce (Alphabeta).



Google has long supported FIRST and together with Macquarie University we were pleased to help bring the competition to Australia.

This year, we also hosted a breakfast for Women in FIRST to build connections with mentors and be inspired to continue their STEM journey.



FIRST teaches students the computational skills they will need for the future - whether they end up working in computer science, banking, medicine, agriculture or any number of other fields being transformed by technology.

More than STEM skills, the program also develops leadership, resilience, confidence and teamwork - all vital for building an innovation generation. Find out more here.

Posted by Sally-Ann Williams, Engineering Community and Outreach Manager, Google Australia

Tap any event you’re interested in and you’ll get an overview of things like time, location, ticketing providers and other information that will help you decide whether to attend. If you’re ready to take the plunge, you can follow the links to buy tickets from the provider of your choice. If you’re still deciding, you can head to the event webpages for more information. We also make it easy to save events and share with others, so you can plan as you go.

With these new features, you can easily discover events based on your interests. While browsing events, you can tap the “For You” tab to get personalised ideas for things to do near you. You’ll also see trending and popular events in your area to keep you in the loop on the hottest happenings.




You’ll find events from across the web – from meetup and concert sites to individual event listings from organisations and brands you love. We’ve made it easy for sites to mark up their event listings to appear in this experience, with new listings updated quickly. Event sites can follow these guidelines to ensure events are discoverable.

Try it out today to find the perfect dog meetup, local festival or must-see concert for you.


Posted by Emily Fifer, Product Manager

Far North Queenslanders had the opportunity to learn new digital skills today, as Grow with Google came to the region for the first time.

More than 300 small businesses, students, community organisations and individuals attended workshops at the Cairns Convention Centre today.

Queensland Member for Cairns, Michael Healy MP formally opened the event and spoke about the importance of digital skills to the jobs of the future in regional communities.

Businesses and individuals learned how to grow their presence online and find new customers, and individuals at all stages of the digital journey picked up new skills.

Grow with Google aims to give all Australians access to digital skills training, both online and in-person, to help them make the most of the web. It includes a new online learning hub accessible from anywhere, on any device, with hundreds of handy training modules.

Front row: Hannah Frank (Google Australia), Michael Healy MP, Richard Flanagan (Google Australia), Anna Fredericks (James Cook University), Debbie-Anne Bender (CEO, Cairns Chamber of Commerce), Nick Loukas (President, Cairns Chamber of Commerce) Thanks to the Tourism and Investment Queensland (TIQ) and the Cairns Chamber of Commerce for working with us to help deliver these important skills for regional communities.

Grow with Google aims to create opportunity for all Australians to grow their skills, careers, and businesses with free tools, training, and events. Find events near you at: g.co/GrowAustralia.

Posted by Richard Flanagan, Head of Grow with Google, Google Australia

In Australia’s Top End, you will find the country’s largest national park: Kakadu National Park. Covering almost 20,000 square kilometers (about half the size of Switzerland) and with terrain encompassing wetlands, rivers and sandstone escarpments, it’s home to the world’s oldest living culture with more than a dozen Indigenous groups. One-third of Australia’s bird species, an estimated 10,000 crocodiles and approximately 2,000 plant species can also be found in the Park.
Today, on its 40th anniversary, we're inviting people across the world to visit Kakadu National Park on Google Street View--to walk through ancient “stone country”, stare at spectacular waterfalls and discover ancient rock art.
Considered a living cultural landscape, Kakadu National Park’s geological history spans more than two billion years. The Park is a place that boasts extraordinary archaeological sites that record the skills and ways of life of the region’s Aboriginal people, whose culture stretches back more than 65,000 years. The Street View journey captures a glimpse of this world, uncovering rock art galleries and stunning vistas across eight sites.
Viewers can journey to Ubirr for incredible 360-degree views, or to take a look at rock art galleries that record animal life in the region going back thousands of years. This includes a painting of a thylacine—or Tasmanian Tiger—depicted before they became extinct on the mainland around 2,000 years ago.
You can also meander through towering sandstone pillars at Bardedjilidji, travel to Nawurlandja for world-class panoramas across Anbangbang Billabong and the Arnhem Land escarpment, and toward Burrungkuy (Nourlangie) where you can view rock art galleries, before cooling off in the pristine plunge pools at Maguk or Gunlom (one of the most popular sites for travellers looking to take a refreshing dip), then diving into Kakadu’s big waterfalls: Twin Falls and Jim Jim Falls.
This journey through Kakadu National Park is a continuation of our work with Traditional Owners, Tourism Northern Territory and Parks Australia to record and share sacred sites, and instill greater value and respect for the land—which began in 2017 with Uluṟu-Kata Tjuṯa National Park.
Visit Kakadu National Park, dual-listed by UNESCO World Heritage for both its natural and cultural significance, on Google Street View to learn more about the world’s oldest living culture and their connection with the land.
Posted by Cynthia Wei, Program Manager, Google Street View https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-29zxGYJxYsI/XM_UN-L79JI/AAAAAAAACCY/ZIdjeDYM318BODCopAVijh3cCynPIVI3ACLcBGAs/s400/Kakadu%2BStreet%2BView%2B43.jpgCynthia WeiProgram ManagerGoogle Street View