Live from #NSBE45 — how to get the most out of career fairs, conventions, and conferences

Yesterday in Detroit, Michigan the 45th annual National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) convention kicked off. Today marks the beginning of arguably the biggest event of the week … the annual career fair. Googlers are currently on the ground and ready to meet the 12,000+ attendees. 

Embracing this year’s theme, NSBE 45: Explore, Engineer, Elevate.,  Googlers attending #NSBE45 (many of whom previously attended NSBE conventions as students) offered their advice to students and aspiring technologists tackling the career fair for the first time.

Note: All Googlers interviewed or pictured below will be on the ground over the next few days — so if you're at #NSBE45, be sure to drop by our booth and say hi. We'd love to meet you!  


What would you encourage someone to do to make the most of their time at the convention? 
"Talk to professionals currently doing what you would love to see yourself do and ask them questions about their career path." - Adekunle Adeyemo, Systems Engineer, Site Reliability Engineering
"Meet new people. You will be surrounded by brilliance so challenge yourself to establish a relationship with someone new each day." - Jana Landon, University Programs Specialist, HBCUs
"Be open to new opportunities! Learn as much as you can about different companies and roles. Don't be afraid of exploring a new job option that you might not have known about before." - Noel Elgamal, University Recruiter
"Research 7-10 companies that you want to work for, memorize their mission, know their founders, and know what roles are open that you want." - April Curley, University Programs Specialist, HBCUs
"Network, be authentic, remember names and FOLLOW UP!" - Jojo Johnson, Information Technology Resident

What career advice do you have for aspiring technologists who will be attending the conference?
"Be curious and ask questions — learning how to investigate systems and figuring out how parts interact is a great skill that'll help in your career." - Desiye Collier, Software Engineer
"What do you find yourself researching/reading/doing when no one is around? Take whatever popped in your head and try to build a career around it." - Kenny Sulaimon, Program Manager, Android System Health 
"Get everything you can out of every opportunity! Make your time mean something." — Kim Martin, Software Engineer
"Be yourself — don't conform for anything. You're unique and bring something to the table that's missing, so share all that you are." - Bakary Diarrassouba, Program Manager, Privacy
"Try to keep an open mind. You may not find the position you are looking for, but once you get your foot in the door, then you can look towards the position you really desire." - Everone Graham, Information Technology Resident

Why is attending NSBE meaningful to you?
"I received my first full-time offer through a NSBE conference, giving back means everything to me." - Bakary Diarrassouba, Program Manager, Privacy
"It's important for me to see and be an example for other Black Computer Scientists." - Kim Martin, Software Engineer
"NSBE to me is like a second family. Without NSBE I would not be where I am today and I am forever grateful for that. I got my first Google job at a NSBE conference and since then I've been able to go back and help other people get opportunities just like me. Attending NSBE is my way of giving back to my community and also reuniting with the family that gave me the opportunities I have today." - Kenny Sulaimon, Program Manager, Android System Health 
Even if you're not at #NSBE45 we hope you can apply some of this advice to your next career fair, convention, or conference. Follow along as we go behind the scenes at #NSBE45 including at the upcoming hackathon in our Detroit office Mar 29-30 : Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.



Open sourcing Science Journal iOS



Google’s Science Journal app enables you to use the sensors in your mobile devices to perform science experiments. We believe anyone can be a scientist anywhere. Science doesn’t just happen in the classroom or lab—tools like Science Journal let you see how the world works with just your phone. From learning about sound and motion to discovering how atmospheric pressure works, Science Journal helps you understand and measure the world around you.

We’re extremely excited to announce that we’re open sourcing this powerful science tool. We know the heart of science is not just critical thinking, but also knowledge sharing, building on discoveries, and learning about the world. Have a student with a knack for building things? Do you want to learn how mobile applications are put together? Download our source code, make changes and discoveries, and then deploy the newly-modified app to your own iOS device.

Why open source?

Inquiring minds are always asking, “How does this work?” With our open source app, there are many science and engineering topics to explore! For example, we use the Fast Fourier transform in our iOS code, but you may ask “how did you do that?” Because you can see our source code, you can discover-- not just that we used the Fast Fourier transform-- but how the algorithm works. We also make it possible to graph many sensor values in realtime and now you can see exactly how we’ve made that possible.

If you aren’t an iOS or Android engineer, don’t fret! You can even learn how apps are put together so you can build your own. Learning from, and making modifications to, open source code has helped countless Google engineers explore complicated topics and learn new skills.



Have you ever wished you could do something with Science Journal that it doesn’t currently do? Do you have an idea for building a new sensor and displaying its data in Science Journal? Maybe you’ve wanted to experiment with changing colors or fonts in the app, or even changing the Science Journal app icon to be a labrador with a lab coat? Now you can, by forking our repo, making changes, and committing them in your fork!

If you think your changes are amazing and should be included in Google’s Science Journal App, read our contribution guide. But if you want to keep your changes to yourself and your friends, well, that’s cool too! We’d love to see what you’ve built, so you can tweet at us @GScienceJournal, or just use the #myScienceJournal hashtag on Twitter.

By Joshua Liebowitz, iOS Tech Lead

Five takeaways from our programmatic panel at World Forum Disrupt

At World Forum Disrupt’s 2019 programmatic event, I was invited to lead a conversation on the future of programmatic with three leading publishers. As the majority of digital ad dollars are now flowing through programmatic pipes, we discussed the trends and best practices of today and outlined a roadmap for the future of our dynamic industry.

The panel, which included a superstar cast of publishers, wasn’t afraid to share detailed views as we explored how to maximize the impact of programmatic.

Panelists included Forbes’ VP of Programmatic Operations, Rebeca Solorzano, Zynga’s Head of Global Advertising Sales, Gabrielle Heyman, and Vox Media’s Director of Platform and Audience Strategy, Katie Millington.

Today, I’m sharing five key takeaways from the panel:

List 1
Advertisers have a renewed trust in buying ad inventory in the Open Auction thanks to industry initiatives like ads.txt that work to combat fraudulent activity. But, there’s still strong demand from media buyers to secure programmatic inventory from a select list of publishers in private marketplaces.

“We're seeing the open market trend upward for sure. If you look back since 2017, it's increased steadily year-over-year, and based on our forecasting, we think it will increase in 2019 as well. But I think there's still definitely a need for Private Marketplaces (PMPs), we still get tons of requests from buyers around PMPs.”  

- Katie Millington, Vox Media

List 2
Publishers are working to educate media buyers on all of the programmatic opportunities available to them as brand leaders look to shift more of their budgets towards automated buying.

“We see a shift for agencies, they want to spend more dollars on programmatic. In terms of education, they don't always fully understand what programmatic is. Providing education and letting buyers know what they can do is still important.” 

- Rebeca Solorzano, Forbes

List 3
Mobile web and in-app ad inventory, specifically games, is plentiful and readily available for top advertisers to tap into.

“Across the board, we've seen a definite uptick in mobile. I think that the ubiquitous nature of mobile in-app has brought games to the forefront, and I think that they're slowly but surely becoming a sexier opportunity for brands. But it's still very much a whack-a-mole kind of battle that involves explaining, educating, persuading, et cetera.” 

- Gabrielle Heyman, ZYNGA

List 4
Publishers using Programmatic Guaranteed to manage their direct reservation deals are seeing improvement in campaign sales and management workflow efficiency.

“We partnered on a case study with Boston Consulting Group to prove the time savings generated by programmatic sales. For agencies it was around 30% time savings, and for us it was upwards of 50%. With programmatic, we can definitely run more media at an efficient rate and lessen the back-and-forth in the buying and selling process.”


- Katie Millington, Vox Media

List 5
Direct reservation deals were a top focus for all panelists as their advertiser clients are looking to guarantee premium, brand safe inventory.  

“I want us to focus more on making sure buyers understand the quality of the product that we're putting out and think about execution later. If you want to run through a direct insertion order you can, if you want to run via Programmatic Guaranteed you can. It's up to my team to make sure the technology is there.”


- Rebeca Solorzano, Forbes

Looking for more insights? Watch the full panel video here:

The Future of Programmatic Panel: World Forum Disrupt

Not able to attend the 2019 Programmatic World Forum in person? You’re still in luck: Videos from several key sessions, including this panel, are available from World Forum Disrupt.

Bringing digital and media literacy education to more schools in Korea

Three years ago, the Center for Digital Literacy (CDL) embarked on a pilot program to bring digital and media literacy skills to junior high school students in schools across Seoul and Gyeonggi provinces. Through the Digital & Media Literacy Campus program, kids like Yang Chaemin have learned how to better evaluate online media sources and also to experience the fun and excitement that digital technologies like AR and VR have to offer.

Jacquelline Fuller at Geumho Girls Middle School

Here, I’m with Yang Chaemin and her classmates at Geumho Girls Middle School, where they’re learning to critically interpret online resources and are able to practice using a range of digital tools.

Two years ago, with a grant from Google.org, CDL was able to expand the program. Since then, they’ve reached 10,000 children across 200 schools. CDL has also delivered training to a thousand parents, equipping them with tips to help their kids use digital media. Working with parents is important because developing awareness for opportunities that technology creates often starts at home.

Given the incredible impact CDL has had over the last two years, we recently extended our support for CDL. Through an additional grant, CDL will now bring the program to another 7,000 students and train 600 more teachers across Korea. In this phase, they’ll especially focus on bringing the program to children in rural areas, where there are often fewer opportunities to access digital education.

Over the past few years, Google.org has had an incredible opportunity to support a number of education programs in Korea. Whether it's investing in digital literacy as we’ve done through CDL, or inspiring innovative thinking among children at the Gwacheon National Science Museum, we hope these efforts will equip more Korean youth with the inspiration, skills and knowledge to reach their potential.


Yeseo Yoo at Hanbada Middle School

“It was a miracle that I could have the opportunity to learn about digital literacy at my school. Through this class, I was able to do what I thought only adults could do and only professionals could do. I've experienced augmented reality, and I've designed a virtual reality space with my friends. The most interesting thing for me was big data analysis and infographic video production. Now I dream of becoming a software developer, creating something that didn't exist today and contributing to a beautiful world."  — Yeseo Yoo, 15-year old student at Hanbada Middle School, who attended CDL's program in 2018

Five Australian winners of the Google News Initiative (GNI) Innovation Challenge

Last year, we launched the Google News Initiative (GNI) Asia Pacific Innovation Challenge, aimed at strengthening our support of digital innovation and new business models in news organisations. 

Through our work and partnership with publishers, it’s clear that reader revenue is key to their financial stability. We want to support innovators in this space—those who are pioneering approaches that involve everything from granting digital currency to subscription-based membership models. 

Today, I’m delighted to announce that five Australian projects will be supported as part of the Innovation Challenge. The projects include:

  • Crikey (Private Media) - Crikey's business model is already geared towards reader revenue, with over 90% of its revenue coming from individual subscribers. It aims to expand and diversify its pool of reader revenue by developing an innovative, user-friendly group subscription offering. 
  • Women's Agenda (Agenda Media Pty Ltd) - The Women's Agenda Extra platform is offering loyal readers a little 'extra' through a simple membership platform, featuring core components including regular deep dives on key news events; opportunities for members to discuss stories with journalists and editors; a database of female expert sources. 
  • Guardian News and Media Australia (GNM Australia Pty Ltd) - Guardian Australia will develop, prototype and user test a technology solution that will allow the timed surfacing of rich media during audio playback on mobile. This will enhance the user experience when listening to audio content and make it easier for listeners to make financial contributions to publishers.
  • Mamamia (Mamamia.com.au Pty Ltd) - Mamamia is developing a membership proposition that caters for different audiences’ content preferences. Building on existing high audience engagement, it aims to diversify both revenue and traffic sources for the organisation.
  • Community Broadcasting Association of Australia - The association will pilot a fundraising platform for Australia’s community broadcasting sector. Donations are a key growth area for income generation in community broadcasting and this project will develop fundraising technology for the sector. 

Within two months of opening up the Innovation Challenge, we received 215 applications from 18 countries. After a rigorous review, a round of interviews and a thorough jury selection process, we ended up providing support to 23 projects in 14 countries—amounting to a total of $3.2 million. 

When we called for applications, we listed four criteria: impact, feasibility, innovation and inspiration. The winners demonstrated a combination of each.

Thank you to every organisation who applied. There will be a second round of the APAC GNI Innovation Challenge later this year, and we encourage you all to re-apply. Watch out for details on our website.

Posted by Kate Beddoe, Head of Google News Initiative, Asia Pacific

Chrome Beta for Android Update

Hi everyone! We've just released Chrome Beta 74 (74.0.3729.39) for Android: it's now available on Google Play.

You can see a partial list of the changes in the Git log. For details on new features, check out the Chromium blog, and for details on web platform updates, check here.

If you find a new issue, please let us know by filing a bug.

Krishna Govind
Google Chrome

Google Pay says G’day to Mobile myki

We know that standing in line at stations can completely derail your day—especially when you're standing in line to buy a ticket and the train whizzes by.

Starting today, If you’re a myki user in Melbourne or regional Victoria, you can now skip the line and get there faster with Google Pay.

Google Pay is the first mobile wallet to launch with Mobile myki, thanks to a partnership with Victoria’s ticketing provider, NTT DATA, and Public Transport Victoria. Now you’ll be able to buy your myki Pass or top up with myki Money in the Google Pay app, and use your phone to ride – even without opening the app.



Once you’ve created your card, you’ll find real-time information about your myki balance and recent transactions and get low balance notifications. Passengers will be able to buy Full fare, Concession, Child and Senior Mobile mykis – and auto load will also be available. Soon, you’ll also be able to see your current balance in Google Maps when you’re planning your myki journey, and initiate your top-up from there.




Ready to give it a go? Make sure you have the latest version of Google Pay on a compatible device that runs on Android 5.0 or higher, and purchase your Mobile myki via the Google Pay app. Signing up for your Mobile myki card is at no cost, but you will need to top-up with a minimum of $10 to get started. This amount is turned into a credit to cover the cost of your future travel.

When you’re ready to go, wake up your phone and hold it at the myki reader to ride!

Posted by Prakash Hariramani, Director of Product Management, Google Pay

Launching new Google Drive / Microsoft Outlook integration, shutting down legacy plugin

What’s changing 

We’re updating Drive File Stream to replace the functionality of the “Google Drive plug-in for Microsoft Office.” As a result, the outdated plugin will be shut down on June 26, 2019. This only impacts users of the Google Drive plug-in for Microsoft Office. Those users will notice two key changes:

  1. New Drive / Outlook integration: The update to Drive File Stream will include a plugin to manage Google Drive files from Microsoft Outlook. This will make it easier for users to use Google Drive without leaving the Outlook interface. 
  2. New process to save to, or open from Drive: Drive File Stream users can save and open Drive files through the regular menu, rather than using the Google Drive plug-in for Microsoft Office interface. 
    • To save to Drive, use File > Save, then choose a destination in Drive File Stream. 
    • To open from Drive, Open through the File > Open menu and find the file you want. 

If your organization uses the Google Drive plug-in for Microsoft Office, you should make sure your users are using the latest version of Drive File Stream before June 26, 2019 to ensure continued access to this functionality.
The new plugin will bring Drive to the Outlook interface 

Who’s impacted 

Admins and end users

Why you’d use it 

Drive File Stream offers an easy way to integrate Microsoft Office and Google Drive. The latest versions (30.1 and up) will include the new Outlook plugin that will make it easier for users to:

  • Save attachments from Outlook to Drive 
  • Attach Drive files to Outlook messages 
  • Ensure recipients always have access to Drive links sent in Outlook emails 

Drive File Stream already makes it easy to save to the local Drive File Stream folder through the regular “Save” menu.

By ensuring your users are using the new plugin before June 26, 2019, there will be little to no disruption to their workflows.

How to get started 




Additional details 

Users of the Drive for Office plugin will see an in-product notification, pictured below, starting on March 27, 2019. This will encourage them to update to the new plugin to continue using Drive from Outlook.


Helpful links 




Availability 

Rollout details 

  • Rapid Release domains: Available in Drive File Stream version 30.1 and up, which will become available on March 27, 2019. 
  • Scheduled Release domains: Available in Drive File Stream version 30.1 and up, which will become available on March 27, 2019. 


G Suite editions 
Available to all G Suite editions.

On/off by default? 
This feature will be ON by default.

Stay up to date with G Suite launches

Announcing v1_1 of the Google Ads API

Today we’re announcing the v1_1 release of the Google Ads API. With this version, you’ll continue pointing to v1 as your endpoint; however, you'll need to update your client libraries in order to use v1_1 features. If you're still on the AdWords API, now is a good time to give the new API a try.

Here are the highlights: What resources are available?
Check out these helpful resources: The updated client libraries and code examples will be published by March 29, 2019. If you have any questions or need help, please contact us via the forum.
Nadine Sundquist, Google Ads API Team

Beta Channel Update for Desktop

The beta channel has been updated to 74.0.3729.40 for Windows, Mac, and, Linux.


A full list of changes in this build is available in the log. Interested in switching release channels?  Find out how here. If you find a new issue, please let us know by filing a bug. The community help forum is also a great place to reach out for help or learn about common issues.



Abdul Syed
Google Chrome