GFiber is proud to support the work of AVANCE-Austin for the past five years, as they work to meet the basic needs of Austin families and go far beyond to help them thrive. Today, Stephanie De Leon, Senior Development and Communications Manager for AVANCE-Austin, shares how the organization provides holistic support, including tech skills and access, to their clients.

For close to 30 years, AVANCE-Austin has served under-resourced families through education classes and wrap-around support. AVANCE’s main programs — The Parent Child-Education Program and AVANCE to College — provide caregivers and their children, up to age four, with parenting and early childhood classes.

Along with providing educational curriculum, AVANCE-Austin assesses the basic needs of these families during monthly home visits. Basic needs support in areas such as food, healthcare, workforce development, childcare, transportation and technology. AVANCE Home Visitors connect families to over 40 community agencies and partner organizations within Travis County to help meet these needs.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, AVANCE-Austin families have reported an increased number of access barriers to education, healthcare and employment opportunities while lacking basic technology and digital skills. In 2020, 98% of families did not have home internet. Instead, they relied on their phones, which had limited data packages, to participate in AVANCE’s virtual programs. While phones are indispensable for staying connected, they fall short for more complex needs. Online classes, job applications, job training, and even the seemingly simple task of typing a resume are far from “phone-friendly.”

In a significant stride toward digital equity efforts, AVANCE-Austin has worked with GFiber, NTEN, Human IT and Digital UpLift to provide essential technology resources to under-resourced Travis County families. This collaboration aims to address the digital divide by offering Chromebooks, internet hotspots and comprehensive digital literacy training, ensuring families have the tools and knowledge to thrive in an increasingly digital world.

From September 2024 to May 2025, AVANCE-Austin distributed over 350 technology devices, 25 hotspots, upskilled 10 staff members as Digital Navigators, and hosted basic digital literacy workshops to meet community needs.

One recent AVANCE-Austin program graduate shared, “Having quick access to information and the opportunity to learn new software programs was really exciting. I didn't know anything about all the different search engines available, and being able to complete the work online was very beneficial. It was great to have access to email and stay connected throughout the program. For some, it may seem like just an ordinary laptop, but for others, it's a huge accomplishment, as many had never used one before. They didn't know how to operate it, so being able to learn all that was truly a blessing.”

As technology continues to evolve, AVANCE-Austin remains committed to growing partnerships with community-centered businesses like GFiber to create an inclusive digital ecosystem. AVANCE envisions a world where all children and families have equitable access to resources and opportunities to reach their fullest potential.

For more information on AVANCE-Austin's programs and initiatives, visit www.avanceaustin.org.

Posted by Stephanie De Leon, Sr. Development and Communications Manager at AVANCE-Austin

Earlier this year, we announced that “take notes for me” will capture next steps discussed during the meeting in a new “suggested next steps” section. Powered by AI, these next steps and follow-ups will automatically be identified and organized within the meeting notes document. 

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This Google ChromeOS collaboration with NASA uses AI to visualize the unseeable.

Posted by Robbie McLachlan, Developer Marketing

How do you tackle the planet's biggest sustainability and environmental challenges? For 10 new founders we’re spotlighting in #WeArePlay, it starts with coding. Their apps and games are helping to build a healthier planet by developing career paths for aspiring environmentalists, preserving indigenous knowledge, and turning nature education into an adventure for all.

Here are a few of our favourites:

Ariane, Flávia, Andréia, and Mayla's game BoRa turns a simple park visit into an immersive, gamified adventure.

Ariane, Flávia, Andréia, and Mayla, co-founders of Fubá Educação AmbientalSão Carlos, Brazil

Passionate about nature, co-founders Mayla, Flávia, Andréia, and Ariane met while researching environmental education. They wanted to foster more meaningful connections between people and Brazil's national parks. Their app, BoRa - Iguaçu National Park, transforms a visit into an immersive experience using interactive storytelling, gamified trails, and accessibility features like sign language, helping everyone connect more deeply with the natural world.

Louis and Justin's app, CyberTracker, turns the ancient knowledge of indigenous trackers into vital scientific data for modern conservation.

Louis, co-founder of CyberTracker ConservationCape Town, South Africa

Louis knew that animal tracking was a science, but the expert knowledge of many indigenous trackers couldn't be recorded because they were unable to read or write. He partnered with Justin to create CyberTracker to solve this. Their app uses a simple icon-based interface, enabling non-literate trackers to record vital biodiversity data. This innovation preserves invaluable knowledge and supports conservation efforts worldwide.

Bharati and Saurabh’s app, Earth5R, turns a passion for the planet into real-world experience and careers in the green economy.

Bharati and Saurabh, co-founders of Earth5R Environmental ServicesMumbai, India

After a life-changing cycling trip around the world, Saurabh was inspired by sustainable practices he saw in different communities. He and his wife, Bharati, brought those lessons home to Mumbai and launched Earth5R. Their app provides environmental education and career development, connecting people to internships and hands-on projects. By providing the skills and experience needed for the green economy, they're building the next generation of environmental leaders.

Discover more #WeArePlay stories from founders across the globe.

What's Changing

We’re adding an additional data field for Google Meet log events: encryption_type, which will indicate whether standard cloud encryption or client-side encryption was used for a call endpoint. This information can also be called using the Admin Reports SDK API under the values: cloud_encryption and cse_encryption.

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What’s changing 

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What’s changing?

As announced last year, Google will stop serving political advertising in the European Union ahead of a new regulation taking effect in October 2025. On September 3, 2025, the Google Ads API and Google Ads scripts will roll out enforcements related to this change. If you use either of these products to create or manage campaigns, you may need to update your application to handle these enforcements before September 3, 2025.

API support for self-declaration of EU political ads

Google Ads API and Google Ads scripts have added support for self-declaration as to whether a campaign has EU political ads. Learn how an EU political ad is defined here. Versions v19.2, v20.1, and v21 of the API contain a new field named contains_eu_political_advertising in the Campaign object. The possible values and their meaning are shown in the table below.

Value	Meaning
CONTAINS_EU_POLITICAL_ADVERTISING	The campaign has EU political ads.
DOES_NOT_CONTAIN_EU_POLITICAL_ADVERTISING	The campaign does not have EU political ads.
UNSPECIFIED	The campaign is missing self-declaration about EU political ads.

You can retrieve the self-declaration status of a campaign in Google Ads API by running the following query using either the Search or SearchStream methods of the GoogleAdsService. For Google Ads Scripts, use the AdsApp.search or AdsApp.report methods.

select campaign.id, campaign.contains_eu_political_advertising from campaign

If you use the Google Ads API client libraries, you may need to download the latest library version to use this functionality in versions v19 and v20 of the API.

API validation & enforcement changes

On September 3, 2025, Google Ads API and Google Ads scripts will start enforcing the following checks in versions v19 and v20 of the API.

• All new campaigns created either through Google Ads API or Google Ads scripts should set the contains_eu_political_advertising field. The API call to create a new campaign using CampaignService.MutateCampaigns will fail with a FieldError.REQUIRED error if this field is not set. Google Ads Scripts will enforce these checks when creating campaigns using AdsApp.mutate or AdsApp.mutateAll methods.
• All the existing campaigns should set the contains_eu_political_advertising field before attempting to change proximity, location, or location_group targeting either at the campaign or ad group levels. The API call to create or update these campaign criteria using CampaignCriterionService.MutateCampaignCriteria method for existing campaigns will fail with a CriterionError.MISSING_EU_POLITICAL_ADVERTISING_SELF_DECLARATION error if the campaign hasn’t completed the self-declaration. The API call to create or update these ad group criteria using AdGroupCriterionService.MutateAdGroupCriteria will also fail in a similar manner if the campaign hasn’t completed the self-declaration. Google Ads scripts will enforce these checks when attempting to change targeting using AdsApp.mutate, AdsApp.mutateAll, AdsApp.Campaign.addProximity, and AdsApp.Campaign.addLocation methods.
• These enforcements also apply to other mechanisms that you can use to make campaigns, such as running Batch Jobs and using GoogleAdsService.Mutate method to create and update entities.
• Attempting to schedule a new experiment using ExperimentService.ScheduleExperiment method will throw an ExperimentError.MISSING_EU_POLITICAL_ADVERTISING_SELF_DECLARATION error if the contains_eu_political_advertising declaration is missing on the treatment draft campaigns.
• If you use the bulk upload feature in Google Ads scripts, check the product documentation to learn more about the spreadsheet template changes required as part of this change.

These checks are already enforced in version v21 of the Google Ads API.

How will this affect my campaign serving?

Any campaign that has declared EU political ads by setting contains_eu_political_advertising to true will stop serving ads in the EU on September 22, 2025. Refer to our Help Center to learn more.

Existing campaigns without a declaration will remain unaffected for now. We recommend updating the existing campaigns in your accounts with an appropriate declaration as soon as possible. You can retrieve campaigns without a declaration using the following GAQL query using either the Search or SearchStream methods of the GoogleAdsService.

select campaign.id, campaign.contains_eu_political_advertising
  from
    campaign
  where 
    campaign.contains_eu_political_advertising NOT IN
    (
       'CONTAINS_EU_POLITICAL_ADVERTISING',
       'DOES_NOT_CONTAIN_EU_POLITICAL_ADVERTISING'
    )

What do I need to do?

If your application uses either Google Ads API or Google Ads scripts to create or manage campaigns, make sure to update your application to handle these enforcements before September 3, 2025.

How do I get help?

Reach out to the Google Ads API support or Google Ads scripts support channels if you have more questions about this change.

 - Anash P. Oommen, Google Ads API Team

Our Perch AI model helps conservationists analyze bioacoustic data to protect endangered species like birds and coral reefs.

Here are Google’s latest AI updates from July 2025

An overview of how Google.org is evolving support beyond the Research Scholar program to support the entire research ecosystem.