Tag Archives: Europe

These women-led businesses are finding new ways to thrive

The past year has been difficult for all kinds of small businesses. But it’s been disproportionately tough for women-led businesses, with women’s jobs nearly twice as vulnerable due to the fallout of the pandemic. On this International Women’s Day, we wanted to celebrate the achievements of three European entrepreneurs who have adapted and thrived in the face of economic uncertainty.

Portrait of Syreeta Levy, barbershop owner, alongside a screenshot of her Business Profile listing

In London, Lyon and Barcelona

Syreeta Levy runs Levy & Co, a men’s barbershop in North London. As a gay Black woman, Syreeta’s intention has always been for her business to attract and appeal to a diverse audience. Levy & Co’s success is a testament to the strong personal connection she forges with her customers, regardless of their background. “It comes down to two core things: haircuts and counseling,” she explains. Her brand’s distinct personality figures in as well, and Syreeta features it in her marketing.  Syreeta has also added the “women-led” and “LGBTQ-friendly” business attributes to her Business Profile, which potential customers can now see directly on Google Search and Maps. She believes this helps her business stand out in search results and they’re a big part of her shop’s appeal.

It’s a similar story for Allison Denis from Lyon, France. In 2016, she launched her “self-garage” business, Mabagnol, which gives drivers the space and the tools to fix their own cars. Allison’s biggest challenge has been establishing her place in the male-overrepresented industry of automotive repair, and like Syreeta, she's proud to identify as a women-led business online.

And in Barcelona, there’s Berta Font Amor, Monse González Yebra and Mavi Calabrese, who started Fit Lovas, a fitness community where women feel confident to be themselves. Promoting their venture online as a women-led business has helped Fit Lovas attract new members from around the world. As well as serving their local community, the growing business now regularly welcomes women from Mexico, Argentina, and other Spanish-speaking countries to their online classes.

Screenshot of the Business Profile for Mabagnol, alongside a photo of the garage

Finding new ways to thrive

Even in the midst of the pandemic, all three businesses have found ways to stay afloat, adapt and keep communicating with customers.

In Lyon, lockdown restrictions have made Allison reliant on her online channels to attract customers and generate bookings as customers needed an appointment before visiting. As a result, she updates her Google Business Profile each day and adds new photos of her garage to help it stand out. Despite a fiercely competitive sector, Allison’s website attracts over 12,000 people each quarter, and a big slice of new inquiries are first-time visitors. 

Over in Barcelona, Fit Lovas has gone virtual, using their Business Profile to indicate that they now offeronline classes — which means they can also reach new international audiences. “Offering an online service allowed us to keep growing, thanks to women from all over the world,” says Mavi. They've since seen their membership grow, and the traffic coming to their website via their Business Profile has more than doubled between February 2020 and January 2021. Looking ahead, Fit Lovas are excited to build on this new hybrid business model and grow their membership even further.

photo of two of the owners of Fit Lovas, alongside a screenshot of their Business Profile

Back in London, Syreeta has become 100% reliant on her online presence. "Because of lockdown, a lot of people at home are looking online to find barbers in the local area — and our Business Profile on Google is one of the first things they see,” she says. When lockdown restrictions were lifted in 2020, Syreeta saw a 70% increase in bookings, all via her website. “The number of people that came through the Business Profile to the website was off the scale,” recalls Syreeta. ”I'm not kidding you, last July I worked 10 hours a day, seven days a week.”

It's inspiring to see how these entrepreneurs have adapted their business models and taken advantage of online tools. A lot is uncertain right now, but we do know that small businesses are the backbone of our economies. That’s why Google renewed its efforts last year and pledged to help 10 million people and businesses in Europe, the Middle East and Africa find jobs, digitize and grow over the next 18 months through easy-to-use tools and training. We’re excited to see what they’ll come up with.

Discover the artist who could hear colors

If you’ve ever tried to describe colors with words, chances are you struggled to find the exact terms to convey what your eyes perceive, and you end up resorting to metaphors. In the dictionary, red is described as resembling the color of blood. Blue gets compared to  a clear sky. Green almost always finds itself aligned with grass and growing foliage. 


But what if you could use other senses to draw parallels between colors and sounds? That’s the creative endeavour that Vassily Kandinsky set to pursue in some of his artworks. Thanks to his gift of synesthesia, an ability for multi-sensory perception, he was able to explore the relationship between sounds, colors and shapes, and to translate music to paintings. 


The Centre Pompidou and Google Arts & Culture have partnered to pay tribute to the artist, who is considered an initiator of the abstract art movement. “Sounds like Kandinsky” brings together his most emblematic artworks, opens up some rare personal archives, and introduces a Machine Learning experiment that lets everyone “Play a Kandinsky”. 


Though many people will be able to recognize some of Kandinsky’s most famous artworks, the man behind the canvas is less known. We have digitized 3,700  artworks, personal photographs, and documents with Google Arts & Culture’s tabletop scanner - such as childhood memories, pictures of holidays with Paul Klee, or Kandinksy’s studio in Neuilly  - contributed by the Kandinsky collection bequeathed by Nina Kandinsky. This allows everyone to enter the universe of the artist's life and work.

  • Improvisation

    No need to be a specialist in abstract art to fully appreciate your exploration, with Angela Lampe, curator and world expert of Kandinsky guiding you through the exhibitions.

  • Personal archives

    Discover rare personal archives, like this photograph of Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee on the terrace of the teacher's house in Dessau.

  • Kandinsky artwork

    Dive into masterpieces and lesser known artworks from the painter. In addition to the photographs the Centre Pompidou owns over 1200 of Kandinsky’s artworks.

  • Personal archives

    The donation from Nina Kandinsky to Centre Pompidou also contains family photographs of Kandinsky’s family and childhood.

Trace the life and work of Kandinsky from his debut in Russia to his time teaching at the Bauhaus school. Discover his studio during his Parisian years and lose yourself in Sky Blue through an in-painting tour which allows you to zoom in on the details of his artwork. 


But to truly understand Kandinsky's legacy and unravel one of the defining mysteries behind his artistic style, it’s essential to understand the distinctive creative process that went into his canvases: Synesthesia. This neurological condition - which is also shared by other artists such as Rimbaud, Billie Eilish and Pharrell Williams - allowed him to associate colors with certain sounds and moods. When Kandinsky painted, two senses worked systematically together: hearing and sight. Colors and shapes translated into sounds, harmonies, and vibrations made up lines and patterns. 

Play a Kandinsky experiment

To unlock the “Sound” of a Kandinsky we teamed up with experimental music artists Antoine Bertin and NSDOSto create “Play a Kandinsky,”  an interactive experimentation that for the first time enables everyone to experience what Kandinsky might have heard when he was painting. Together, we analyzed Kandinsky's writings outlining his synesthetic experience and applied machine learning to create a tool that simulates what Kandinsky may have heard when he painted his masterwork  “Yellow Red Blue” in 1925.

By zooming in and clicking on various areas of the painting, you are invited to play the painting, exploring the sounds and emotions associated with colors and shapes. You can even create your own mix and share the result of your creation, as inspired by Kandinsky.

Pocket Gallery

And thanks to Pocket Gallery, you can wander through a bespoke exhibition in augmented reality and get a close look of some of Kandinsky’s most renowned artworks. 

While this exploration will never replace the unique experience of seeing these artworks in the museum, it nevertheless enables a true immersion in each of the compositions, certainly virtual, but just as intimate, of the artist who could hear colors.

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Building a safer internet, from Europe to Africa

Whether searching for answers in Antwerp or Abidjan, people expect Google services to be designed with their safety in mind. And that’s especially true for the one third of the world’s internet-connected population who reside in the countries of Europe, the Middle East and Africa. 


That’s why the region is also home to a steadily growing number of Google investments in digital safety, and teams who specialize in keeping the internet more secure.

A second global safety hub in Europe

In 2019, we opened the first Google Safety Engineering Center (GSEC) in Munich, acknowledging Europe’s role as a global hub of privacy and security engineering at Google. There, we’ve developed popular privacy tools like Privacy Checkup, a raft of security protections in our Chrome browser and techniques, such as differential privacy, which help add state-of-the-art anonymization into core Google products. 


Last month, we opened another GSEC, this time in Dublin, which will be a hub for Google experts tackling the spread of illegal and harmful content, and a place where we can share this work with policymakers, researchers and regulators. Like our work on privacy, content safety is a priority that we reinforce with concrete action, led by experts in the field.

Keeping people’s information safe

When people trust us with their personal information, it’s our responsibility to keep it safe. And we know people are worried about threats like hacking and COVID-19-related scams, and increasingly demanding that companies keep their private information private. Searches for “phishing” reached record levels in the UK, Italy and Spain last year, and in Germany, searches for “how secure is my password” doubled from 2019 to 2020.

It’s clear that in order for the open web to sustain its continued growth as the most important place for independent creation and commerce, its privacy and security practices must keep up with changing expectations. That’s why we recently joined outside experts from Euroconsumers, a group of five national consumer organizations representing more than 1.5 million people, in releasing a new joint report that spotlighted related concerns among internet users in Italy, Belgium, Spain and Portugal. As many as 69% of respondents told us they think the amount of personal data collected online makes it difficult for them to protect their privacy, with 21% feeling in control of what personal data is collected about them.

In initiatives like our partnership with Euroconsumers and our brick-and-mortar investments in GSEC, our goal is both understanding and follow-through: informing improvements that we actually build. Our teams at GSEC Munich have already rolled out new tools and a redesign of Chrome’s privacy and security settings, making it easier to manage cookies and the most sensitive website permissions. And, like many, we are encouraged by promising progress so far in the Privacy Sandbox, an open initiative introduced by Chrome to support a privacy-first future for web advertising — one that can promote growth in the web in Europe and beyond.

Helping people with knowledge and trainings

But safety and privacy tools also aren’t worth anything without supporting people in using them, which is why we back our safety engineering efforts with significant funding for local and grassroots programs to promote safety best practices. 

So, today we are announcing a new partnership with Injaz Al-Arab, a non-profit organization that aims to empower young people with digital skills, so that we can deliver safety trainings at scale to students across the UAE, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Morocco.

Helping innovative nonprofits and social enterprises with Google’s resources has long been the focus of Google.org, which last year used the occasion of Safer Internet Day to announce the $1,000,000 Africa Online Safety Fund. Today, we’re announcing the recipients: 26 groups across nine countries in Africa who have been selected to develop and scale new and existing projects combating online vulnerabilities, disinformation and extremism. 

We know these kinds of efforts can bear fruit. Take a look at some of the stories we’ve shared today of the 29 grant recipients of the Google.org Impact Challenge for Safety in Europe. We’re proud of these efforts and see it as core to our safety mission to support brilliant organizations in all regions of the world.  

To learn more about our resources to help keep you and your family safer, please visit the Google Safety Center.

Help build a digital future in Central & Eastern Europe

Technology has been a lifeline for many European businesses and communities throughout the pandemic—from helping people find accurate health information and buy groceries online to finding new ways to learn and stay connected with loved ones. But equally, the pandemic has also widened the social divide, putting disadvantaged groups at risk of being further left behind. As economies embark on a path to recovery, creating an accessible digital future for everyone will be vital.  

To help fill that need, today we are launching our first Google.org Impact Challenge dedicated to Central and Eastern Europe. With this initiative we are further committing to the region, and we will be distributing €2 million in grants to organizations that are working to bridge the social and digital divide to promote inclusive economic growth and recovery. (For those who are interested, applications are open now until March 1, 2021.) 

Applications for the Google.org Impact Challenge for Central and Eastern Europe are now open.
10:25

Make sure everyone in CEE has access to digital opportunities

This work is particularly important for Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), where governments, businesses and communities have outlined their ambition to make digital a driver of economic prosperity for the more than 100 million people who live in the region. The CEE countries are working together as part of the Three Seas Initiative to make that vision a reality, and we are doing our part to help.

Last year Google pledged to help 10 million people and businesses across Europe, Middle East and Africa digitize, grow and find new careers. In the CEE region specifically, we helped 250,000 people grow their digital skills or transition to a digital-focused career in 2020 alone.  

Similarly, just in the past year Google.org has also given more than €1.5 million in individual grant funding to several charitable organisations in Central and Eastern Europe that are working to improve digital-enabled education and economic opportunity. We’ve been inspired by how these organizations give back to their communities. Digital Nation helps facilitate remote employment in disadvantaged areas across Romania through offering a virtual training program tailored to IT jobs and supporting small businesses through digital upskilling. And other organizations, like the Czechitas initiative in Czechia, Women Go Tech in Lithuania and Riga Tech Girls in Latvia, are all working to build a digital future for all and helping connect women to professional opportunities in tech. 

With this Google.org Impact Challenge, we’re excited to see all the new ways organizations can positively impact their communities and build an inclusive digital future for all.  

Apply with your bold ideas by March 1, 2021

Applications for the Google.org Impact Challenge for Central and Eastern Europe are now open. We’re looking for initiatives that aim to rebuild the economy with social inclusion at its core. The ideas can be big or small and at any level of maturity—whether it’s a new idea or a well-established effort poised to scale. Applicants must apply with projects that are charitable in nature, meet the application criteria, and be based in one of the following countries: Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia.

Eligible organizations (including nonprofit organizations, for-profit companies and academic institutions) can apply for support for their charitable projects until March 1, 2021 at g.co/ceechallenge. 

We’ve asked a distinguished panel of experts to advise on the selection of the boldest and brightest project ideas. More than a dozen academics, leaders and civil society activists from across the region will help decide which applicants will receive between €50,000-€250,000 in grant funding and possible support from Google to help with their initiatives.

We hope this support will encourage social innovators across the region to think big about how they can use technology to help individuals and communities in Central and Eastern Europe thrive in a digitized economy. 

Supporting retail through Comparison Shopping Services

In 2020, people around the globe benefited from digital services more than ever. Internet usage has increased by 60 percent. E-commerce trade across the European Union has posted double-digit percentage growth since last year. Searches for the phrase “how to buy online” have jumped 200 percent worldwide.

Retailers are trying to adapt and meet evolving customer demands amidst the challenges brought on by the pandemic. At Google, we care deeply about helping retailers and providing our users with the most relevant information when they search for products. This sector alone accounts for more than nine percent of jobs in the European Union and is set to play a pivotal role in the region’s economic recovery.

Google’s Accelerating Retail initiative provides a range of useful technology, relevant insights, tools and training to bring retailers closer to their customers. So far we’ve engaged with more than 13,000 retailers across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA).

In Europe, our commitment to the retail sector extends to another group: Comparison Shopping Services (CSSs). These are websites that help retailers showcase their products online. They collect product offers from online retailers, surface them to shoppers and send prospective buyers directly to retailers’ websites to make their purchases. 

Shopping for home fragrances

A demonstration of how CSSs connect shoppers with retailers on the Google Search results page, using Shopping ads. In Europe, retailers participate in Shopping ads by partnering with one or several CSSs.

As part of our efforts to support and strengthen the overall retail ecosystem, we have also expanded our offerings for Comparison Shopping Services. Our free resources and tools available through the CSS Program assist them in several areas of their business operations, including: 

  • Managing product inventory from retailers at scale 

  • Receiving comprehensive support to optimize the performance of their Shopping ads

  • A bespoke online Google platform providing up-to-date training, market data, and product optimization tips.

The program currently helps 700 active participants, representing tens of thousands of retailers. Within our CSS Program, we have a Comparison Shopping Partners program, which gives  certified CSSs access to additional benefits. This includes direct collaboration with Google experts on the most advanced technical topics related to Shopping ads.

Merchants are seeing the value of these initiatives across the region. For example, Rituals Cosmetics, a luxury bath and body brand active in 28 countries, was looking for a partner to help them improve their performance marketing. They turned to their CSS, Producthero, for help. Together, Rituals and Producthero scaled Shopping ads with smart bidding and other advanced features. Combined with Producthero's own product feed optimization tool, Rituals achieved a triple-digit turnover increase in online sales within their spend targets.
Together with Producthero, we have completely changed our overall Shopping ads strategy. This was valuable not only for the performance marketing team but also for Rituals as a company. Martijn van der Zee, Chief Digital Officer, Ritual

We know that technology can help retailers reach a broad customer base as shoppers increasingly browse and buy online. Google is committed to continue investing in the retail industry through the CSS program and other tools and products designed especially for retailers. We want to help the industry adapt, grow, and achieve success with relevant ads that bring them closer to their customers. 

Our data centers support Europe’s green economic recovery

In 2020, families, schools and businesses moved online more than ever due to the pandemic. All the Google services you rely on are powered by our data centres, and we’ve had to ensure this infrastructure works for everyone as demand increased—for businesses using Google Cloud and Google Meet, and for anyone who asks a question on Search, watches a YouTube video, or uses Google Maps to get from A to B. 

In the last few weeks, we’ve added new infrastructure to Europe that supports the continent’s digital growth. Last month in Hamina, Finland, we were delighted to welcome Prime Minister Sanna Marin as she visited the construction site of our sixth data center building. Last week, we opened a new data center in Denmark in Fredericia. And just this week in the Netherlands, our second Dutch data center started its operation in Middenmeer.

A European green transition, powered by sustainable infrastructure

We’re proud that our data centers operate the cleanest cloud in the industry. They are on average twice as energy efficient as a typical enterprise data center. Compared to five years ago, we now deliver around seven times as much computing power with the same amount of electrical power. 

Last week Europe announced its ambitious55 percent reduction target for CO2 emissions by 2030, in addition to its 32 percent renewable energy target. Google is helping to accelerate this transition, having supported nearly 1,700 megawatts of new renewable energy projects in Belgium, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and the Netherlands. And we are committed to supporting the EU Climate Pact, as technology will have a critical role to play in making the EU Green Deal vision a reality.

Taking the world’s greenest data center fleet to the next level

Our AI technology helps reduce the energy we use to cool our data centers by 30 percent, and we make it available for use by airports, shopping malls, hospitals, data centers and other commercial buildings and industrial facilities. 
But we’re not stopping there. A few months ago, we announced our Third Decade of Climate Action: an ambitious plan to help build a carbon-free future and operate on clean energy around the clock. This is far more challenging than the traditional approach of matching energy usage with renewable energy, but we’re working to get this done in the next nine years.
Video about why a carbon free internet is within reach
10:25

Contributing to European growth with our (new) data centers

In addition to enabling the greenest, cleanest cloud, all these sites bring economic growth and employment to local communities and to Europe. In Finland, our data center has brought €1.2 billion in investment and supported 1700 jobs every year since 2009. During construction of our Denmark data center, we spent over €600 million and supported 2600 jobs. And in the Netherlands, we’ve directly invested €2.5 billion since 2014.

In the next five years, we expect to anchor €2 billion in new carbon-free energy generation projects and green infrastructure in Europe, helping to develop new technologies to make round-the-clock carbon-free energy cheaper and more widely available. 

  • Construction site

     Finland’s Prime Minister Sanna Marin visits the construction site of our sixth data center building in Hamina, Finland.

  • Google data center

    Google’s newly opened data center in Middenmeer, The Netherlands

  • Google data center in Denmark

    Google’s newly opened data center in Fredericia, Denmark

Investing in our local communities

Partnerships at the local level make all the difference to communities. We have long worked with local NGOs in our data center communities and have donated millions to important initiatives in Europe, including skills training in cooperation with local colleges and universities. 

We have supported multiple education programmes focused on STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths), as well as environmental and cultural projects. For example, in Denmark we recently supported two projects with the Museum Fredericia that will promote local history through virtual experiences. In the Netherlands, we’ve helped with the preservation of local bee and butterfly populations. And in Ireland, during COVID-19, we’ve assisted vulnerable communities, and have given grants to local schools to provide students with laptops and enable home schooling.

We are proud to invest in Europe’s digital infrastructure, contribute to the local communities we operate in and support Europe’s green transition. This will be a decisive decade, and we are committed to leading by example.

Stadia arrives in eight new European countries

We created Stadia to make great games more accessible. You don’t need to buy new hardware because Stadia works with the things you already own: laptops, desktops, compatible phones and tablets, and popular game controllers. And Stadia works instantly, without waiting for your games to download or update.


Now millions more people can play games on Stadia as it becomes available in eight new European countries. If you’re in Austria, Czechia, Hungary, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia or Switzerland, you can easily sign up at Stadia.com. Access to Stadia in all these countries rolls out over the next 24 hours. Stadia now works for anyone with a Gmail address in 22 countries: Once you’ve registered, you can play Destiny 2 and Super Bomberman R Online for free immediately. 


All new Stadia users can also get one free month of Stadia Pro, our premium subscription service that includes a ton of free games just waiting for you to grab and start playing. Every game you claim on Stadia Pro is yours as long as you remain a member, and more new free games are added every month. You can continue your Stadia Pro subscription for €9.99 a month and you can opt out at any time.


And you can buy even more games in the Stadia store. Whether you’re waiting to walk the streets of Night City in Cyberpunk 2077, or become a legendary Viking warrior raised on tales of battle and glory in Assassin's Creed Valhalla, there’s something for everyone.


Subscribe to Stadia’s YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram for more updates. See you on Stadia!

5 reasons to watch startups in Central and Eastern Europe

In 2015 we opened Google for Startups Campus Warsaw, a dedicated space in the middle of the city’s bustling Praga district, where startups can receive training and mentorship. We opened our doors to founders from across the region because we passionately believe they’re the ones shaping the future of their countries’ economies, and we have the resources and connections to help them grow. 

In the past five years, Campus Warsaw has become a hub for programs and events (welcoming 100,000 visitors in total), and a flourishing community of over 1,800 startups. And we’ve had the privilege of supporting founders in their endeavor to question the status quo. Working with these determined entrepreneurs has shown me that there are five key reasons to watch the startup ecosystem in Central and Eastern Europe.

1. Tech talent pool has real game—literally.

CEE startup career opportunities extend well beyond entrepreneurs: Startups in our community have hired 43,000+ employees to date across a variety of industries. There are about one million software developers in Central and Eastern Europe, 50 percent of whom are concentrated in Poland, Romania, and Czechia. Such a high concentration of highly skilled and educated tech workers led to the rapid development of sectors such as gaming. Poland boasts over 440 gaming development studios—launching more than 480 new games each year—and gaming is the second-largest sector in our CEE Google for Startups community.

People working on computers

Startups receive one-on-one Google mentoring at Campus Warsaw and via virtual programming.

2. The number of startups has doubled in the last five years. 

...and the total continues to grow rapidly. In Poland alone, there are now about 4,500 startups. More than half generate revenue and a quarter are scaling (aka growing their customer base, offerings, and the company itself). The profile of the average founder has also evolved: To a large extent, startups are founded by people who are over 30 years old and already have relevant experience and networks from previous stages of their careers.

A female startup founder

 35 percent of founders at Google for Startups Campus Warsaw are women

3. Foreign investments in CEE startups are at a record high.   

Venture capital investors are searching for new investment opportunities across Europe, and the CEE region is becoming increasingly attractive. According to the global startup data platform Dealroom, there’s five times more foreign VC investment in the ecosystem than there was in 2015. And it’s twice as easy to secure funding for a business: 69 percent of startups obtain financing, as stated in our “Five Years of Google for Startups in CEE” report, which we prepared together with Startup Poland and Kantar.
Two founders chatting on a couch

Founders find inspiration in coworking spaces at Campus Warsaw in 2018

4. The booming ecosystem offers support for founders at every step. 

Startups based in CEE have many organizations and resources to turn to when they need a helping hand in growing their business. In 2019, Poland alone boasted approximately 50 coworking spaces, totalling over 200,000 square meters. Since opening our Google for Startups Campus space, we’ve hosted over 1800 educational and inspirational events for founders to help them build, start, and grow their companies. "Here at Campus, I am surrounded by and have access to individuals who want to have an impact, solve tough problems, or challenge the status quo,” said Joanna Fedorowicz, founder and CEO of OvuFriend. “I have never been more motivated and prepared to take my startup to the next level.” 

Campus Warsaw building

Google for Startups Campus Warsaw in 2020C

5. CEE founders must have a global mindset.  

As the local CEE markets are relatively small, startups in our region need to think globally from day one. Those who design their products for an international scale are at the forefront of the European tech startup scene. So far, 12 unicorns (startups valued at over $1 billion) have sprung out of the CEE region, with a combined value of €30 billion. Most were founded in Romania and Poland, with a promising batch of stars rising across the whole region. And we’re proud to support them every step of the way. “After our first successes, like many other startups, we reached a point when scaling up and entering another level of growth became a challenge,” said Iga Czubak, founder and CEO ofQurczak. “During the Google for Startups program, we reevaluated our whole business model and analyzed every aspect of our company's strategy, which enabled us to keep growing." 

People playing foosball.

Campus Warsaw founders celebrate successes—as well as crushing foosball defeats.

I promised a list of five, but I’m going to sneak in a sixth: The number one thing I’ve learned over the past five years is this: No matter if startup is just starting out or scaling to meet the needs of new consumers, businesses, and society, we will keep on connecting them—whether online or IRL—with the right products, skills and people to navigate the road ahead. Because when startups succeed, it’s good for all of us, in CEE and beyond.

The U.K.’s top nostalgic films: Access now on Pixel’s 5G

With so many countries now returning to various forms of lock down, and winter steadily drawing in, many of us are turning to our favorite films and movie moments to find some familiarity in a time of uncertainty. 

In other words, we’re embracing nostalgia.

And why not? The movies we love are usually steeped in happy memories, attached to dreamy locations or feature music that temporarily transports us out of the present moment. They bring us joy and a sense of change, breaking up some of the monotony of life in lock down.

We asked Dr. Wing Yee Cheung, a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Winchester, about this, and learned that films are a great way to relive memories of happier times. “Movies are embedded with sensory memories of when we first watched them and whom we watched them with,” she writes. “Sensory inputs and social interactions aretwo key triggers of nostalgia. Watching these can be a way to walk down memory lane and reminisce [about] the way life used to be, what we used to do, and the people surrounding us.”

And because it’s the season of giving, we have our own gift for you: If you’re in the U.K., you can download classic films, such as "Four Weddings and a Funeral" or "Monty Python’s Life of Brian," all from a unique Google Map, now until Dec. 10. Transport yourself to a world of nostalgia by searching the map for symbols that represent the films in relevant locations. If you find one, you’ll receive a code to rediscover and enjoy the movie in Google Play*1. 

Image showing Four Weddings and a Funeral on a Pixel phone.

Anyone in the U.K. can take part, regardless of what type of phone you have—but of course if you do happen to own a new Pixel 5G-enabled device, you’ll be able to start your viewing party in a matter of seconds1. Thanks to movies on-demand combined with the technology of 5G networks2, you can choose your film, download1 it and settle in on the couch, all while the popcorn is still warm. Currently, 5G2 is one of the fastest ways to download a movie on any device. Both Pixel 5 and Pixel 4a with 5G2 enable you to download a film in seconds1. Whether you’re curled up on your sofa, pottering around the house, or outside on a walk, Pixel with 5G2 gives you access to the stories and characters you know and love, on the go; the speed of a 5G2 device immediately transports you to where you want to be.

So let’s lean into the nostalgia. As Dr. Cheung notes, it actually helps us cope with uncertainty: “Immersing ourselves in nostalgic moments is not about hiding our heads in the past. On the contrary, it can create new memories which can feed into future nostalgic experiences.”

It’s a great way to spend lock down with your family: Watching much-loved classics is a natural way for parents to share their experiences with their children and to make new memories together. And even if you’re physically on your own, you can use Google Duo on Pixel 5 to share your screen and watch your favorites with socially distant family and friends3. 

“An old movie that makes us feel nostalgia can inject us with a complex range of emotions,” concludes Dr. Cheung. “We feel sentimental, predominantly happy, but with a tinge of longing.” And that’s something we can probably all relate to right now. 


*Offer begins on 25th November 25, 2020 and ends 10th December 10, 2020.  Limited number of codes available. Subject to availability. Terms Apply. See here for full terms. 

1.  Testing based on download speeds for content file sizes between 449MB and 749MB at off-peak times. Average download time was twenty seconds or less. Download speed depends upon many factors, such as file size, content provider and carrier network connection and capabilities. Testing conducted by Google on pre-production hardware in the UK in August 2020. Actual download speeds may be slower.  

2. Requires a 5G data plan (sold separately).  5G service and roaming not available on all carrier networks or in all areas and may vary by country. Contact carrier for details about current 5G network performance, compatibility, and availability. Phone connects to 5G networks but, 5G service, speed and performance depend on many factors including, but not limited to, carrier network capabilities, device configuration and capabilities, network traffic, location, signal strength and signal obstruction. Actual results may vary. Some features not available in all areas. Data rates may apply. See g.co/pixel/networkinfo for info.

3. Requires a Google Duo account. Screen sharing not available on group calls.  Requires Wi-Fi or 5G internet connection.Not available on all apps and content. Data rates may apply. 5G service, speed and performance depend on many factors including, but not limited to, carrier network capabilities, device configuration and capabilities, network traffic, location, signal strength, and signal obstruction.

*Promotional code offer is provided by Google Commerce Limited (Google) for use on Google  Play Store UK only, and subject to the following terms. Offer begins on 25th November 2020 and ends 10th December, 2020 (‘Offer Period’). One (1) promotional code per user per film release, and up to a maximum of five (5) promotional codes per User during the Offer Period. Limited number of codes available. Subject to availability.

Available only to Users 18 or older with a delivery and billing address in the United Kingdom. Users must have internet access and must have or add a form of payment at checkout . Promotional codes cannot be used with Guest checkout, Users must be signed-in to their Google account to redeem the code. 

Promotional codes can be redeemed by visiting play.google.com/redeem or the Google Play Store app and entering the 16 digit code to receive a £5 or £10 discount for purchase or rental of any product on the Google Play Store UK. The discount will be applied at checkout. Promotional code must be redeemed by 31st December, 2021 or it will expire. Promotional codes may only be used once and may not be used in conjunction with any other offer or promotion. Any unused promotional balance will be applied to the associated Google account. Users may continue to use the unused promotional balance for Google Play purchases until such balance is £0, or any remaining promotional balance expires. Promotional codes are a discount off price for up to the promotional amount, are for one-time use only, cannot be transferred to other users, are not reloadable, cannot be exchanged for cash. Google and its third party partners if applicable, are not liable for lost or stolen promotional codes, or for expired promotional codes that are not redeemed within the redemption period. Terms subject to applicable laws. Void where prohibited.

The U.K.’s top nostalgic films: Access now on Pixel’s 5G

With so many countries now returning to various forms of lock down, and winter steadily drawing in, many of us are turning to our favorite films and movie moments to find some familiarity in a time of uncertainty. 

In other words, we’re embracing nostalgia.

And why not? The movies we love are usually steeped in happy memories, attached to dreamy locations or feature music that temporarily transports us out of the present moment. They bring us joy and a sense of change, breaking up some of the monotony of life in lock down.

We asked Dr. Wing Yee Cheung, a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Winchester, about this, and learned that films are a great way to relive memories of happier times. “Movies are embedded with sensory memories of when we first watched them and whom we watched them with,” she writes. “Sensory inputs and social interactions aretwo key triggers of nostalgia. Watching these can be a way to walk down memory lane and reminisce [about] the way life used to be, what we used to do, and the people surrounding us.”

And because it’s the season of giving, we have our own gift for you: If you’re in the U.K., you can download classic films, such as "Four Weddings and a Funeral" or "Monty Python’s Life of Brian," all from a unique Google Map, now until Dec. 10. Transport yourself to a world of nostalgia by searching the map for symbols that represent the films in relevant locations. If you find one, you’ll receive a code to rediscover and enjoy the movie in Google Play*1. 

Image showing Four Weddings and a Funeral on a Pixel phone.

Anyone in the U.K. can take part, regardless of what type of phone you have—but of course if you do happen to own a new Pixel 5G-enabled device, you’ll be able to start your viewing party in a matter of seconds1. Thanks to movies on-demand combined with the technology of 5G networks2, you can choose your film, download1 it and settle in on the couch, all while the popcorn is still warm. Currently, 5G2 is one of the fastest ways to download a movie on any device. Both Pixel 5 and Pixel 4a with 5G2 enable you to download a film in seconds1. Whether you’re curled up on your sofa, pottering around the house, or outside on a walk, Pixel with 5G2 gives you access to the stories and characters you know and love, on the go; the speed of a 5G2 device immediately transports you to where you want to be.

So let’s lean into the nostalgia. As Dr. Cheung notes, it actually helps us cope with uncertainty: “Immersing ourselves in nostalgic moments is not about hiding our heads in the past. On the contrary, it can create new memories which can feed into future nostalgic experiences.”

It’s a great way to spend lock down with your family: Watching much-loved classics is a natural way for parents to share their experiences with their children and to make new memories together. And even if you’re physically on your own, you can use Google Duo on Pixel 5 to share your screen and watch your favorites with socially distant family and friends3. 

“An old movie that makes us feel nostalgia can inject us with a complex range of emotions,” concludes Dr. Cheung. “We feel sentimental, predominantly happy, but with a tinge of longing.” And that’s something we can probably all relate to right now. 


*Offer begins on 25th November 25, 2020 and ends 10th December 10, 2020.  Limited number of codes available. Subject to availability. Terms Apply. See here for full terms. 

1.  Testing based on download speeds for content file sizes between 449MB and 749MB at off-peak times. Average download time was twenty seconds or less. Download speed depends upon many factors, such as file size, content provider and carrier network connection and capabilities. Testing conducted by Google on pre-production hardware in the UK in August 2020. Actual download speeds may be slower.  

2. Requires a 5G data plan (sold separately).  5G service and roaming not available on all carrier networks or in all areas and may vary by country. Contact carrier for details about current 5G network performance, compatibility, and availability. Phone connects to 5G networks but, 5G service, speed and performance depend on many factors including, but not limited to, carrier network capabilities, device configuration and capabilities, network traffic, location, signal strength and signal obstruction. Actual results may vary. Some features not available in all areas. Data rates may apply. See g.co/pixel/networkinfo for info.

3. Requires a Google Duo account. Screen sharing not available on group calls.  Requires Wi-Fi or 5G internet connection.Not available on all apps and content. Data rates may apply. 5G service, speed and performance depend on many factors including, but not limited to, carrier network capabilities, device configuration and capabilities, network traffic, location, signal strength, and signal obstruction.

*Promotional code offer is provided by Google Commerce Limited (Google) for use on Google  Play Store UK only, and subject to the following terms. Offer begins on 25th November 2020 and ends 10th December, 2020 (‘Offer Period’). One (1) promotional code per user per film release, and up to a maximum of five (5) promotional codes per User during the Offer Period. Limited number of codes available. Subject to availability.

Available only to Users 18 or older with a delivery and billing address in the United Kingdom. Users must have internet access and must have or add a form of payment at checkout . Promotional codes cannot be used with Guest checkout, Users must be signed-in to their Google account to redeem the code. 

Promotional codes can be redeemed by visiting play.google.com/redeem or the Google Play Store app and entering the 16 digit code to receive a £5 or £10 discount for purchase or rental of any product on the Google Play Store UK. The discount will be applied at checkout. Promotional code must be redeemed by 31st December, 2021 or it will expire. Promotional codes may only be used once and may not be used in conjunction with any other offer or promotion. Any unused promotional balance will be applied to the associated Google account. Users may continue to use the unused promotional balance for Google Play purchases until such balance is £0, or any remaining promotional balance expires. Promotional codes are a discount off price for up to the promotional amount, are for one-time use only, cannot be transferred to other users, are not reloadable, cannot be exchanged for cash. Google and its third party partners if applicable, are not liable for lost or stolen promotional codes, or for expired promotional codes that are not redeemed within the redemption period. Terms subject to applicable laws. Void where prohibited.