Editor's note: This year, we're celebrating 25 innovative Community Impact student projects across the globe that solve community and health resource challenges with science. While we're featuring the European finalists below, you can read more about all the finalists' projects on the Google EDU blog.
Through the Google Science Fair, we've invited today's brightest young minds to answer an important question: how can they make the world better through science, math, and engineering? We received thousands of extremely impressive answers to this question from over 107 countries this year, and we can’t wait to announce the winners later in September. Before that happens, though, we want to recognize the projects that aim to solve tough community challenges like providing clean drinking water, keeping people safe from natural disasters, and fighting droughts. This year, we'll be giving not just one, but five regional Community Impact Awards: one for each top project that focuses on fixing a difficult resource problem across North America, Latin America, the Middle East & Africa, Asia & the Pacific Islands, and Europe. Please join us and our partners — LEGO Education, Scientific American, National Geographic and Virgin Galactic — in celebrating the European Community Impact Award finalists below:
Ilya (16) began exploring engineering and robotics at a young age in his home city of Moscow, Russia. When he saw a gap in affordable tools for people who are visually-impaired, he began creating a wearable 'radar' accessory that can identify nearby obstacles through vibration signals. After receiving feedback on his initial design from people who were blind or visually-impaired in his community, he created a second, lighter prototype that is even easier to wear. Embedded into a common baseball cap, this system alerts wearers to the specific direction of obstacles within 3.5m using gentle vibrations. This gives the wearer plenty of time to adjust their direction of movement, so they can safely reach their destination. Given its low production cost, Ilya hopes to see his device improve the quality of life for the visually-impaired in his community.

Tarik (17) and Amor (16), of Sarajevo, Bosnia, have seen first hand how massive floods throughout Bosnia in May 2014 caused harmful lead contamination in local soil and drinking water. Eager to find a cost-effective way to create clean water for growing crops using a cheaper material that's also close at hand, the pair discovered that the white mustard plant, which is native to Bosnia and Herzegovina, is especially talented at absorbing lead. The plant is also of course biodegradable, creating a simple and very accessible way for their community to make local water safe again.
A native of Istanbul, Turkey, Esra (13) was concerned about how difficult it can be for locals and visitors to access clean drinking water without worrying about lead contamination in highly industrialized areas. Most visitors are advised to drink bottled water, and to avoid getting tap water in their mouths when taking showers or brushing their teeth! Inspired to create a new filtering solution that can help people avoid this problem, Esra investigated the use of mussel shells as a filtering device. His work showed that mussel shells are ideally suited to absorbing lead from soil and water and plentiful. Luckily, they also cost very little. Esra hopes to introduce this filtering option to his local community to create clean water for everyone.
Alex (18) lives in Athens, Greece. Fascinated by the intersection between robotics, software design, and the internet, he wanted to create the ultimate solution to solving health problems "in the cloud." In thinking about who needs health care the most, he realized that many people can't afford to visit a hospital or are physically too far away to access quality health care. Particularly for critical situations where a patient needs surgical care urgently, Alex wondered: wouldn't the world be a better place if a surgeon could treat their patient safely from thousands of miles away? To solve this, Alex built a robot and manually coded software that could control the robot remotely from any internet-enabled device. Through software and mechanical engineerings, Alex has created a platform that enables medical professionals to help patients wherever they are in the world, at any time.

İlayda (15) and Ezgi (15) live in İzmir, Turkey. The 7.1 earthquake that hit Turkey in 2011 claimed over 600 lives, and local scientists predict that the next decade could bring even more damage as tension continues to build along the North Anatolian Fault line. Given that many of Turkey's buildings are older, scientists have appealed to officials to help the country retrofit its buildings and train city workers to handle a potential earthquake disaster that could claim thousands of lives. Inspired to help, İlayda and Ezgi sought an affordable way to retrofit local buildings in their community with an easily available material: aluminium cans. The pair designed a solution that can be used to fill traditional concrete walls, increasing their ability to absorb impact damage from 32% to 61%. The students look forward to helping their community stay safe should an earthquake happen in the future. Tune into the Google Science Fair website on July 18th to find out which five young scientists will win their regional Community Impact Award! With the generous support of our partners, winners will receive mentors and scholarships to help them further their education and inspiring projects. To keep an eye on the competition, visit the Google Science Fair site, and follow along on Google+ and Twitter. Posted by: Andrea Cohan, product marketing manager Google Science Fair

Ever since the European Court of Justice invalidated the EU-US Safe Harbor Agreement in October 2015, businesses on both sides of the Atlantic have faced confusion about the future of transatlantic data transfers -- often transfers that are vital to the routine functioning of their operations. And much ink has been spilled about the complexity of the negotiations required to break the impasse and the resulting tensions in transatlantic relations.

Today, as the final step in a long process of approvals, the European Commission adopted the new EU-US Privacy Shield. We applaud this achievement, which demonstrates that the EU and the US share important values and are able to work together to protect the fundamental right to privacy.

Following the agreement, we will ensure that our products and services meet the new standards of the Privacy Shield. And, building on our work with Europe’s Data Protection Authorities over the last few years, we’re also choosing to co-operate with Europe’s Data Protection Authorities on EU-US Privacy Shield inquiries.

As a company operating on both sides of the Atlantic, we welcome the legal certainty the Privacy Shield brings. Restoring trust -- in international data flows and in the Transatlantic Digital Agenda -- is crucial to continued growth in the digital economy.

Posted by: Caroline Atkinson, Head of Global Public Policy, Google

Paris may be the epicentre of modern France, but 500 years ago, the majestic Loire valley was the country's heartland. Now, anyone around the world can explore the beauty of this stunning region like never before thanks to a new online exhibition.

At Google, we believe in the potential of technology to help businesses grow. Today, anyone can become an entrepreneur, launch and grow a new business and reach millions of new customers. In recognition and celebration of the most promising European entrepreneurs we are proud to be joining forces with McKinsey and Rocket Internet to launch the Digital Top 50 Awards.


Companies from across Europe are encouraged to apply before October 1st, 2016. A jury of leading figures in technology, business and academia will then shortlist the top 50, each of which will be invited to Slush 2016 in Helsinki where the final winners will be announced at an awards ceremony.

The winners will be invited to Google’s I/O event in California, receive valuable consulting and coaching sessions with McKinsey, as well as feedback and fundraising support from Rocket Internet. We will also award a cash prize of EUR 50,000 each for the winners of the Early Stage B2B, Early Stage B2C and Tech for Social Impact categories.

Google's products, tools and training - like Growth Engine - help entrepreneurs grow and provide economic opportunity and jobs locally and around the world. And with this new award, we are able to highlight more great examples of European entrepreneurs. If you would like to get involved, please apply here.

Posted by Torsten Schuppe, Senior Director Marketing, Google Europe, Middle East and Africa

At the end of last year, we announced that we were purchasing a whopping 842 megawatts (MW) of additional renewable energy to power our operations and take us one step closer to running 100 percent of our operations on clean energy. Today, we walked further down that path by agreeing to purchase an additional 236 MW of energy from two new wind farms in Norway and Sweden.

These new Nordic power purchase agreements complement our three other Swedish wind deals and enable us to power even more of our European operations with renewable energy. In total, we now have seven purchase agreements in Europe, totalling more than 500 MW and 18 such deals globally, which means we’ve now purchased nearly 2.5 gigawatts (GW) worldwide – the equivalent of taking over 1 million cars off the road.

As with our other power purchase agreements, we’re buying the entire production of these new wind farms, situated in two great areas for onshore wind in Europe. In Norway, power will be generated by a 50-turbine project near Stavanger, which is set to be completed in late 2017. In Sweden, we’re buying power from a 22-turbine project, near Mariestad and Töreboda, which will be completed by early 2018. In both cases, we’ve signed long-term contracts that give us price certainty and help wind farm developers secure construction financing, in these cases from companies like Blackrock and Ardian.

One of our key goals is to enable the addition of new renewable energy generation capacity to the grid, rather than drawing power from existing facilities. And thanks to Europe’s increasingly integrated energy market, we’re able to buy wind energy in Norway and Sweden, and consume it elsewhere in Europe.

We’ve known for a long time that reducing energy usage and using renewables makes good business sense - we signed our first major power purchase agreement for 114 MW of Iowa wind in 2010. Others are discovering the benefits of renewables too - in the US alone, companies bought almost 3.5 GW of renewable energy last year. We’re pleased to have played a part in stimulating the market for corporate renewable energy purchasing and doing our share in the effort to mitigate climate change.

Posted by Marc Oman, EU Energy Lead, Google Global Infrastructure

Three years ago in 2013, the Irish government recognised the originality and drive of Ireland’s social enterprises large and small and created Social Innovation Fund Ireland. Social Innovation Fund Ireland provides funds to scale social innovations that improve life outcomes and have a widespread impact on critical social problems facing Ireland.

Today Irish Government Minister Simon Coveney TD launched THINKTECH, a €1,000,000 project to support and grow ideas for a better Ireland. THINKTECH was created by Social Innovation Fund Ireland with support from Google.org and the Department of The Environment, Community and Local Government.    The THINKTECH challenge, the first of its kind in Ireland, will identify innovative ideas that use technology to create positive social impact in Ireland. Social enterprises, charities, and other not-for-profits are eligible for participation in THINKTECH. Participants should be able to demonstrate how they will use both technology and innovation to make Ireland better. Proposals could involve a broad range of technologies, should have already demonstrated progress towards measurable social impact, and have the ability to scale or spread across Ireland or internationally. Successful THINKTECH participants will have access to an award fund of up to €750,000, which consists of €600,000 in grants and up to €150,000 worth of support and mentoring, plus a package of Google supports. They will also enter a five month programme with Social Innovation Fund Ireland with support from Google.org and will receive both financial and non-financial support to make their vision a reality. Social Innovation Fund Ireland, and Google.org, believe that technology has the power to transform our lives for the better and we are excited to see projects develop and grow over the months and years ahead. More information on applying can be found on the Social Innovation Fund site.


Posted by Jacquelline Fuller, Director, Google.org