In April we launched the Google Impact Challenge in France, inviting all French non-profits and foundations to share their ideas for how they would use technology and grant funding from Google.org to make a better world, faster.
We received hundreds of ideas from non-profits across France and were blown away by the creativity, passion, and innovation we saw in the submissions. It was tough to narrow the field, but today we’re happy to share the 10 finalists and ask for your help in choosing which non-profit should receive a €500,000 grant and mentoring from Google to help bring their project to life. Cast your vote now at g.co/impactchallengefrance. The 10 finalists are:
1001fontaines is developing an entrepreneur-driven network of water purification stations in rural areas to give people access to clean water.
Agence du Don en Nature is enabling consumer product donations directly on e-commerce sites and redistributing them to populations in need.
Banque Alimentaire du Rhône is building a matching platform for retailers to share unsold food directly with nonprofits to fight against hunger and food waste.
Libraries without Borders is rolling out the Ideas Box, a portable media center that provides access to information, education and culture for refugees emerging from humanitarian crisis situations.
My Human Kit is enabling people in need of prosthetics to have access to low-cost, open-source 3D printed models.
Jaccede.com is crowdsourcing accessibility ratings of public places to empower people living with a physical disability.
MakeSense is building a platform to enable social entrepreneurs to tap into the skills and talent of the community to help them scale their ideas.
Ticket For Change is developing a unique online curriculum to help social entrepreneurs more quickly realise their ideas.
Voxe.org is developing an app that will reengage citizens in politics by providing tailored political information.
Y Generation Education is creating a unique online vocational education training curriculum for underprivileged youth.
Your votes will help decide which of these projects gets up and running in a big way. Vote now for the ideas that most inspire you, and stay tuned for the announcement of the winners on October 8th. Good luck to all of the finalists!
Posted by Jacquelline Fuller, Director, Google.org
My name is Rita Masoud and I am a refugee. I was born in war-torn Kabul, Afghanistan. When I was seven, my family and I fled to Europe with our belongings in a single suitcase, hoping for a safer and better future. Our journey involved many dark train and bus rides, as well as hunger, thirst, cold and fear. Fortunately, we received asylum in The Netherlands, where I grew up in a safe environment and was able to find my way in life. Today, I work for Google in California.
I was lucky. But as the refugee and migrant crisis has grown, many people like my family are desperate for help. Last week, Google announced a €1 million (~$1.1 million) donation to organizations who are providing front-line humanitarian relief to refugees and migrants around the world. Today, we're inviting you to join us. To double the impact of your contribution, we’ll match the first €5 million (~$5.5 million) in donations globally, until together we raise €10 million (~$11 million) for relief efforts.
My name is Rita Masoud and I am a refugee. I was born in war-torn Kabul, Afghanistan. When I was seven, my family and I fled to Europe with our belongings in a single suitcase, hoping for a safer and better future. Our journey involved many dark train and bus rides, as well as hunger, thirst, cold and fear. Fortunately, we received asylum in The Netherlands, where I grew up in a safe environment and was able to find my way in life. Today, I work for Google in California.
En route from Afghanistan, with my family and some belongings. You can read more about my journey on my blog.
I was lucky. But as the refugee and migrant crisis has grown, many people like my family are desperate for help. Last week, Google announced a €1 million (~$1.1 million) donation to organizations who are providing front-line humanitarian relief to refugees and migrants around the world. Today, we're inviting you to join us. To double the impact of your contribution, we’ll match the first €5 million (~$5.5 million) in donations globally, until together we raise €10 million (~$11 million) for relief efforts.
Update September 18: In just two and a half days, you've helped us reach our goal to raise €10 million (~$11 million). Thank you for your contributions to help refugees and migrants in need.
Over the past three years, filmmaker and artist Yann Arthus-Bertrand travelled to 60 countries, interviewing more than 2,000 people in dozens of languages, in an attempt to answer the question: What is it that makes us human? The result is HUMAN, a documentary film that weaves together a rich collection of stories from freedom fighters in Ukraine, farmers in Mali, death row inmates in the United States, and more—on topics that unite us all: love, justice, family, and the future of our planet.
Now we’re partnering with Arthus-Bertrand, the Goodplanet Foundation and Bettencourt Schueller Foundation, to bring HUMAN to you on Google Play, YouTube and the Google Cultural Institute so we can share this project with the widest audience throughout the world.
Watch an extended version of the film on YouTube and Google Play We’re making HUMAN available on YouTube starting September 12, and later on Google Play. This “director’s cut”of three 90-minute films will be available in Arabic, English, French, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish. On YouTube, you can also watch extra footage including interviews with figures like United Nations Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon, animal rights activist Jane Goodall and actress Cameron Diaz, all of whom participated in the film.
Explore HUMAN with the Google Cultural Institute Over at the Google Cultural Institute, you can learn about the origin of the film and listen to anecdotes from the people who brought it to life. You can also meet the characters in and around the movie in their daily lives, with six exhibits of behind the scenes photos and videos that let you explore how HUMAN was made over three years. This includes a collection highlighting how the director shot the aerial views that are a signature of Arthus-Bertrand’s filmmaking.
Exhibitions on Google the Cultural Institute platform
Learn more about this project at g.co/humanthemovie or on the HUMAN Behind The Scenes mobile app, available on Google Play. With HUMAN, we want to help citizens around the world connect together. So we’d like to hear your answer to the question of what makes us human. Add your voice to the conversation with #WhatMakesUsHUMAN.
Posted by Raphael Goumain, Head of Consumer Marketing, France
Our lives are being transformed by technology, and so too are the jobs of the future, across a whole range of industries - from design to medicine to music and more. That’s why we’ve teamed up with the BBC’s Make It Digital team and The Tech Partnership to launch the Make It Digital Matchr, a new tool to help young people explore a wide range of digital career opportunities.
Aimed primarily at 16-19 year olds, the interactive tool uses the the latest research from The Tech Partnership to match users with the right resources, either from the BBC or one of many partners like Teen Tech, Raspberry Pi, Code Club, Khan Academy and more, to help them develop their skills.
Young people using the tool are asked how they would handle a range of situations involved in developing a fictional game. Their answers reveal their natural strengths and inclinations, helping Matchr find suitable digital careers they may be interested in, and presenting them with resources to help set them on their way.
The opportunity for young people is huge. The Tech Partnership today released a study which found that the number of tech specialists in the UK is forecast to grow at almost four times that of the workforce as a whole between 2014 and 2024. And the European Commission estimates that there will be more than 800,000 unfilled digital job vacancies across Europe by 2020 if we don’t close the skills gap - which is something else we’re working on, via our commitment earlier this year to train 1 million Europeans in crucial digital skills by 2016.
We hope that the Digital Matchr and the Make it Digital campaign inspires the next generation about to start coding and get creative with technology.
Posted by Eileen Naughton, UK Managing Director, Google
Today, Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II becomes the longest reigning monarch in the UK. To mark this momentous occasion, we'd like to welcome a new character to Google Maps at Buckingham Palace Street View - introducing PegMa'am.
PegMa'am can be found to guide you through Street View at any of the royal properties in the UK. Visit Google Maps to become acquainted.
Congratulations, Your Majesty. Posted by: Laurian Clemence, Communications Manager, Google UK
Europe, the Middle East and Northern Africa are facing a refugee and migrant crisis - the world’s biggest since the Second World War. According to the UNHCR, thirty-eight European countries recorded 264,000 asylum applications, an increase of 24% compared to the same period of 2013. Given the severity of this crisis, we want to play our part in helping relieve the plight of refugees and migrants around the world.
[Photo credit: UNHCR]
Google.org is donating €1M to organisations who are providing front-line humanitarian relief to migrants and refugees, such as International Rescue Committee, Médecins Sans Frontières, and UNHCR. These organisations are providing essential assistance, including shelter, food and water, and medical care, to people in dire need.
In addition, we are creating a public site to help people make their own donations and are matching Googler donations as well.
Google has always worked to improve its services, creating new ways to provide better answers and show more useful ads. We’ve taken seriously the concerns in the European Commission’s Statement of Objections (SO) that our innovations are anti-competitive. The response we filed today shows why we believe those allegations are incorrect, and why we believe that Google increases choice for European consumers and offers valuable opportunities for businesses of all sizes.
The SO says that Google’s displays of paid ads from merchants (and, previously, of specialized groups of organic search results) “diverted” traffic away from shopping services. But the SO doesn't back up that claim, doesn't counter the significant benefits to consumers and advertisers, and doesn't provide a clear legal theory to connect its claims with its proposed remedy.
Our response provides evidence and data to show why the SO’s concerns are unfounded. We use traffic analysis to rebut claims that our ad displays and specialized organic results harmed competition by preventing shopping aggregators from reaching consumers. Economic data spanning more than a decade, an array of documents, and statements from complainants all confirm that product search is robustly competitive. And we show why the SO is incorrect in failing to consider the impact of major shopping services like Amazon and eBay, who are the largest players in this space.
The universe of shopping services has seen an enormous increase in traffic from Google, diverse new players, new investments, and expanding consumer choice. Google delivered more than 20 billion free clicks to aggregators over the last decade in the countries covered by the SO, with free traffic increasing by 227% (and total traffic increasing even more).
Moreover, the ways people search for, compare, and buy products are rapidly evolving. Users on desktop and mobile devices often want to go straight to trusted merchants who have established an online presence. These kinds of developments reflect a dynamic and competitive industry, where companies are continuing to evolve their business models and online and offline markets are converging.
But our central point is our consistent commitment to quality -- the relevance and usefulness of our search results and the ads we display. In providing results for people interested in shopping, we knew we needed to go beyond the old-fashioned “10 blue links” model to keep up with our competitors and better serve our users and advertisers. We developed new ways to organize and rank product information and to present it to users in useful formats in search and ads. In 2012, as part of that effort, in addition to our traditional ads, we introduced the Google Shopping Unit as a new ad format:
We don’t think this format is anti-competitive. On the contrary, showing ads based on structured data provided by merchants demonstrably improves ad quality and makes it easier for consumers to find what they’re looking for. We show these ad groups where we’ve always shown ads -- to the right and at the top of organic results -- and we use specialized algorithms to maximize their relevance for users. Data from users and advertisers confirms they like these formats. That’s not “favoring” -- that’s giving our customers and advertisers what they find most useful.
The SO also seeks a peculiar and problematic remedy, requiring that Google show ads sourced and ranked by other companies within our advertising space. We show in our response that this would harm the quality and relevance our results. And, in a report submitted with our response, former President of the General Court Bo Vesterdorf outlines why such an obligation could be legally justified only where a company has a duty to supply its own rivals – as where it controls an input that is both essential and not available anywhere else (like gas or electricity). Given the many ways to reach consumers on the Internet, the SO doesn't argue that standard applies here.
Our search engine is designed to provide the most relevant results and most useful ads for any query. Users and advertisers benefit when we do this well. So does Google. It’s in our interest to provide high-quality results and ads that connect people to what they’re looking for. The more relevant the ads -- the better they perform in connecting potential buyers and sellers -- the more value they generate for everyone.
Throughout the almost 17 years since Google started, our engineers have been developing innovative approaches to search and ads that are valuable for both users and advertisers. In the video below you can hear from our engineers about how our services have evolved to give people better results and ads. We are proud of their work and eager to tell their story.
We believe that the SO's preliminary conclusions are wrong as a matter of fact, law, and economics. We look forward to discussing our response and supporting evidence with the Commission, in the interest of promoting user choice and open competition.
When Google first started in Ireland, we opened an office with just five people. Today we have more than 5000 people in our Dublin office and as we have grown, so has Dublin’s tech community. The city is now home to some of the biggest global tech firms as well as some of the most promising startups in Europe. This community is creating jobs and opportunity with two thirds of all new jobs in the Irish economy being created by startups.
We have always been committed to supporting the startup community in Dublin to help the next generation of companies succeed. So we are especially pleased that today the Google for Entrepreneurs Tech Hub Network announced a partnership with Dogpatch Labs, one of Ireland’s leading startup organisations. The announcement was made by Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Richard Bruton T.D at an event at Dogpatch Labs today.
The partnership will provide co-working space along with new resources including funding, training and mentorship opportunities. Members will also get access to Google programs and products throughout the network including:
Mentorship from Dublin Googlers (in 2014, over 200 Googlers mentored Irish startups)
Eligibility for Google product offers relevant to startups; and
The Google for Entrepreneurs Global Passport, where entrepreneurs from each hub can work for free at spaces designated at any other hub in the network including London, San Francisco and Tel Aviv
With Dogpatch Labs and our Google for Entrepreneurs program, we hope Dublin’s world-class startup community will grow that much faster, building transformative products and companies that will take the world by storm. We can’t wait to see what new ideas come out Posted by Paddy Flynn, Startup engagement at Google Ireland
In the late 19th century, Belgian lawyer Paul Otlet created the Universal Bibliography in Brussels, a repository of more than 12 million searchable index cards that later came to be called the Mundaneum. With today’s Google Doodle on the French, Belgian and several other versions of Google, and new online exhibitions by the Mundaneum on the Cultural Institute website, we pay tribute to Otlet's pioneering work in making information accessible and useful. Throughout history, prolific thinkers and innovators have had the vision to see what the world might look like in the future. Often, they dreamed up today’s most advanced technologies long before it was even possible to create them. Paul Otlet belongs to that group of thinkers. He had a clear vision for the Mundaneum: a universal system of written, visual, and audio information that people could access from the comfort of their own homes. Just a few decades later, engineers planted the technological seeds that brought electronic information sharing to life. Created by Googler Leon Hong, today’s Doodle pays tribute to Otlet’s vision. The collection of knowledge stored in the Mundaneum’s wooden drawers form the foundational work for everything that happens at Google and much of what happens across the world wide web. Today’s Doodle also coincides with the launch of new online exhibitions about Otlet’s work on the Google Cultural Institute website. The modern day Mundaneum museum in Mons, Belgium has curated the exhibitions, which give insight into Paul Otlet’s life and achievements, and the Nobel Prize won by Mundaneum co-founder Henri La Fontaine. You can view the exhibitions on the Cultural Institute website, and in a dedicated mobile app that our engineers developed together with Mundaneum staff. We especially recommend you to check out these three new exhibitions: Towards the Information Age
