Tag Archives: google.org

Give it up for the woman who helps Googlers give back

Over the past month, Googlers around the world have virtually volunteered in their communities — from mentoring students to reviewing resumes for job seekers. It’s all a part of GoogleServe, our month-long campaign that encourages Googlers to lend their time and expertise to others. GoogleServe is just one of many opportunities employees have to give back, and one of the projects that Megan Colla Wheeler is responsible for running. 

As the lead for Google.org’s global employee giving and volunteering campaigns, Megan’s role is to create and run programs like GoogleServe and connect the nearly 150,000 Googlers around the world to them. Ultimately, her job is to help Googlers dedicate their time, money or expertise to their communities. How’s that for paying it forward?

With more than ten years of experience at Google, we wanted to hear more about how she ended up in this job, her advice to others and all the ways volunteering at Google has changed — particularly this past year. 


How do you explain your job to friends?

My goal is to create meaningful ways for Googlers to contribute to their communities — by offering their time, expertise or money — and help connect them to those opportunities. 


When did you realize you were interested in philanthropy and volunteering?

I was a Kinesiology major in college. Toward the end of my sophomore year, I took a course on social justice and it struck a chord in me. Though I loved sports, I realized I wanted my career to be about something bigger, something meaningful. I wanted to lend my skills for good. So even though I graduated with a kinesiology major, I focused my job search on the nonprofit sector and got a job working for a nonprofit legal organization.


How did you go from there to leading volunteer programs for Google.org?

I never knew that the job I have now was even possible. I left my nonprofit job to become a recruiting coordinator at Google. My plan was to do it for a year, diversify my skills, then go back to the nonprofit world. 

I remember going to my first GoogleServe event. We helped paint and organize a senior citizen community center — all during the workday! It blew me away that Google placed such an importance on volunteering. Coming from the nonprofit world, it felt meaningful seeing a company that cares deeply about these things and encourages employees to get involved. So I stayed at Google and kept finding ways to work on these programs. 


Fast forward 10 years and you’re one of the masterminds behind these events. How has employee volunteering and giving at Google changed over the years?

So many of the things that Google has created, like Gmail, came out of grassroots ideas that then grew as the company did. The same is true of our work to help Googlers get involved in their communities. 


Take GoogleServe for example. In 2008, a Googler came up with the idea to create a company day of service. Over a decade later that campaign has gone from a day-long event to a month of service that encourages over 25,000 employees to volunteer in over 90 offices around the world. And it all started with one Googler saying, "This would be a cool idea." Along the way, more Googlers have come up with ideas to get involved in the communities where we live and work through giving and volunteering. Although the programs have grown and evolved over the years, we’ve maintained the sentiment that inspired those campaigns in the first place.


We’ve also been focused on connecting Googlers to opportunities that use their distinct skills, like coding or data analysis. For example, a team of Googlers - including software engineers, program managers, and UX designers - are currently working with the City of Detroit to help build a mobile-friendly search tool to help people find affordable housing. 


How has it changed in the past year?

At the core, these programs are about giving back, but they’re also culturally iconic moments at Google. They’re a chance for teams to connect and do something together that’s more than just your average team-building activity. You’re building a shared experience and meeting people from completely different roles and departments. They’re also a chance for teams to learn and grow from people outside of Google and to bring that perspective back to their job. 


Over the past year, people have felt generally disconnected. So even though our volunteering has become virtual, it’s still a chance to interact and contribute. Virtual or not, it really does create a positive work culture. 


What advice would you give to people who have a day job in one area and a passion in another?

Be willing to work hard and get your core job done and carve out time to keep doing what you’re passionate about. When you are working on projects that you love, it keeps you engaged in a really special way. And you never know when those passion projects will intersect with your core work, or when they’ll turn into something bigger. 


How working at Google allows me to keep giving back

I was born in a small town in the South of France to an Algerian dad and a Vietnamese mom. Like many kids from immigrant families, I took school seriously because I saw success in the classroom as a way to fit in. 

I was incredibly lucky to have teachers in high school who spent extra hours after school pushing me and surfaced opportunities I wouldn’t have heard of otherwise. Without them, I probably would have settled for less. Instead I’m the first in my family to go to university. The helping hand I got from them growing up is what motivates me today to find opportunities to give back — and thanks to Google there’s plenty of ways for me to give back at work. 

The Google.org Fellowship team and their partners at Generation pose for a group photo.

Vanessa, third from right, with other Google.org Fellows and the team at Generation, a nonprofit that helps job seekers get placed into life-changing careers.

Giving back at Google

I’ve been at Google for five years, and currently work in strategy and operations in London. Last year, I learned about the Google.org Fellowship, where Googlers could spend up to 6 months working full-time, pro bono for a nonprofit. When I saw that Generation — an organization with the mission to prepare and place people into life-changing careers — was one of the nonprofits looking for Fellows, I knew I wanted to participate.

Generation focuses on providing training and support to underserved jobseekers from diverse and low-income backgrounds. They’ve found that with the right skills, non-traditional candidates can be a boon for employers — in fact 84% of employers say that graduates from Generation programs outperform their peers. 

However, innate biases still exist in recruitment that overlook talented and qualified people from nontraditional backgrounds. In France, for example, the first filters recruiters apply when looking for job candidates is often where someone went to school and their degree. Working with Generation, we wanted to figure out how to surface alternative applicants in order to give them a chance to be seen and considered.

Three other Fellows and I worked with the Generation team to design a “reverse job board” that advertised the candidate rather than the job. This would help ensure each jobseeker was seen as a top-notch candidate, rather than an alternative choice. We then conducted employer research for feedback. The Generation team springboarded off that work to build the portal, which launched as a pilot in Spain in March 2021. As the tool becomes more sophisticated and more jobseeker profiles are added, Generation plans to launch it globally. 

Demonstration of the Generation Employer Portal

The Generation Employer Portal that Vanessa and other Google.org Fellows helped build. 


Keeping the culture of giving back going

My fellowship with Generation ended when COVID-19 grew into a global pandemic. I was shocked by the scale of the crisis and knew I wanted to do anything I could to help. In April 2020, I volunteered to lead Google.org’s UK COVID taskforce to help businesses and charities impacted by the pandemic. We brought together Googlers across the UK who wanted to help, and spent more than 2,700 hours volunteering across 100 projects for 50 charities. 

To keep that spirit of giving back going beyond the pandemic, I created an employee group called Giving Back UK to encourage Googlers to spend time volunteering. This year for GoogleServe, our company-wide volunteering campaign that takes place every summer, I’ve helped create more than 500 volunteering opportunities. As for me, I’ll be spending my time working with Hatch, a nonprofit organization that supports entrepreneurs from underrepresented groups to develop the skills and knowledge they need to grow their businesses. 

Being able to bring a positive impact to others is incredibly rewarding — and I love being able to encourage others to do the same.

Supporting inclusive recovery in Central & Eastern Europe

In January, we opened the call for applications for the Google.org Impact Challenge for Central and Eastern Europe (CEE).

Thankfully, the region is in a different place now than it was then. As vaccine rollout progresses across Europe, people are thinking about how to reopen businesses and develop careers. But there’s still a long journey ahead, particularly when it comes to building a sustainable, inclusive economic recovery for the region.

We need to make sure no one is left behind as we build back the economy. To help, today we’re announcing 13 brilliant organizations across Central and Eastern Europe that will receive Google.org funding to support their work on digital inclusion across the region.

Together with our partner INCO and our panel of experts, we’ve selected ambitious and wide-ranging projects from organizations working in each of the 11 countries of the CEE region that put digital innovation and inclusion at the heart of economic recovery. Each organization will receive between €50,000-€250,000 in funding from Google.org and mentoring from Google to help make their project proposals a reality. You can read more about the projects here.  

Supporting these incredible organizations is just one way that we plan to help Central and Eastern European economies on their path to a digital-led recovery. Last year alone, through our Grow with Google programs, we helped 250,000 people in the region grow their digital skills or transition to a digital-focused career — and we look forward to doing even more in the coming months.

  • Organizations: Listen Up Foundation (Bulgaria), Tuk-Tam (Bulgaria), Green Energy Cooperative (Croatia) and Lean Startup (Czechia)
    Organizations: Listen Up Foundation (Bulgaria), Tuk-Tam (Bulgaria), Green Energy Cooperative (Croatia) and Lean Startup (Czechia)

  • Organizations: Startup Wise Guys (Estonia), Marker’s Red Box (Hungary), Riga TechGirls (Latvia) and Lithuanian Gay League (Lithuania)

    Organizations: Startup Wise Guys (Estonia), Marker’s Red Box (Hungary), Riga TechGirls (Latvia) and Lithuanian Gay League (Lithuania)

  • Organizations: Fundacja Studio M6 (Poland), Digital Nation (Romania), Touch & Speech (Slovakia) and AmCham Slovenia (Slovenia)

    Organizations: Fundacja Studio M6 (Poland), Digital Nation (Romania), Touch & Speech (Slovakia) and AmCham Slovenia (Slovenia)


  • Organization: University of Primorska, Faculty Tourism Studies (Slovenia)

    Organization: University of Primorska, Faculty Tourism Studies (Slovenia)

  • Listen Up Foundation (Bulgaria) is helping infants, children and adults who are deaf and hard of hearing achieve equality through improved educational systems and empowerment practices.

  • Tuk-Tam (Bulgaria) provides a network of social, educational and career opportunities to disadvantaged students, connecting them with Bulgarians living around the world who serve as role models. 

  • Green Energy Cooperative (Croatia) is building an application to educate 10,000 people on photovoltaic panels and prepare them for green jobs in Croatia.

  • Lean Startup (Czechia) is setting up a program to help create equal opportunities for rural startup founders.

  • Startup Wise Guys Foundation (Estonia) is creating a social and digital startup incubation program to create 1000+ jobs in 11 countries in CEE.

  • Maker’s Red Box (Hungary) is providing hands-on digital skills learning methodologies for children from disadvantaged families and in foster care.

  • Riga TechGirls (Latvia) is promoting digital skills among female artists, healthcare professionals and teachers.

  • Lithuanian Gay League (Lithuania) promotes an inclusive social environment for all within the LGBTQ+ community through education and support. The organization offers digital marketing and programming courses to a diverse group of underprivileged individuals.

  • Fundacja Studio M6 (Poland) is rehabilitating disadvantaged areas in Poland through joint housing and employment support via an internet-based platform. 

  • Digital Nation (Romania) is creating a job matchmaking program that connects young people with digital skills in need of employment with small and medium-sized businesses that need hands-on expertise to grow their business.

  • Touch&Speech n.o. (Slovakia) is developing a more effective approach to navigating touch smartphones for people who are blind — regardless of their digital skills or access to assistive services.

  • AmCham(Slovenia) is creating a program to raise the profile of the teaching profession, recognise teachers’ work and support peer-to-peer skills development.

  • University of Primorska, Faculty of Tourism Studies - Turistica (Slovenia) is designing a platform to support local entrepreneurs and enhance rural tourism.

A Matter of Impact: June updates from Google.org

This week we wrapped up Pride Month, and while events looked a little different than usual, I was happy to still take part in virtual celebrations at Google and in my community. For me, Pride represents a time to celebrate progress, and also reflect on how much work is left to be done. 

Like it has for so many marginalized groups, the COVID-19 pandemic has had a distinct impact on LGBTQ+ people. Research from The Trevor Project and BeLonG To,  both Google.org grantees, shows that LGBTQ+ youth are experiencing more isolation, anxiety and loneliness than their straight and cisgender peers. A March 2021 poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation adds that LGBTQ+ adults have lost jobs and experienced mental health impacts at higher rates. And OutRight Action International found that these communities have been excluded from humanitarian interventions because of narrow definitions of family, binary gender classifications, biased staff and more.

That’s why, for Pride this year, our support was focused on inclusive recovery from COVID-19. In this month’s digest, we highlight these efforts that range from a new fund to help LGBTQ+ people in over 60 countries access basic resources to ongoing support for the Trevor Project’s use of AI to help with crisis intervention. 

Of course, work for LGBTQ+ equality and inclusion doesn’t start and end with Pride month, and we will continue to support those who advocate for LGBTQ+ rights year round and across the world.

In case you missed it 

As part of our cross-company celebration of Pride Month, Google.org granted $2 million to OutRight Action International’s “Covid-19 Global LGBTIQ Emergency Fund,” to help provide resources like food, shelter and job training to those in need. To further support advocacy for LGBTQ+ human rights globally and share critical community resources, we also provided $1 million each in Ad Grants to OutRight Action and the Transgender Law Center and the Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund. 

Hear from one of our grantees: Marsha P. Johnson Institute 

Elle Moxley is the founder and executive director of the Marsha P. Johnson Institute

Elle Moxley is the founder and executive director of the Marsha P. Johnson Institute.

Elle Moxley is the founder and executive director of the Marsha P. Johnson Institute (MPJI), an organization inspired by the famous activist, self-identified drag queen, performer and survivor. MPJI protects and defends the human rights of Black transgender people by organizing, advocating and creating an intentional community to heal, develop transformative leadership and promote their collective power.

“Last year, we created a Marsha P. Johnson Institute COVID-19 Relief Fund that received strong support from Google.org in the form of a $500,000 grant. The funding helped us provide one-time direct relief payments of $500 to BLACK transgender or non-binary identified people, furthering The Institute’s mission to support those most beyond the margins. Thousands of BLACK LGBTQ+ people from across the U.S. applied for the grant program and recipients spanned 40 U.S. states and also included Columbia, Puerto Rico and Mali.We’re so proud to be able to offer our own stimulus check, if you will, to BLACK transgender people from around the country. By the end of last year, we were able to donate over $250,000 to more than 500 individuals.”

A few words with a Google.org Fellow: The Trevor Project

Riley Wong is a machine learning engineer at Google. They recently completed their Google.org Fellowship with The Trevor Project.

Riley Wong is a machine learning engineer at Google. They recently completed their Google.org Fellowship with The Trevor Project.

"As a mental health advocate and community organizer for queer and trans people of color, working with The Trevor Project was an excellent opportunity to apply my background in machine learning, natural language processing, and language generation to benefit a community I care deeply about. Many queer and trans youth, especially those who are Black and/or trans-feminine, face unique challenges with accessing mental healthcare and support. Especially in the face of COVID-19, a lack of safe and stable home environments can exacerbate the need for crisis intervention and suicide prevention services for our communities. Collaborating with The Trevor Project and other Google.org Fellows was an extremely rewarding experience." 


Read more about the project in this article from MIT Technology Review.

How I grew as a computer science educator

Editor's note: Shaina Glass is a computer science educator based in Houston. She shares how Google.org funding helped support an organization that has shaped her career. 

In 2018, I was one of only a handful of educators teaching computer science (CS) to students and teachers alike in my school district. I created after-school clubs, provided professional development workshops, and looked for ways to celebrate Computer Science Education Week. I was always looking for other like-minded educators who I could learn and grow with. Everyone I spoke with pointed me to the Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA), an organization focused on supporting computer science educators who are often the only ones in their schools and districts. 

Joining the local CSTA Chapter in Greater Houston has allowed me to share ideas and create a community with other CS educators. Local chapters like mine have always been a big part of CSTA's mission, especially in urban areas like Houston where only 49% of schools have a certified CS teacher. Local CSTA chapters have grown by more than 25% since 2019, thanks in part to Google’s support.  In 2019 Google.org committed a $1 million grant to CSTA, and today they’re investing $500,000 more to help grow membership and provide opportunities for equity-focused professional development. 

For me, CSTA has shaped my career in so many ways. Before the pandemic, I received a scholarship to attend my first CSTA conference in Phoenix, Arizona. There I learned how to build an equitable CS program in my school district and connected with a community that has sustained me while teaching throughout the pandemic. As a chapter leader, I’ve helped bring more CS educators together in Houston and created a plan to work with regional and state CS leaders to provide opportunities for more teachers to become certified CS teachers. 

CSTA teachers meet regularly, even virtually, to maintain community

CSTA teachers meet regularly, even virtually, to maintain community.

Most recently, I became a  CSTA Equity Fellow for the 2020-21 school year, joining 14 other educators to bring equity-based CS education practices into their schools and communities. One of our initiatives includes creating a podcast focused on equity in CS. As a part of my fellowship, I also serve on advisory boards for CS curricula and the development of a CSTA Coaching Toolkit that will help administrators and CS leaders evaluate and support teachers.  

If you’re a new or experienced CS or STEM educator looking for a network of education leaders that can provide support, resources, and professional growth, then consider becoming a member of CSTA. If you aren’t near a local CSTA Chapter, join to learn how to start one! Hope to see you at the upcoming virtual conference. We’re stronger together.  

Doing our part for California’s monarch butterflies

We’re always looking for ways to use our technology and resources to protect the planet and support our communities. This means setting moonshot goals — like operating entirely on carbon-free energy, every hour of every day by 2030, and it also means working together with governments and nonprofits, to address urgent and local sustainability issues in creative ways. 


Since 2014, we’ve been using our campuses to support wildlife and our communities. Our Ecology Program has created over 13 acres of new site-appropriate habitat on our campuses, with dozens more in the works.


As part of this work, we’re taking steps to help address the threat facing California’s monarch butterflies. Last year, California only saw 2,000 monarch butterflies during the winter: a 99.9% decline from the millions of monarchsthat visited the state in the 1980s and over a 90% decline just from 2019, when 29,000 monarchs were identified. Unfortunately, increased development, climate change and pesticides are all contributing to the rapid decline of the once-plentiful monarchs.  This threatens the species as well as the crops we eat and the entire ecosystems that the monarchs call home. 


We’re building on the state of California’s conservation efforts with $1 million to help restore and enhance an additional 600 acres of habitat for monarchs and other pollinators across California, including creating more habitat on our own campuses. Monarchs need more habitat to support their repopulation and migration, which means protecting and restoring key sites on the coast and adding more native milkweed and nectar plants in priority areas across the state.

Image of a monarch butterfly, flying over a green plant with a blue sky in the background.

 A monarch butterfly flies over a narrowleaf milkweed plant in California.

Google will spend $500,000 to create new monarch and other pollinator habitat on our Bay Area and Southern California campuses. And Google.org is granting $500,000 across the Xerces Society and Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST), to help protect and restore hundreds of acres of important monarch habitat where it matters most across California, including habitat restoration south of San José in coordination with the Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority. 


We’ll also be sponsoring research to understand the science behind why the monarch population is crashing and will be monitoring monarchs on our Bay Area campuses to observe their habitat use, sharing our findings with local organizations and agency scientists to help identify other potential efforts that can reverse the trend.  


This week, not coincidentally, is National Pollinator Week. We hope today’s news raises awareness of the plight of the monarch butterfly, and encourages others to contribute to save this critical and beautiful fixture in the backyards, parks, farms and wildlands of our home state.

Photos courtesy Xerces Society

A conversation between two changemakers uplifting women

Editor’s note: This is the first in a three-part series of interviews between expert panelists for the Google.org Impact Challenge for Women and Girls. 


As the President and CEO of Vital Voices Global Partnership, I lead an organization that invests in women leaders solving the world’s greatest challenges — from gender-based violence to the climate crisis to economic inequities. 

Saskia Niño De Rivera is one of those leaders. She’s the co-founder of Reinserta, a nonprofit that supports mothers and their infants born in prison and helps adolescents who have committed crimes to reduce the cycle of crime and improve the prison system in Mexico.Saskia and her team at Reinserta work directly with those in the prison system to uncover underlying problems and advocate for the most effective solutions. Through doing so, they’ve impacted 2,600 people in prison. 

Saskia and I are expert panelists for the Google.org Impact Challenge for Women and Girls, which will give a total of $25 million to organizations  around the world that are working toward economic empowerment for women and girls. As expert panelists, we’ll help evaluate applications from the thousands of organizations that sent in ideas. Economic empowerment is crucial to achieving gender equity for women everywhere, but it's a broad term that takes many shapes and touches different aspects of life across the world. To learn more about what economic empowerment means for women in Mexico, I spoke to Saskia about her path, her work with at-risk communities, and her advice for future changemakers. 

Related Article

Google.org’s call for a better future for women and girls

The global Google.org Impact Challenge for Women and Girls is committing $25M to advance the economic empowerment of women and girls.

Read Article

How were you called to do this work?

When I was a teenager, my uncle was kidnapped which shaped how I see the world. It made me think: Why do these kidnappers exist? What have we done wrong as a society that people think it’s okay to take someone’s life into their hands and trade them for money? It was an “aha moment” that changed how I look at social justice.


Since then I’ve had the privilege — and it’s definitely a privilege — to have the time to find my passion. I work in what I love, which is a huge part of being good at what I do.


From there, you went to work for the police — first as a negotiator and then in the anti-kidnapping division. What did that teach you? 

It taught me a lot of compassion. I visited 138 prisons and walked the halls myself. I learned that no one is born an aggressor or violent person. No one is born a criminal.  


I would never justify a crime, but it’s interesting to learn about the background of the people in prison — the circumstances that led them to choose a life of crime. Justice has to do with a co-responsibility where no one is left behind, starting with victims and survivors and following with aggressors. We have to recognize people who commit crimes as a societal failure, and we are all a part of that failure.


I work in what I love, which is a huge part of being good at what I do.

Talk to us about the mission of Reinserta and how it has changed. 

The main objective of Reinserta was to change the prison system to better the security of Mexico. But when you go into the system, there are problems everywhere — so many special interests, so much corruption. So my partner Mercedes and I asked ourselves, “Where can we make a difference? What is urgent?”


This year we adapted the mission to work with children and teenagers that are in contact with the criminal justice system, starting with children who are born in prison. Reinserta is constantly adapting because we’re inside the prisons, inside the justice system, creating models based on what really happens in the prisons. 

Saskia visiting a classroom at a female prison

Saskia visiting a female prison in Mexico City where Reinserta gave a workshop to the women on topics like motherhood, positive parenting and self-care

You’ve been on this path a long time, and it’s a difficult path. What advice would you give to Google Impact Challenge grantees and other people who are trying to make positive change?

Make sure you’re completely passionate about what you’re doing and that you believe in it. You’re going to be in situations — especially in Latin America — where people will think you can’t do it because you’re a woman. 


The best thing I did was partner with Mercedes. When you’re an advocate and activist, doing it by yourself can seem like the best option. It’s not. The best option is having a team that supports you and lives what you’re going through. It’s the right choice for the organization, and it’s the right choice for your mental health and wellbeing.


What does true economic empowerment look like for women in Mexico?

We have to change the way these women value themselves. A lot of them come from “machista” backgrounds — your job is to stay at home and clean and you’re not worth the opportunity to work. How do we break that mentality for girls? We have to make sure that they know they have the same opportunities and abilities as anyone else, and then we have to create the safe conditions for them to be able to have that economic independence.


My year helping India – and honoring a family legacy

GoogleServe is our annual company-wide volunteering campaign that takes place every June. In the spirit of celebrating our Googlers that dedicate time to volunteer, this month, we will feature inspiring stories from Googlers across the world as they share how they are helping their local communities. This week, we shine a spotlight on Suresh Vedula who has been volunteering for the last six months as a Google.org Fellow. 

Most Googlers are driven by a sense of purpose — it’s one of the things we have in common, no matter where we’re from or what role we hold. But where that drive comes from is unique to each of us. In my case, I always come back to the legacy of my grandfather.  


What I learned from my grandfather 

My father grew up in an agricultural town in India where many families own just one hectare (around two and a half acres) of land — barely enough to earn a living as a farmer. Year after year, I saw the tireless labor that my grandfather dedicated to his farm, and how factors like weather or pest infestation could wipe out entire seasons’ worth of crops and the income that was expected to come along with it. 

Like many farmers, he was community-spirited, always thinking of ways to help other farmers and the people around him. When he passed away, my father wanted to carry that spirit forward, so we donated the land from his farm to the government, which built a community school in his memory. I saw how it was possible for my dad to make a difference, and I believed I could make a difference, too.

A photo showing a bust of author Suresh Vedula’s grandfather outside the community school built on land his family used to own.

Bust statue of my grandfather outside the community school

The Google.org Fellowship

Traveling back to my grandfather’s village, I often thought about how technology might have helped solve some of the basic problems that he and other rural farmers faced every day. So I jumped at the chance  to put some of my ideas into action by joining the Google.org Fellowship program — a program that matches Google employees with organizations in need for up to six months of full-time pro bono work on technical projects. 


The nonprofit I helped support, Wadhwani AI, was developing an AI-based offline app to classify and count local pests— backed by a $2 million USD grant from Google.org through the Google AI Impact Challenge. The goal was to make pesticide use more efficient and improve yield for smallholder farmers in India. Wadhwani AI was the first organization in Asia Pacific to welcome a group of Google.org Fellows, and we worked across multiple teams to strengthen their AI model. We also helped them conduct research for users of their app, so farmers could get more accurate and timely information.
A gif showing how farmers see data within the pest management system app built by Wadhwani AI and volunteers from Google

Wadhwani’s AI-powered pest management system app

Resilience in the face of crisis

As the first waves of COVID-19 hit India, we moved all of Wadhwani’s work online. We conducted our research virtually and met with farmers over video calls. We listened and watched as they faced the pandemic with the same resilience and bravery they bring to every challenge that comes their way. One farmer explained how his crop had been destroyed, threatening his family’s entire livelihood, but was stoic enough to say, “I look forward to next season.”

A screenshot showing Suresh Vedula as he carries out an online interview with a farmer involved in the Wadhwani AI project

Conducting our interviews with the farmers online

The farmers were always thinking of one another. When they had a piece of information about a tactic that worked to save their crops they would share it right away. 

While my time as a Google.org Fellows has wrapped up, I will continue as a volunteer with the Wadhwani AI team in my personal time. Much like the example of my grandfather before them, the spirit I witnessed from the farmers will continue to motivate me to do more for the community in a small but meaningful way.

A Matter of Impact: May updates from Google.org

While many countries appear to be rounding the corner on COVID-19, our global humanitarian crisis is far from over. India, Brazil, and other regions of Latin America are experiencing high levels of COVID-19 infections and deaths, propelled in part by inequities in vaccine distribution and healthcare infrastructure. In this month’s digest we share updates on our relief efforts in India and Latin America, as well as other projects happening around the world. 

Lately, friends and family have asked me how they can most effectively contribute to global COVID-19 relief. In the short run, all generosity is needed and quickly getting resources to those who are affected should be the top priority. That’s why we’ve made it easyto donate vaccines and critical supplies through vetted charities. But recovery is a long process, so at Google.org we think about crisis response in three phases: 

  1. Responding to the immediate need. In this case,  providing critical supplies — like rapid testing, protective equipment, and oxygen — to bend the COVID-19 curve. 
  2. Addressing the inevitable knock-on effects to family incomes that come from loss of life and work. Through our grantees, we’re directing support to cash assistance organizations, food relief, and other resources that help families stay afloat. 
  3. Supporting recovery and resilience. Crisis relief doesn’t stop when the headlines quiet down. When attention turns away, local organizations are often left struggling to rebuild and prepare for the next crisis. We’re focused on investing in technologies, like data monitoring about the disease spread, that will help organizations to react to this crisis and improve readiness for the next one. 

We’ve still got a ways to go, but the global outpouring of support makes me optimistic that recovery and renewal lies near ahead. 

In case you missed it 

On May 26, Google.org and the Satcher Health Leadership Institute at the Morehouse School of Medicine announced the launch of the Health Equity Tracker (HET), a public facing data dashboard that displays and contextualizes health disparities facing communities of color throughout the U.S. Google.org also joined celebrations for Teacher’s Appreciation week. We continued our support for the DonorsChoose #ISeeMe campaign and matched donations up to $500,000 for projects created by teachers of color and projects from all teachers requesting culturally responsive and antiracist resources.

Hear from one of our grantees: DonorsChoose  

Kristina Joy Lyles, Head of Equity & Impact at DonorsChoose

Kristina Joy Lyles,  Head of Equity & Impact at DonorsChoose

Kristina “Steen” Joye Lyles is the Head of Equity & Impact at DonorsChoose, an organization committed to a future where students across the country, particularly students of color from low-income households, have access to the resources they need to learn.  

“This year, Teacher Appreciation Week sat at the crux of compounding crises: a heightened racial climate, the global COVID-19 pandemic, and exacerbated inequities in students’ access to continue learning amid school closures. Through teacher surveys, we learned that educators at schools in low-income communities or where a majority of students identify as Black, Latino or Indigenous were more likely to have been teaching fully remote all year, and that their students were having a  harder time finding reliable internet access. With continued support from Google.org, we rallied funding around educators on the front lines, including teachers of color, to fund their most immediate classroom needs — from classroom basics to identity-affirming resources such as books and art supplies. 

This Teacher Appreciation Week alone, Google.org’s support activated matching donations from the public to classroom projects for 1,500 teachers across 1,300 schools over the course of just three days, evidence of the necessary attention being given to address the equity gap during and beyond this pandemic.”

A few words with a Google.org Fellow: Gabriel Doss

Gabriel Doss, a Google.org Fellow with the City of Detroit

Gabriel Doss, a Google.org Fellow with the City of Detroit

Gabriel Doss is a software engineer at Google who is participating in a Google.org Fellowship with the City of Detroit.

"As a native Detroiter, the pursuit of making my hometown a world-class city for its citizens is a mission that has been a consistent north star for me. When I heard that the Google.org Fellowship would endeavor to make affordable housing more accessible for Detroiters who need it the most, I knew that the Fellowship was something I wanted to be a part of. The most surprising thing I’ve learned is that our cohort of Google.org Fellows are working to solve a problem for Detroit that has never been approached in this way before. We consider it to be a huge responsibility and have set our expectations accordingly. We aren’t just delivering on an OKR, we’re working to deliver a product solution that will have sustainable impact." 

Hear more about the project in Gabriel’s interview with Fox 2 Detroit.

Supporting an inclusive recovery this Pride Month

Photo credit: Hanna Benavides

In June of 1994, I stood on a packed sidewalk in Boston, looking all around to take in everything I could at my first-ever Pride parade. As a young student from Argentina, I knew I was gay, but I hadn’t experienced an environment where I could be my authentic self. In the presence of so much joy and celebration, I experienced a new sense of freedom, and a realization that there was a community that would embrace the person I knew myself to be.

This past year, the need for belonging has become more important than ever. The pandemic has separated us from loved ones and communities, and caused significant loss for many. It is abundantly clear that we need an inclusive and equitable recovery.

That’s why, for Pride this year, we’re providing $4 million to support LGBTQ+ communities around the world, including a first-of-its-kind economic relief fund. At the same time, we’re continuing our work to make our products more inclusive and helpful.

Supporting our LGBTQ+ community in the recovery

To aid in the recovery, we’re supporting a relief fund that will help the global LGBTQ+ community. Google.org is providing $2 million to OutRight Action International’s “Covid-19 Global LGBTIQ Emergency Fund.” This will help 100 organizations across more than 60 countries over the next year and bring the fund to North America, supporting frontline LGBTQ+ workers. To start, OutRight has awarded grants to three grantees: Transgender Law Center in the U.S., Lesbian Organization against Violence and Inequality in the Philippines, and Casa das Pretas-Coisa de Mulherin Brazil. These grants will help provide resources like food, shelter and job training for those in need. To further support OutRight’s advocacy for LGBTQ+ human rights globally, we’re providing $1 million in Ad Grants. 


In addition to supporting trans organizations through OutRight’s fund, Google.org is also giving $1 million in Ad Grants to support the Transgender Law Center and the Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund. These grants will help them share critical community resources and continue the fight for trans rights.

Fostering belonging through our products

We continue our work to make our products more inclusive and useful. In Google Photos, we heard from the trans community that resurfacing certain memories can be painful, so we worked with our partners at GLAAD and listened to feedback, and as a result we’re launching more granular controls, which makes reminiscing more inclusive. In Google Maps and Search, you can now see if a local business has gender-neutral restrooms, adding to our existing features that show whether businesses identify as LGBTQ+ friendly and/or a transgender safe space. This information is critical to helping the community find safe and welcoming places.
A screenshot of a phone showing a Google Maps business profile that lists a gender-neutral restroom.

We’re also honoring LGBTQ+ voices, authors and creators throughout the month. On our homepage today, we’re celebrating Pride with a Google Doodle honoring Dr. Frank Kameny, a pioneer of the U.S. LGBTQ+ rights movement. On Google Arts & Culture you can learn about eight LGBTQ+ artists, view 5,000 photographs of LGBTQ+ history from Leonard Fink and revisit the first 15 years of Pride. Google TV has new Pride collections and a spotlight on the new Pride documentary, and you can even ask your smart display or Nest speaker, "Hey Google, what are you doing for Pride?" to learn more about LGBTQ+ history and leaders.  


Many Pride activities are still virtual this year, and there are many fun ways to engage with your community and celebrate Pride on our platforms. Catch several Pride livestreams, including the YouTube Originals multi-hour event in support of The Trevor Project on Friday, June 25. And in case you need some virtual confetti, when you search for topics like "pride" or "pride parade" on Google, you'll find a delightful colorful celebration. 


Thinking back on my first Pride 25 years ago, it is my hope that communities around the world will be back together, celebrating once again soon. To me, Pride has always been about belonging and celebrating the progress we’ve made as an LGBTQ+ community — from Stonewall in 1969, to marriage equality in the U.S., to the passage of many supportive policies in my home country, Argentina. There is still a lot of work to do, especially as we continue to fight for the rights of our trans community, but I remain optimistic about our community’s future given how far we’ve come.