Tag Archives: google.org

An update on our efforts to help Americans navigate COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought unprecedented challenges and emphasized how important it is for each of us to do our part to help find solutions. I’m sharing an update here on how Google is contributing to keep people safe and helping to get American businesses back up and running.

Contributing to economic recovery efforts

As I’ve written earlier, to help small businesses gain easier access to badly-needed capital, we founded the $170 million Grow with Google Small Business Fund alongside $10 million in Google.org grants, with an aim to help the most underserved small businesses, particularly those owned by women and minorities. In collaboration with Opportunity Finance Network, more than $53 million dollars of loans and Google.org grants have been allocated to community partners who are focused on serving rural, women, Black, Latino and Native borrowers, which helps American communities start to get back on their feet. Tires by Papi and Bailiwick Clothing Company are two such examples.


Of course, our greatest contribution continues to be developing products to help people stay informed, adapt and get through this pandemic. 

According to the Connected Commerce Council, nearly one in three small business owners report that without digital tools they would close all or parts of their business. To help small businesses, we rolled out many new, free product features earlier this year, so that they can inform their customers about things like takeout, delivery, no-contact delivery, or curbside pickup. Today, people can now find this information on Search and Maps for more than 2 million restaurants and retailers in the U.S.


Using Search and Maps, you can find information about businesses.

We’ve used Google’s Duplex technology to make calls to businesses and confirm things like temporary closures. This has enabled us to make 3 million updates to business information globally, which have been seen by people over 20 billion times in Search and Maps. 


To help people searching for jobs, we have stepped up to help in many ways. We added new relevant features in the U.S. like showing jobs that can be done remotely. Google Cloud has partnered with different states to help jobseekers: we assisted Rhode Island’s Virtual Career Center, a new platform that  connects thousands of jobseekers with jobs and employment services; worked with the State of Illinois to develop a 24/7 Virtual Intelligent Agent on the IDES website; developed a chatbot, in partnership with the New Jersey Office of Innovation to provide real-time answers to the 20 most popular unemployment questions. These are just some of the examples. 


We also transformed our free Grow with Google training to virtual formats and have already trained more than 1 million Americans on digital skills this year. The Google IT Support Professional Certificate—which takes beginner learners to entry-level jobs ready in under six months—has become the most popular certificate on Coursera during COVID-19.

Grow with Google digital skills training

Providing trusted information

Questions related to the pandemic are more searched than sports or music (and even elections) in every state. 

Top coronavirus related searches in the U.S. this month:

  1. Coronavirus symptoms

  2. Coronavirus update

  3. Coronavirus vaccine

Across the U.S. people are searching on Google to stay informed and adapt. In 47 states, the top coronavirus-related question during the last six months has been “How many cases of coronavirus in [my state].” Search interest for “online courses” reached an all-time high in April this year, as did searches for “unemployment,”compared to search trends over the last 15 years. 


During this time, we’ve also seen people seek out information to help them navigate their daily lives. For example, since the pandemic began, searches for “curbside pickup” have increased 13-fold compared to this time last year, while searches for “contact tracing” spiked 1,000 percent  in April and then reached an all-time high in May. 


In March, we launched Search Knowledge Panels so when people search for information related to COVID-19, they immediately see local guidance, information about symptoms, prevention and treatments. We’ve committed $250 million in Ad Grants to help government agencies provide critical information related to COVID-19. As of today we’ve served more than 100 million PSAs from local public health agencies, which have been seen by tens of millions of people across the U.S.


We also launched the Journalism Emergency Relief Fund to provide emergency funding for small and medium sized news organizations covering the pandemic. To date, we’ve distributed $9 million to U.S. newsrooms across all 50 states. 

Helping people make safe choices 

To help people make informed decisions about where to go, the COVID layer in Google Maps shows critical information about new cases in an area and how they’re trending. As of this month, our COVID-19 Community Mobility Reports, which are used by public health agencies and researchers around the globe, have been downloaded more than 16 million times. 

In May, we partnered with Apple to launch the Exposure Notifications System (ENS) and made it available to public health authorities around the world in their fight against COVID-19. Designed specifically and carefully to protect users’ privacy while helping public health authorities and governments manage countries’ re-opening, today 13 states and U.S. territories have built apps based on this ENS technology.

In a short time, COVID-19 has changed how people live their lives. We’ll continue to update our products and roll out initiatives to help people and American businesses find trusted information, adapt and manage economic uncertainty.  

Source: Google LatLong


This researcher is tracking COVID with help from Google

A research team at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) has been working to make epidemiological forecasting as universal as weather forecasting. When COVID hit, they launched COVIDcast to develop data monitoring and forecasting resources that can help public health officials, researchers, and the public make informed decisions. 

Last month, CMU received $1 million from Google.org and a team of thirteen Google.org Fellows to work pro bono for six months to help continue building out COVIDcast. This was part of Google.org’s $100 million commitment to COVID relief. 

We caught up with Ryan Tibshirani, a research lead at CMU, to learn more about the project and what the Google.org fellows will work on. 

Tell us a little bit about yourself.  

I'm a faculty member at CMU, jointly appointed in Statistics and Machine Learning, and I’m very interested in epidemiological forecasting and tracking. In 2012, I cofounded Delphi centered on this topic with Roni Rosenfeld, Professor and Head of Machine Learning at CMU.  

What do you focus on most these days?

Since the pandemic began I’ve  spent all of my time on COVID-19 research. Delphi has quadrupled the number of researchers in just eight months and we’re laser-focused on COVID. Leading Delphi's pandemic response effort has been both a challenge—I've never done anything like this before—and a joy—the group is full of amazing people. 

How did you come up with the idea for COVIDcast? 

To back up just a bit: Roni and I formed Delphi in 2012 with the goal to develop the theory and practice of epidemiological forecasting, primarily for seasonal influenza in the U.S. We want this technology to become as universally accepted and useful as today’s weather forecasting. 

Our forecasting system has been a top performer at the Centers for Disease Control's (CDC) annual forecasting challenges, and last year Delphi Group was named one of the two Centers of Excellence for Influenza Forecasting. I like to think of COVIDcast as a replica of what we’ve done for the flu but better and faster.

Break it down for us, what is COVIDcast?

The COVIDcast project is about building and providing an ecosystem for COVID-19 tracking and forecasting. Our aim is to support informed decision-making at federal, state, and local levels of government, in the healthcare sector, and beyond. 

The project has many parts: 

  • Unique relationships with tech and healthcare partners that give us access to data with different views of pandemic activity in the U.S;

  • Code and infrastructure to build new, geographically-detailed, continuously-updated COVID-19 indicators;

  • A historical database of all indicators, including revision tracking;

  • A public API that serves new indicators daily, along with interactive maps and graphics to display them;

  • And lastly, modeling work that builds on the indicators to improve nowcasting and forecasting the spread of COVID-19.

A key element of COVIDcast is that we make all of our work as open and accessible as possible to other researchers and the public to help amplify its impact. We share both our data and a range of software tools—from data processing and visualization to sophisticated statistical tools. 

How will the Google.org funding and fellowship help?

This support will help Delphi expand our efforts to provide a geographically-detailed view of various aspects of the pandemic and to develop an early warning system for health officials, for example, when the number of cases in a locale are expected to rise. There will be more pandemics and epidemics after COVID-19. We want to be prepared, and we believe Delphi's work can help us do that. 

The Google.org Fellowship just kicked off. What are you most excited about?  

Everything! We're excited to embed all the Google.org Fellows—engineers, user experience designers and researchers, program and product managers—into our workstreams. We hope they can help accelerate our progress and introduce us to leading industry product and software development techniques. Each and every one of the fellows has special skills that will be put to good use. We can't wait to see what we can achieve, together. 

More broadly, what role does the tech sector play in COVID-19 response efforts? 

An enormous role. The tech sector is uniquely positioned to provide data and platforms that even governments can't provide. It also has the skills and experience to quickly assemble large-scale systems, in real time. Google has been extraordinarily helpful to us on all of these fronts.

How The Trevor Project continues to support LGBTQ youth

This September, National Suicide Prevention Awareness Month feels different. Over the past nine months, LGBTQ youth have experienced unique challenges in relation to COVID-19.The pandemic has amplified existing mental health disparities and created new problems that have impacted the daily lives of many LGBTQ youth. 

As the world's largest suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization for LGBTQ young people, The Trevor Project has seen the volume of youth reaching out to our crisis services for support increase significantly, at times double our pre-COVID volume. We’ve heard from a great number of youth who no longer have access to their usual support systems, including many who have been forced to confine in unsupportive home environments. The unprecedented crisis of 2020 has reaffirmed the need for increased mental health support for LGBTQ youth, particularly as we’ve ventured into a more virtual world. 

From transitioning our physical call center operations to be fully remote to publishing aresource to help LGBTQ youth explore conversations around the intersection of their racial and LGBTQ identities—The Trevor Project has remained open and responsive to the needs of the young people we serve despite the onslaught of challenges. Technological advancement has been essential as Trevor adapts to meet this moment. In particular, artificial intelligence (AI) is a crucial component for scaling our services to support the increase of youth reaching out. 

IMG_7791.jpg

Kendra Gaunt joined The Trevor Project nine months ago as a Data and AI product owner.  

I joined The Trevor Project as the Data and AI product owner nine months ago, and started working alongside a team of 11 Google.org Fellows who were doing six months of full-time pro bono work with us. With the support of $2.7 million in Google.org grant funding and two teams of pro bono Google.org Fellows, we have introduced new AI applications to scale our impact. We built an AI system that helps us identify which LGBTQ individuals reaching out to us for support are at the highest risk of suicide so that we can quickly connect them to counselors who are ready to help at that moment. And now, we’re leveraging AI to ensure the safety of our TrevorSpace forums through auto-moderation, and to train more volunteer counselors through a conversation simulator.  It’s projects like these that have enabled The Trevor Project to directly serve more than 150,000 crisis contacts from LGBTQ youth in the past year. 

And we’re just getting started. With the guidance of best practices from Google, we’re building an in-house AI team. As we grow and develop a long-term product strategy around our use of data and AI, we acknowledge our responsibility to create a values-based system to guide how we use and develop AI. By applying learnings from Google's Responsible Innovation team, we created a set of principles to ensure that we develop models that avoid reinforcing unfair bias that impacts people based on their ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, race, and the intersection of these identities. 

I joined The Trevor Project because it’s an organization driven by values, and our use of technology reflects this. I noticed an opportunity to leverage my years of experience and partner with people who are committed to employing technology for social good. Through the thoughtful and ethical use of AI, we can overcome obstacles of scale and complexity as we pursue our mission to end suicide among LGBTQ youth.

To learn more about National Suicide Prevention Awareness Month and the work The Trevor Project is doing, check out ourCARE campaign. This includes actionable steps anyone can take to support their community and prevent suicide, as well as technological innovations that help us serve more young people, faster.

If you or someone you know needs help or support, contact The Trevor Project's TrevorLifeline 24/7 at 1-866-488-7386. Counseling is also available 24/7 via chat every day at TheTrevorProject.org/help or by texting 678-678.

The shift to distance learning in Asia Pacific

When I was growing up in Serbia, there was only one small school in my village, and we often shared a classroom with the grade above us. The teacher would focus on my classmates and me for a couple of minutes, before turning his attention to the older students on the other side of the room. I can’t imagine how difficult that must have been—but somehow, he made it work, kept our classes fun and engaging, and gave us all the best possible education.


I’ve thought about that experience a lot over the past few months, seeing how teachers and students around the world have struggled to keep learning going during the COVID-19 pandemic. 


Technology has made it easier to teach online—but not all communities have the same access to digital tools, or the same ability to use them. It’s one of the main reasons we launched Google.org’s $10 million Distance Learning Fund: an initiative to help educators and students get the resources they need, especially in underserved communities. 


In Asia Pacific, we’ve made a $1 million grant to INCO, a nonprofit that’s supporting local education organizations in Indonesia, Hong Kong, China and the Philippines. I recently spoke to some of the teachers and students these organizations have helped as they adapt to a new way of learning.  

Arnold Chan, politics teacher at Maximo Estrella Senior High School, Philippines 

I've been a public school teacher for four years now, and I've always found joy in teaching, especially when I interact with my students in class. When the pandemic hit the Philippines and classes migrated online, I was worried about whether I could efficiently and effectively deliver quality education remotely. I found myself becoming a student again, learning how to use online tools and design engaging learning materials through the Asian Institute of Journalism and Communication. Since attending a few training sessions, I'm now confident that I can provide the same quality of education online as I could in face-to-face classes.

Arnold Chan

Asih Nurani, English teacher at Regina Pacis Bogor Junior High School, Indonesia

I may have been a teacher for the last nine years, but I never once imagined running an online class. I knew I had to find new ways to engage my students. I also felt responsible for helping other teachers, especially the senior ones who weren't familiar with distance teaching tools. Thanks to the support and materials from INCO’s partner, Semua Murid Semua Guru, I was able to team up with some of my colleagues to develop additional training materials and teaching techniques to help other teachers cope with this transition!

Asih Nurani

Ka Ka (12 years old), student in Hong Kong 

During the class suspension period, I was really affected by the prolonged schooling disruption and I fell behind in English and Mathematics. Through the Changing Young Lives Foundation (CYLF)'s digital learning platform, I was able to catch up with classes I missed since March and received extra learning opportunities for different subjects by attending online classes daily. I am now feeling more confident about entering my secondary schooling in the new school year, and looking forward to joining more online tutorial classes!

Ka Ka

Mirah (18 years old), student in Kintamani-Bali, Indonesia 

Distance learning was new to me, and I was also worried I could not study online as it required me to buy an internet package regularly, which my parents are unable to afford. But I am grateful to have received support from Putera Sampoerna Foundation-School Development Outreach, which covered my internet costs and provided me with my very own laptop. When I started attending my online classes, I realized how fun it was! We are currently doing project-based learning online, which allows us to do hands-on prototyping with our projects and collaborate with our classmates.

Mirah

I’m humbled and inspired by these educators and students—their adaptability, their positive attitude, and their determination to keep teaching and learning no matter what. I’m looking forward to continuing Google.org’s support of nonprofits like INCO, as they and their partners make learning more accessible in communities throughout Asia Pacific.  

Maab Ibrahim works each day to fight for racial justice

In her role at Google, Maab Ibrahim works to guide the company on the path toward creating a more just and equitable future. And she draws from her personal experience to guide her work.


Growing up in Richmond, Virginia, Maab reckoned with the city’s painful history and observed everyday injustices like racism and economic inequality. As the child of Black immigrants, she noticed racial inequity in her own backyard as her family and community navigated structural barriers. Today, as a grant portfolio manager for Google.org, Maab has spent the last four years working alongside nonprofit leaders to find solutions to address racial injustice—from centering community-led voices in the movement to using data to identify and analyze bias in the criminal justice system. 

How do you describe your job at a dinner party?

I’m a philanthropic portfolio manager for Google.org. My core focus is to provide support, such as grant funding and technical expertise, to nonprofits that are working to advance racial justice across a number of issue areas, including criminal justice reform, education, and economic opportunity. 

What inspired you to pursue racial justice work?

I draw a lot of inspiration for this work from Black and Latino communities where I grew up in Richmond, Virginia. Virginia has a deep and pained racial history. Our state welcomed the very first slave ships to America, housed the Confederacy, and was a battleground for historic civil rights cases such as Loving v. Virginia. As I learned about this history, I couldn’t help but notice the racial disparities that continue to persist in Black and Brown neighborhoods. Children in our classrooms were over-suspended and over-punished. Parents were attempting to be present in their kids’ educations, while overcoming language barriers or managing two or three jobs. Many families had a loved one behind bars due to biased policing and harsh sentencing.  

Over the years, I’ve learned strategies and tools, but my personal experience continues to deeply influence my approach to the work. As one of very few black women in philanthropy, I believe in trusting and supporting community leaders who are most proximate to racial injustice.

As one of very few black women in philanthropy, I believe in trusting and supporting community leaders who are most proximate to racial injustice.

Can you describe Google.org’s approach to racial justice grantmaking and racial justice work? 

We've primarily directed our grant funding to criminal justice work over the last five years, making more than $44 million in grants and giving more than 15,000 hours in pro bono services to nonprofits working in that space. Google has a deep appreciation for data science; it's a part of our DNA. So our largest grants in this space have been to nonprofits working to close data gaps across the criminal justice system. For example, we’re funding work to identify bias in policing practices and jail population trends in rural communities. 

Alongside the criminal justice data work, we’re also funding community-led solutions. We take to heart the importance of centering on the dignity of marginalized communities and affirming the flourishing of Black and Brown lives. What that means in practice is funding organizations that are led by and advocating on behalf of Black or Latino communities, such as the Black Lives Matter Movement.

What have been some of the biggest challenges this year?

We saw the most recent racial justice uprising happen in the wake of COVID-19. People from all kinds of communities came out on the streets in response to the death of George Floyd and demanded change in our justice system. As a result, reforms kicked off across cities in America. But behind the mobilization, the Black community continues to feel the loss of many loved ones due to COVID-19. The pandemic has exasperated systemic inequities in healthcare and in our economic system that leave Black communities most vulnerable. 

From the grantee perspective, that means organizations and their staff are dealing with two crises at one time. It's been very challenging but I’m proud that we’re able to support groups like The Satcher Health Institute at Morehouse School of Medicine that are working to address these disparities.

What keeps you motivated and positive? 

Racial justice work, at its core, requires a necessary discomfort that drives progress forward. But at this moment, I’m feeling energized by the catalytic shift the U.S. is experiencing in addressing systemic anti-Black racism. I am deeply inspired by the visionary leaders that drive community-led solutions. For me, it's a great honor to be in solidarity with their work.

What advice do you have for women starting out in their career? 

When you are early in your career, it can feel like there’s so much to learn from the people around you. I’d ask young women to consider just how much the world has to learn from them, too. Young people are the driving force behind social movements, the first adopters of new technologies and more willing to imagine the world differently. That perspective is invaluable to innovation and progress.

I’d ask young women to consider just how much the world has to learn from them, too.

How we’re helping military spouses find job success

Having grown up with a Marine veteran father, and then marrying a commissioned Air Force officer, I know firsthand the challenges that spouses and families face when it comes to military life. One month before my wedding, I learned that my partner would be relocating for his role in the military. Though my career was flourishing, I needed to quickly find a new role, in a new office, with a completely different culture. Though it all worked out in the end, my spouse and I had to live apart for some time, making the first few months of our marriage a little more challenging than your typical newlywed experience. 


These days, I’m proud to work at Google, a company that supports transitioning service members, veterans, and military spouses in meaningful ways every day, whether they are looking to grow their skills, find a job, or start a business. One of those ways is with Google committing to offering paid leave benefits up to 5 days to military spouses and domestic partners experiencing changes of location due to military orders or those preparing for a deployment or activation. We recently conducted research surveying more than 1,500 military spouses to learn more about the military spouse experience. Below are some of our key learnings from the survey, which was conducted in partnership with Hiring our Heroes, a nationwide initiative of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, with the support of a Google.org grant. As I read through this report, I related to so much of what these spouses said, and saw their stories reflected in my own. 


COVID-19 has changed a lot about the way we work, in a very short period of time. And even though the landscape of work has changed, this research remains relevant as so many Americans are looking to adjust to the new normal of remote work, while still others are seeking out opportunities to up-skill, re-skill or start new businesses. 


Many military spouses face challenges when looking for work, but we always get creative to make career and business choices that work for us and our families. Some want to open their own businesses, in an attempt to maximize flexibility and portability. While 76 percent of military spouses indicated that they were interested in starting a business, fewer had actually made the leap into business ownership.

Those who had already started their own businesses often did so with an initial investment of less than $1,000, but felt that aside from raising capital, they lacked skills in marketing and social media to maximize their business potential. 


To help military spouses learn the skills they need to help their businesses succeed, we’ve worked with Hiring our Heroes to curate a series of custom-made minicourses in the Primer app for military spouses, on topics like running a business and maximizing productivity while maintaining work-life balance. These new minicourses build on a series Grow with Google launched last year. 


Whether starting a business, finding a new position or exploring training and education opportunities, military spouses said they often felt overwhelmed and unsure of how to get started. While the outpouring of support for the military spouse community has been incredibly positive, navigating the vast array of government, nonprofit and corporate programs designed to support our community  sometimes creates anxiety and confusion.


That’s why Google is continuing our work with Hiring our Heroes by launching the MilSpouse Career Roadmap. This interactive hub combines a variety of tools and resources that support military spouses in building careers that move with them, like Google’s remote work search feature, and education and employment resources provided by the Department of Defense’s Spouse Education and Career Opportunities office.  


More than 80 percent of survey respondents said they would pursue additional training and education to build careers that were portable. To help, we’ve made Google.org grants to support scholarships through Syracuse University’s Institute for Veterans and Military Families to make Google’s IT Professional Certificate available to military spouses to get them the skills they need to find work in a fast-growing field. 


Audri Vergara, a mom who left her career to become a stay-at-home parent, is one heartening example from the research. Though working at home and taking care of her son kept Audri busy, she decided to complete the Google IT Professional Certificate through the Institute for Veterans and Military Families. Afterwhich, Audri was able to boost her resume and find a new full-time position where she uses skills from the certificate program. 


I hope that Google’s research and actions to support military families will continue to support people like Audri while also encouraging other organizations to help empower military spouses, too. To learn more about Grow with Google’s tools and resources for the military community, visit grow.google/militaryspouses.


“Buscándole:” Finding ways to help Latino small businesses

Every day for the past 47 years, my mother-in-law, who my kids and I love to call Nana, wakes up, has her required cup of cafecito and gets ready to go to work. She’s a hairstylist and the owner of Carmen’s Beauty Salon in Imperial Beach, California, and she wouldn’t give it up for anything in the world. She’s seen her regulars for decades, cutting and styling their hair through weddings, graduations and more. 

Carmen's Beauty Salon

My mother-in-law giving my son a trim at her salon. 

But in 2020, being a hairstylist—or any type of business owner—is tough. She is just one of the more than 30 million small business owners across the country who are struggling with the impact from the global pandemic. In many cases they are also trying to juggle other responsibilities like distance learning, taking care of sick or elderly family members and simply making ends meet. People like my Nana have been top of mind for me as we all cope with our current reality.

As we kick off Hispanic Heritage Month, a time to celebrate Latino culture, regardless of who you are or how you identify—whether it’s Hispanic, Latinx, Mexican, Puerto Rican, Black, Brazilian, Latino or any other way.  I also can't help but try to buscarle, which means to find a way around a problem or challenge, how to help small businesses like my Nana’s hair salon. And I'm glad to say Google is finding a way, too.

Today, we’re announcing a $3 million Google.org grant to the Hispanics in Philanthropy PowerUp Fund, to directly support hundreds of Latino-owned small businesses with access to capital and the training they need to successfully recover and continue to grow. This grant builds on Google’s $180 million commitment to support minority- and women-led small businesses across the country through the Grow with Google Small Business Fund and Google.org Grants Program.

We’re also providing free tools and training to help any Latino-owned businesses adapt and grow through Grow with Google’s "Paso a Paso" workshops and online training programs. Businesses can sign up for our new Google Ads workshop in Spanish, a special panel featuring resilient Latino entrepreneurs via OnAir En Español and continue their digital marketing training with Primer app minicourses in English or Spanish. We’re expanding our Digital Coaches program and kicking off a partnership with the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce so Latino-owned businesses can get more localized support in their communities.

Beyond helping small businesses, we have lots more in store during Hispanic Heritage Month at Google. I encourage you to explore our updated Latino Cultures in the U.S. collection within Google Arts & Culture, where J. Balvin can share with you the untold story behind Fernando Botero’s “July 20th." Also, be on the lookout for our collaboration with Pop-Up Magazine, where we’ll celebrate Latinos across the country through virtual storytelling and art.

You'll also see us spotlighting Latino businesses around the country in our new "Buscándole" national campaign encouraging people to support neighborhood businesses. And today's Doodle features Felicitas Mendez, a Puerto Rican American civil rights pioneer who was a small business owner herself. Combined, we hope all these efforts can not only celebrate the Latino community during Hispanic Heritage Month, but also help members of our community thrive for the long term.

“Buscándole:” Finding ways to help Latino small businesses

Every day for the past 47 years, my mother-in-law, who my kids and I love to call Nana, wakes up, has her required cup of cafecito and gets ready to go to work. She’s a hairstylist and the owner of Carmen’s Beauty Salon in Imperial Beach, California, and she wouldn’t give it up for anything in the world. She’s seen her regulars for decades, cutting and styling their hair through weddings, graduations and more. 

Carmen's Beauty Salon

My mother-in-law giving my son a trim at her salon. 

But in 2020, being a hairstylist—or any type of business owner—is tough. She is just one of the more than 30 million small business owners across the country who are struggling with the impact from the global pandemic. In many cases they are also trying to juggle other responsibilities like distance learning, taking care of sick or elderly family members and simply making ends meet. People like my Nana have been top of mind for me as we all cope with our current reality.

As we kick off Hispanic Heritage Month, a time to celebrate Latino culture, regardless of who you are or how you identify—whether it’s Hispanic, Latinx, Mexican, Puerto Rican, Black, Brazilian, Latino or any other way.  I also can't help but try to buscarle, which means to find a way around a problem or challenge, how to help small businesses like my Nana’s hair salon. And I'm glad to say Google is finding a way, too.

Today, we’re announcing a $3 million Google.org grant to the Hispanics in Philanthropy PowerUp Fund, to directly support hundreds of Latino-owned small businesses with access to capital and the training they need to successfully recover and continue to grow. This grant builds on Google’s $180 million commitment to support minority- and women-led small businesses across the country through the Grow with Google Small Business Fund and Google.org Grants Program.

We’re also providing free tools and training to help any Latino-owned businesses adapt and grow through Grow with Google’s "Paso a Paso" workshops and online training programs. Businesses can sign up for our new Google Ads workshop in Spanish, a special panel featuring resilient Latino entrepreneurs via OnAir En Español and continue their digital marketing training with Primer app minicourses in English or Spanish. We’re expanding our Digital Coaches program and kicking off a partnership with the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce so Latino-owned businesses can get more localized support in their communities.

Beyond helping small businesses, we have lots more in store during Hispanic Heritage Month at Google. I encourage you to explore our updated Latino Cultures in the U.S. collection within Google Arts & Culture, where J. Balvin can share with you the untold story behind Fernando Botero’s “July 20th." Also, be on the lookout for our collaboration with Pop-Up Magazine, where we’ll celebrate Latinos across the country through virtual storytelling and art.

You'll also see us spotlighting Latino businesses around the country in our new "Buscándole" national campaign encouraging people to support neighborhood businesses. And today's Doodle features Felicitas Mendez, a Puerto Rican American civil rights pioneer who was a small business owner herself. Combined, we hope all these efforts can not only celebrate the Latino community during Hispanic Heritage Month, but also help members of our community thrive for the long term.

Why digital tools are a safety net for small businesses

For businesses trying to stay afloat, like Morgan Miller Plumbing in Grandview, Missouri, digital tools are instrumental. While the onset of COVID-19 was full of unknowns, CEO Stella Crewse says it gave her an opportunity to make her business stronger. “This experience has given us the confidence that we will be able to continue operations seamlessly no matter what comes our way,” Stella says.

Stella’s company was already using digital tools when COVID-19 hit, but in recent months has realized how necessary they are. Her team uses G Suite to share documents and stay organized and video conferencing to stay connected. They’ve even used  Google Maps to identify new sewer line paths without leaving the office in order to follow social distancing guidelines. 

A new report, released today by the Connected Commerce Council in partnership with Google, shows how a “digital safety net” can serve as a support system for small businesses like Morgan Miller Plumbing, and helps to mitigate the negative business effects of COVID-19.

According to the report, practically all small businesses—93 percent—were disrupted by the pandemic, facing reduced customer demand and hours of operations as well as employee layoffs. Eighty-five percent of small businesses say COVID–19 made them rethink their approach to digital tools, allowing them to adapt. 

The study also found that businesses that had a digital safety net in place and used a variety of digital tools—like digital ads, digital payments, data analytics and customer insights tools—not only felt better prepared, but also experienced dramatically better business outcomes, expecting less than a quarter of the revenue reduction compared to their digitally unprepared counterparts. And states with a higher share of digitally prepared businesses anticipate better revenue outcomes in 2020.
Drivers business index v. Projected revenue loss SMBs

This research also found that small business leaders of color have been disproportionately impacted by this pandemic and are roughly half as likely as white-run businesses to have received aid through public loans for their business needs. Businesses that have remained open despite a lack of funding attribute their resilience to embracing technology.

The crisis expedited digital momentum for small businesses: Nearly three-in-four increased their use of digital tools, particularly video conferencing, over the last five months. But not all American small- and medium-sized businesses have a digital safety net. To best serve the needs of every business, we’re introducing new Grow with Google lessons, helping business owners learn how to build an online presence, find more customers, sell online or work remotely. The content varies from two-minute tutorial videos to live workshops, and ranges from beginner level to advanced, so every business can find what they need to become more prepared. 

On the Google for Small Business website, business owners can find personalized Google product recommendations for their business, as well as helpful tips and practical guides to help small businesses get the most of these tools. 

And to reach even more small businesses, Grow with Google is partnering with SCORE and the International Downtown Association(iDA)  to complete a series of affordable and easily accessible Grow with Google workshops for 50,000 small businesses across the U.S. We will continue our partnerships with more than 7,500 organizations to bring virtual training events to local communities across the country. 

With this plan, we’re hopeful we’ll be able to help more leaders like Stella acquire the digital skills they need to help their business recover and grow moving forward. 

Google supports COVID-19 AI and data analytics projects

Nonprofits, universities and other academic institutions around the world are turning to artificial intelligence (AI) and data analytics to help us better understand COVID-19 and its impact on communities—especially vulnerable populations and healthcare workers. To support this work, Google.org is giving more than $8.5 million to 31 organizations around the world to aid in COVID-19 response. Three of these organizations will also receive the pro-bono support of Google.org Fellowship teams. 

This funding is part of Google.org’s $100 million commitment to COVID-19 relief and focuses on four key areas where new information and action is needed to help mitigate the effects of the pandemic.


Monitoring and forecasting disease spread

Understanding the spread of COVID-19 is critical to informing public health decisions and lessening its impact on communities. We’re supporting the development of data platforms to help model disease and projects that explore the use of diverse public datasets to more accurately predict the spread of the virus.


Improving health equity and minimizing secondary effects of the pandemic

COVID-19 has had a disproportionate effect on vulnerable populations. To address health disparities and drive equitable outcomes, we’re supporting efforts to map the social and environmental drivers of COVID-19 impact, such as race, ethnicity, gender and socioeconomic status. In addition to learning more about the immediate health effects of COVID-19, we’re also supporting work that seeks to better understand and reduce the long-term, indirect effects of the virus—ranging from challenges with mental health to delays in preventive care.


Slowing transmission by advancing the science of contact tracing and environmental sensing

Contact tracing is a valuable tool to slow the spread of disease. Public health officials around the world are using digital tools to help with contact tracing. Google.org is supporting projects that advance science in this important area, including research investigating how to improve exposure risk assessments while preserving privacy and security. We’re also supporting related research to understand how COVID-19 might spread in public spaces, like transit systems.


Supporting healthcare workers

Whether it’s working to meet the increased demand for acute patient care, adapting to rapidly changing protocols or navigating personal mental and physical wellbeing, healthcare workers face complex challenges on the frontlines. We’re supporting organizations that are focused on helping healthcare workers quickly adopt new protocols, deliver more efficient care, and better serve vulnerable populations. 

Together, these organizations are helping make the community’s response to the pandemic more advanced and inclusive, and we’re proud to support these efforts. You can find information about the organizations Google.org is supporting below.  

Monitoring and forecasting disease spread

  • Carnegie Mellon University*: informing public health officials with interactive maps that display real-time COVID-19 data from sources such as web surveys and other publicly-available data.

  • Keio University: investigating the reliability of large-scale surveys in helping model the spread of COVID-19.

  • University College London:modeling the prevalence of COVID-19 and understanding its impact using publicly-available aggregated, anonymized search trends data.  

  • Boston Children's Hospital, Oxford University, Northeastern University*: building a platform to support accurate and trusted public health data for researchers, public health officials and citizens.

  • Tel Aviv University: developing simulation models using synthetic data to investigate the spread of COVID-19 in Israel.

  • Kampala International University, Stanford University, Leiden University, GO FAIR: implementing data sharing standards and platforms for disease modeling for institutions across Uganda, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Kenya, Tunisia and Zimbabwe. 

Improving health equity and minimizing secondary effects of the pandemic 

  • Morehouse School of Medicine’s Satcher Health Leadership Institute*: developing an interactive, public-facing COVID-19 Health Equity Tracker of the United States. 

  • Florida A&M University, Shaw University: examining structural social determinants of health and the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 in communities of color in Florida and North Carolina.

  • Boston University School of Public Health:investigating the drivers of racial, ethnic and socioeconomic disparities in the causes and consequences of COVID-19, with a focus on Massachusetts.

  • University of North Carolina, Vanderbilt University:investigating molecular mechanisms underlying susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 and variability in COVID-19 outcomes in Hispanic/Latinx populations. 

  • Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center: quantifying the impact of COVID-19 on healthcare not directly associated with the virus, such as delayed routine or preventative care.

  • Georgia Institute of Technology:investigating opportunities for vulnerable populations to find information related to COVID-19. 

  • Cornell Tech:developing digital tools and resources for advocates and survivors of intimate partner violence during COVID-19. 

  • University of Michigan School of Information: evaluating health equity impacts of the rapid virtualization of primary healthcare. 

  • Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar: modeling the impact of air pollution on COVID-related secondary health exacerbations. 

  • Cornell University, EURECOM:developing scalable and explainable methods for verifying claims and identifying misinformation about COVID-19.

Slowing transmission by advancing the science of contact tracing and environmental sensing

  • Arizona State University:applying federated analytics (a state-of-the-art, privacy-preserving analytic technique) to contact tracing, including an on-campus pilot.

  • Stanford University:applying sparse secure aggregation to detect emerging hotspots.

  • University of Virginia, Princeton University, University of Maryland:designing and analyzing effective digital contact tracing methods. 

  • University of Washington: investigating environmental SARS-CoV-2 detection and filtration methods in bus lines and other public spaces. 

  • Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru:mitigating the spread of COVID-19 in India’s transit systems with rapid testing and modified commuter patterns. 

  • TU Berlin, University of Luxembourg:using quantum mechanics and machine learning to understand the binding of SARS-CoV-2 spike protein to human cells—a key process in COVID-19 infection.

Supporting healthcare workers 

  • Medic Mobile, Dimagi: developing data analytics tools to support frontline health workers in countries such as India and Kenya.

  • Global Strategies:developing software to support healthcare workers adopting COVID-19 protocols in underserved, rural populations in the U.S., including Native American communities. 

  • C Minds:creating an open-source, AI-based support system for clinical trials related to COVID-19.  

  • Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein:supporting and integrating community health workers and volunteers to help deliver mental health services and monitor outcomes in one of Brazil's most vulnerable communities.

  • Fiocruz Bahia, Federal University of Bahia:establishing an AI platform for research and information-sharing related to COVID-19 in Brazil.

  • RAD-AID:creating and managing a data lake for institutions in low- and middle-income countries to pool anonymized data and access AI tools.  

  • Yonsei University College of Medicine: scaling and distributing decision support systems for patients and doctors to better predict hospitalization and intensive care needs due to COVID-19.

  • University of California Berkeley and Gladstone Institutes: developing rapid at-home CRISPR-based COVID-19 diagnostic tests using cell phone technology. 

  • Fondazione Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia:enabling open-source access to anonymized COVID-19 chest X-ray and clinical data, and researching image analysis for early diagnosis and prognosis.

*Recipient of a Google.org Fellowship