Tag Archives: google.org

Searching for new solutions to the evolving jobs market

We’ve all seen lots of articles about the future of work in today’s rapidly changing economy. Too often, the loudest voices propose just one of two visions for the future. Either globalization and technology will eliminate quality jobs, or we'll adapt to change just like we always have.


Google may be built on code, but we don't believe the future is binary. What lies ahead is hard to predict, and the most likely scenario for the future of work is a new sort of hybrid—with technology both transforming and creating jobs and new models of employment. But we’re confident that, working together, we can shape a labor market where everyone has access to opportunity.


Last year, we launched Grow with Google, an initiative that aims to help everyone across America access the best of Google’s training and tools to grow their skills, careers, and businesses. Google Hire helps employers find great employees. And Google for Jobs helps job seekers find new opportunities.


But making a difference requires more than just one company. Today, as part of our commitment to jobs and opportunity, Walmart and Google are making a $5 million grant investment to three organizations testing solutions in reskilling the American workforce and matching skills to roles.


  • Learning throughout life: The Drucker Institute is partnering with the Mayor of South Bend, Indiana, to bring together the city’s educational and workforce resources so that everyone has access to skill-building throughout their careers. This “City of Lifelong Learning” will serve as a national model for communities looking to make learning available throughout life.
  • Improving matching between skills and roles: Opportunity@Work is launching the techhire.careers platform, a new tool that helps underserved groups validate their skills for employers and connect to opportunities. This inclusive hiring marketplace helps job seekers and entry-level workers connect to trainings and jobs that make best use of their skills, and helps companies consider and hire nontraditional talent.
  • Backing social innovators with new skilling and job matching ideas:MIT’s Initiative on the Digital Economy is holding the Inclusive Innovation Challenge, a challenge for social innovators to use technology to reinvent the future of work. Through this tournament, the IDE will be seeking out and funding social innovators experimenting with new ways of helping people develop the skills they need for the digital economy and connect to job opportunities in a new way.

These grants are part of Google.org’s Work Initiative, a search for new solutions to prepare people for the changing nature of work. Last year, we committed $50 million to nonprofits experimenting with new ideas in skill-building, job matching, job quality, and social protections. In response to an open call for proposals, we received hundreds of ideas from across the U.S. In addition to our joint funding with Walmart, today we’re announcing four more grantees:


  • Assessing and credentialing soft skills:Southern New Hampshire University is developing the Authentic Assessment Platform (AAP), an assessment of in-demand soft skills. Results from this assessment will feed into a job placement process for young jobseekers. SNHU will provide those who complete this assessment with an SNHU official badge.
  • Training workers for the gig economy:Samaschool is developing a new training, with both in-person and online components, that helps independent workers learn the basics of finding freelance work, building their careers, managing contracts and taxes, and more.
  • Helping communities adjust to workforce transitions: Just Transition Fund is working with communities in coal country to develop a blueprint for coal-affected communities undergoing workforce transitions, helping them to effectively prepare for jobs in emerging sectors.
  • Aiding employers in clearly signaling their needs:The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation is developing new and open resources to help those who hire to better convey their needs. These tools will include new standards on job descriptions, a digital library of open-sourced competency and credential resources, and a repository of job descriptions for benchmarking.

Through these new grants, we aim to back leading social innovators’ thinking about how work can help more people access not just income, but also purpose and meaning. Over the next several months, we’ll be announcing more grantees, and, most importantly, sharing what Google and all our grantees are learning through these efforts.

Visualizing the #MeToo movement using Google Trends

The #MeToo movement has inspired growing, worldwide awareness of sexual violence and sexual assault. This is not only a significant moment in history; it’s a significant moment in internet history: #MeToo marks a time when sexual assault survivors everywhere turned the internet into a platform for their voices and perspectives to be heard and respected.

In recognition of Sexual Assault Awareness Month, we created Me Too Rising, a visualization of the global #MeToo movement through Google Trends data. On the site, you can look at global interest starting last fall and watch as consciousness spreads over time. In the past year, #MeToo has been searched in 195 countries—that's every country on earth. You can see the cities where it was trending on different dates and see what’s happening now at local levels with city-specific Google Search results for “Me Too.” And the sexual assault resources page has information for anyone who needs help or wants to learn more about sexual assault.

To make it easier for survivors to find support, Google.org is providing $500,000 in grants to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN) and Girls for Gender Equity. The two grants will provide increased support to RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Hotline and help Girls for Gender Equity launch a digital community where survivors can access tools to craft their own healing journeys.

I recently had the honor of hearing from Tarana Burke, whose decade-long effort as the founder of the #MeToo Movement has given voice to the survivors of sexual assault. With Google Trends, we now have data to reflect the power of those collective voices—we can see how far-reaching this movement has become. 

Here’s a snippet of my conversation with Tarana Burke

Here’s a snippet of my conversation with Tarana Burke, founder of the #MeToo Movement and senior director at Girls for Gender Equity

Me Too Rising shows what it looks like when we all become a little more aware of sexual assault and violence. When enough survivors speak up, the world not only listens; it searches for answers.

Digital skills for Arabic speakers everywhere

In the Middle East and North Africa, only 38 percent of youth believe their education gives them the skills they need to enter the workforce. By 2020, one in five jobs in the Arab world will require digital skills that aren’t widely available today. Many women are contributing to the innovation coming out of the Arab world, yet this region has among the lowest female economic involvement globally.

To address the growing skills gap in the region’s workforce, and to help ensure that opportunities created by technology are available to everyone, we’ve launched Maharat min Google (the English translation is “Building Capabilities with Google”). It’s an initiative to help Arabic speakers, specifically women and young people, get ready for future job opportunities, advance their careers, or grow their businesses. Maharat min Google will provide free courses, tools and in-person digital skills training to students, educators, job seekers and businesses. The online platform includes over 100 lessons and explanatory videos covering a range of digital marketing skills including search engine marketing, social media, video, e-commerce and more.

Maharat min Google: Digital skills for Arabic speakers everywhere

All over the Arab world, people use digital skills to realize their goals. We’ve created a series of short films that follow the journeys of six Arab women who have become entrepreneurs, women’s rights advocates and ground-breaking YouTube creators. They show how technology has helped them overcome obstacles, enabled them to forge their own paths and inspire other women to do the same by learning digital skills. 

We’re proud to support nonprofits that are teaching Arab youth the skills they need to succeed in an increasingly digital economy. INJAZ Al-Arab, a nonprofit that connects Arab youth to trainings and job opportunities, will use a $1 million grant from Google.org to help 100,000 high school and university students—particularly women and underprivileged students in rural areas—expand their digital skills through hands-on training across the region.

We’re also collaborating with MiSK Foundation to provide in-person digital skills training to over 100,000 people in Saudi Arabia with a target of 50 percent female participation. Our new collaboration will open up a wider range of career opportunities for women and young people to use key digital skills that they’ve learned from the courses.

Technology is a toolkit filled with opportunities—and Maharat min Google aims to help Arabic speakers around the world put those tools to work. We’re partnering with governments, universities, private-sector businesses and nonprofits to help more people take advantage of what the web has to offer.

Zendaya and Google.org help a community school bloom

In 2015, Roses in Concrete Community School opened in East Oakland, California. With a name inspired by a book of poetry written by Tupac Shakur, the school aims to create a model for urban education that prioritizes the needs of youth and families in the community it serves. It’s founder, Dr. Jeff Duncan-Andrade, believes education is the way to help young people understand that they can transform not only their community, but the world. By creating the conditions for our youngest change-makers to flourish, this education model can be a pathway to building healthy and sustainable communities across the U.S.

In the school’s first year, Google.org provided $750,000 to help launch its unique vision. And last Friday at Google’s San Francisco community space, teachers, students, artists, education advocates, Googlers and Oakland-native actress Zendaya celebrated the announcement of our additional $650,000 grant to help the school build a first-of-its-kind computer science (CS) curriculum, which will serve as a model for other schools across the U.S. The curriculum will be culturally and community relevant, building on Duncan-Andrade’s philosophy that education shouldn’t push students out of communities, but should instead help students transform them.

Research shows that Black and Latino students are interested in learning CS, but are underrepresented in the field due to limited access to learning opportunities, coupled with the lack of relatable role models. Through this new program, Roses in Concrete helps students see the connection between CS and their communities, and hopes to equip them with the skills they need to solve real problems, starting in their own neighborhood.

The purpose of education is not to escape poverty, but to end it. Dr. Jeff Duncan-Andrade
Founder of Roses in Concrete Community School

During the evening’s events, Roses students shared dance, art, and poetry performances for the crowd, which included Zendaya, an avid supporter of the school. Growing up in Oakland as the daughter of two teachers, she has fond memories of spending time in the same classrooms that now make up the Roses in Concrete campus, and credits pretending to grade papers as some of her earliest acting experience. During a student-led interview, Zendaya shared her appreciation for organizations like this progressive community school that are thoughtfully closing equity divides in her hometown. She encouraged the students to “Always lead with your heart and chase the happiness that fuels you,” and reminded them that technology is one possible medium for them to express themselves and make a positive difference.

  • Jeff Duncan Andrade
    Roses founder Dr. Jeff Duncan-Andrade shares his philosophy that education shouldn’t push students out of communities, but should instead help students transform them
  • Zendaya interview

    Actress and Oakland-native Zendaya was interviewed by a Roses student and his mother


  • Zendaya audience
    Zendaya joined teachers, students, artists and education advocates to celebrate the announcement of a $650,000 Google.org grant to help Roses build a first-of-its-kind computer science curriculum
  • Zendaya artwork
    Student artwork adorned the walls of Google’s San Francisco community space, where last week’s event was held
  • Revelations

    The night concluded with a moving performance set to Alvin Ailey’s ‘Revelations’


As a lab school, Roses in Concrete will share this new curriculum with national school leaders, policy makers and researchers. And alongside Roses, we can identify more ways to provide meaningful CS experiences to students of color, and by doing so, provide pathways for them to grow, thrive, and create change—in their own communities, and around the world.

Source: Education


Making an Impact in Pittsburgh

When we announced the Grow with Google initiative last October at our Pittsburgh office, we gave the city’s nonprofit organizations a challenge: come up with a bold idea to create lasting economic impact in your community, and Google.org will provide a grant to make that idea a reality.

Since then, more than 90 nonprofit organizations submitted proposals to spur economic opportunity right here in the Pittsburgh area. Ideas ranged from community-driven technology repair to mobile clothing deliveries for families in need, and we were impressed by the dedication to making a real difference  in the Pittsburgh area.

This week, our panel of advisors selected four nonprofits whose ideas were exceptionally impactful, innovative, scalable and feasible. Here are the winners of the Google.org Impact Challenge—Pittsburgh:

  • Idea Foundry: A nonprofit economic development organization and accelerator that aims to diversify entrepreneurship by offering hands-on, individualized business development support for young entrepreneurs and small business. With their grant, Idea Foundry will help establish up to 10 businesses led by underrepresented communities in Pittsburgh, each with the goal of creating five new jobs within five years.

  • Pittsburgh Conservation Corps: With their grant, PCC will scale Project Landforce to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to earn livable wages by training people for jobs in environmental restoration. Their project will help 150+ people previously on public assistance to earn over $10 million in income, and to facilitate almost 110,000 hours of restoration work.

  • Pittsburgh Community Kitchen: The Pittsburgh Community Kitchen works with neighborhoods that have average an unemployment rate of 18 percent, where residents do not have easy access to employment and training support. Through their grant, the Pittsburgh Community Kitchen will provide culinary training and sustainable employment opportunities for 100 people transitioning into the workforce from incarceration, homelessness, addiction or mental illness. 

  • Prototype PGH: Prototype PGH is a makerspace focused on women that seeks to build careers in technology and beyond by improving confidence and expertise. It equips its members with   access to a fully-stocked makerspace to experiment, an engaged community, and a growing series of workshops on a wide variety of skills.  With their grant, the organization aims to engage 1,000 women in 100 workshops with the goals of increasing each of the members’ salaries by at least $1,000, and incubate at least five women-owned start-ups. 

Each of the winners will receive $50,000 from Google.org and training from Google to make their proposal a reality.

Starting on February 28 and running through March 14, the the public is encouraged to vote for the idea they think holds the most promise, and the winner will get an extra $50,000 in grant funding.

In total, Pittsburgh nonprofits will receive $250,000 from Google.org, as part of Grow with Google’s continued commitment to create economic opportunity for individuals across the United States.

Google.org and StoryWeaver feed a hunger for reading

Today is International Mother Language Day which celebrates languages from around the world. More than 40% of the world’s children don’t have access to education materials in a language they understand. So to help close those gaps, we’re continuing our support of nonprofit organizations like Pratham Books.

Since 2013, Google.org has given more than $4 million to Pratham Books to build and grow their StoryWeaver platform which today includes thousands of stories in over 100 languages. We’ve also supported their offline tools—making it easier for students without access in remote communities to read and learn—and hundreds of Googlers have volunteered their time to help add new stories and languages.

We’re proud to support organizations like Pratham Books who use technology to create more opportunities for students to learn in their own languages and contexts. We believe that no matter what language a child speaks, they should be able to learn, grow, and give back to their communities.

If you have 15 minutes to spare, commemorate this International Mother Language Day by translating or creating your own story.

Bringing rare artifacts to life in 3D at the NMAAHC

Editor’s note: Google’s 2018 Black History Month celebration began this morning with a Doodle for Carter Woodson. We’re also unveiling a new 3D installation at the National Museum of African-American History and Culture. Stay tuned throughout the month for more on a variety of Black cultural content across many of our products and services.

Most of us have probably wondered once or twice how our lives fit into the scope of human history. Museums have taken on this question for centuries, using artifacts to offer windows into other people’s experience of the world. But there’s always been a limit to what galleries can display—because of the sheer volume of objects, and because some of those items are too fragile to sit in the open or be handled by streams of patrons.

When the National Museum of African-American History and Culture (NMAAHC) opened in 2016, their mission was to redefine how people experience art and artifacts in the modern age. And starting today, visitors to the museum can interact with rare items from Black history in a new 3D installation.

The items in this installation have historical and personal significance. For example, I’ve always loved 70s fashion and style. Seeing scans of actual boots from “The Wiz” takes me back to my childhood delight in seeing the movie and play. I’m also a jazz musician, like my father before me, and seeing a cast of composer and pianist Eubie Blake’s hand reminds me why I still can’t (and probably will never) do his solos justice. My hope is visitors will experience these artifacts and establish deeper connections with their personal stories as well.

Following a $1 million Google.org grant to the museum in 2016, I worked with a mulitracial volunteer team of engineers from the Black Googler Network and other internal organizations to build the exhibit. We were excited to apply the technical skill we’ve honed in our day jobs to create a hands-on exploration of our nation’s history.

  • NMAAHC_1.png
    A sample interaction with a tin of Madame CJ Walker’s Wonderful Hair Grower, next to boots from the original Broadway production of “The Wiz.”
  • NMAAHC_2.png
  • NMAAHC_3.png
  • NMAAHC_4.png

When I first met the NMAAHC’s founding director, Dr. Lonnie Bunch, and heard his vision for the museum, I felt a keen responsibility to help bring it to fruition. The stories contained within its walls aren’t only Black stories. They’re American stories. It’s humbling to be one of the people entrusted with the telling. I hope patrons can feel some of the same joy.

A new pathway to roles in IT Support

Today, we’re launching the Google IT Support Professional Certificate hosted on Coursera—a first-of-its-kind online program to prepare people for roles in IT support. With no previous experience required, beginning learners can become entry-level job ready in eight to 12 months. This program is part of Grow with Google, our initiative to help people get the skills they need to find a job.


There’s no better example of a dynamic, fast-growing field than IT support. With more and more people relying on computers for some part of their work, growth in IT support is outpacing the average rate for all other occupations. In the United States alone, there are currently 150,000 open IT support jobs (according to Burning Glass), and the average starting salary is $52,000 according to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics.  

I helped hire Google’s IT staff for several years when I led our internal IT support program; it was often challenging to find qualified candidates. But I knew that candidates didn't need traditional four-year college degrees to be qualified—and also found that IT was very teachable. So in 2014 we partnered with the nonprofit organization Year Up to create a program aimed at training and hiring non-traditional talent for IT support internships and full-time roles. The program was a success, and its graduates inspired us to think about how we could make a bigger impact beyond Google. Watch the story of one of our program graduates, Edgar Barragan:

Edgar Barragan: IT Support Specialist

Now we’re using the training we implemented at Google as the basis of a new program available to anyone, anywhere, as part of the Grow with Google initiative. No tech experience or college degree is necessary.


With over 64 hours of video lessons and a dynamic mix of hands-on labs and other interactive assessments, all developed by Googlers, this certificate program introduces people to troubleshooting and customer service, networking, operating systems, system administration, automation, and security—all the fundamentals of IT support. Throughout the program, people will hear directly from Googlers whose own foundation in IT support served as a jumping-off point for their careers.


Since we know training is just the first step, we also want to help with the next one—the job search. Once people complete the certificate, they can opt in to share their information directly with top employers, including Bank of America, Walmart, Sprint, GE Digital, PNC Bank, Infosys, TEKSystems, UPMC, and of course, Google, all who are looking to hire IT support talent.


To ensure job seekers from all backgrounds have access to the program, we’re subsidizing the cost of the certificate on Coursera to $49/month and providing financial support to more than 10,000 learners in the United States. Need-based scholarships, funded by Google.org grants, will be offered through leading nonprofits focused on underrepresented communities including Year Up, Per Scholas, Goodwill, Student Veterans of America, and Upwardly Global. Full financial assistance is also available to those who qualify.  


You can find out more and enroll at the Google IT Support page on Coursera.


I’ve seen firsthand how educational opportunities can transform people’s careers and lives. By making the Google IT Support Professional Certificate accessible on Coursera, we hope to open the door for everyone to begin a career in technology.

A new pathway to roles in IT Support

Today, we’re launching the Google IT Support Professional Certificate hosted on Coursera—a first-of-its-kind online program to prepare people for roles in IT support. With no previous experience required, beginning learners can become entry-level job ready in eight to 12 months. This program is part of Grow with Google, our initiative to help people get the skills they need to find a job.


There’s no better example of a dynamic, fast-growing field than IT support. With more and more people relying on computers for some part of their work, growth in IT support is outpacing the average rate for all other occupations. In the United States alone, there are currently 150,000 open IT support jobs (according to Burning Glass), and the average starting salary is $52,000 according to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics.  

I helped hire Google’s IT staff for several years when I led our internal IT support program; it was often challenging to find qualified candidates. But I knew that candidates didn't need traditional four-year college degrees to be qualified—and also found that IT was very teachable. So in 2014 we partnered with the nonprofit organization Year Up to create a program aimed at training and hiring non-traditional talent for IT support internships and full-time roles. The program was a success, and its graduates inspired us to think about how we could make a bigger impact beyond Google. Watch the story of one of our program graduates, Edgar Barragan:

Edgar Barragan: IT Support Specialist

Now we’re using the training we implemented at Google as the basis of a new program available to anyone, anywhere, as part of the Grow with Google initiative. No tech experience or college degree is necessary.


With over 64 hours of video lessons and a dynamic mix of hands-on labs and other interactive assessments, all developed by Googlers, this certificate program introduces people to troubleshooting and customer service, networking, operating systems, system administration, automation, and security—all the fundamentals of IT support. Throughout the program, people will hear directly from Googlers whose own foundation in IT support served as a jumping-off point for their careers.


Since we know training is just the first step, we also want to help with the next one—the job search. Once people complete the certificate, they can opt in to share their information directly with top employers, including Bank of America, Walmart, Sprint, GE Digital, PNC Bank, Infosys, TEKSystems, UPMC, and of course, Google, all who are looking to hire IT support talent.


To ensure job seekers from all backgrounds have access to the program, we’re subsidizing the cost of the certificate on Coursera to $49/month and providing financial support to more than 10,000 learners in the United States. Need-based scholarships, funded by Google.org grants, will be offered through leading nonprofits focused on underrepresented communities including Year Up, Per Scholas, Goodwill, Student Veterans of America, and Upwardly Global. Full financial assistance is also available to those who qualify.  


You can find out more and enroll at the Google IT Support page on Coursera.


I’ve seen firsthand how educational opportunities can transform people’s careers and lives. By making the Google IT Support Professional Certificate accessible on Coursera, we hope to open the door for everyone to begin a career in technology.

Source: Education


Fostering a love for reading among Indonesian kids

Siti Arofa teaches a first grade class at SD Negeri Sidorukan in Gresik, East Java. Many of her students start the school year without foundational reading skills or even an awareness of how fun books can be. But she noticed that whenever she read out loud using different expressions and voices, the kids would sit up and their faces would light up with excitement. One 6-year-old student, Keyla, loves repeating the stories with a full imitation of Siti’s expressions. Developing this love for stories and storytelling has helped Keyla and her classmates improve their reading and speaking skills. She’s just one child. Imagine the impact that the availability of books and skilled teachers can have on generations of schoolchildren.


In Indonesia today, it's estimated that for every 100 children who enter school, only 25 exit meeting minimum international standards of literacy and numeracy. This poses a range of challenges for a relatively young country, where nearly one-third of the population—or approximately 90 million people—are below the age of 15.  


To help foster a habit of reading, Google.org, as part of its $50M commitment to close global learning gaps, is supporting Inibudi, Room to Read and Taman Bacaan Pelangi, to reach 200,000 children across Indonesia.


We’ve consistently heard from Indonesian educators and nonprofits that there’s a need for more high-quality storybooks. With $2.5 million in grants, the nonprofits will create a free digital library of children's stories that anyone can contribute to. Many Googlers based in our Jakarta office have already volunteered their time to translate existing children’s stories into Bahasa Indonesia to increase the diversity of reading resources that will live on this digital platform.


The nonprofits will develop teaching materials and carry out teacher training in eastern Indonesia to enhance teaching methods that improve literacy, and they’ll also help Indonesian authors and illustrators to create more engaging books for children.   


Through our support of this work, we hope we can inspire a lifelong love of reading for many more students like Keyla.