Tag Archives: google.org

Bringing Alexander Hamilton’s history to life

In November 2009, the White House uploaded a video to YouTube of playwright and composer Lin-Manuel Miranda performing a piece called “The Hamilton Mixtape.” In the video, Miranda proclaims to then President Obama that he would use hip-hop and spoken word to tell the story of founding father Alexander Hamilton. The room erupts in curious laughter. Hip-hop and 18th century history? How could these seemingly different worlds come together?

Nearly eight years later, Lin-Manuel’s Hamilton: An American Musical has blown us all away. The show is a cultural phenomenon, uniting history buffs, musical theater fans, political wonks and beyond. Through its innovative storytelling and deliberately diverse cast, the show remixes American history into a powerful lesson that resonates with society’s current challenges.

Google.org supported the Hamilton Education Program with a $800,000 grant that today will bring 5,000 students from Title I schools in New York, Chicago and the Bay Area to see the musical, as the capstone of a six-week curriculum about the Founding Era. Through a combination of learning from primary source documents like original letters and newspapers, and musical performances, students from every background will be able to make American founding era history their own. Students will also perform their original, history-based works on the Hamilton stage across these three cities. Perhaps one of them might be a future Lin-Manuel!

The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History is also launching new digital content on Google platforms that enables students around the world to engage more deeply with Alexander Hamilton’s story. Six new virtual reality tours will transport students, teachers, and fans to important places in Hamilton’s life, no matter where they live. Using Google Expeditions, students can explore places like Alexander Hamilton’s home in Uptown Manhattan, Philadelphia’s Independence Hall, and the infamous site of Aaron Burr–Alexander Hamilton duel in Weehawken, New Jersey.

HamiltonExpedition_2050px.jpg
U.S. history students at Golden State College Preparatory Academy in Oakland, CA explore the sites of Alexander Hamilton’s life
HamiltonBurr_2050px.png
The American Revolution through the eyes of Hamilton.png

In addition, using Google Arts and Culture, the Gilder Lehrman Institute is bringing online dozens of rare archives and artifacts related to Hamilton’s era including early printings of the U.S. Constitution and a letter to his wife expressing his love. There are ten digital exhibits that will allow students and others around the world to learn about Hamilton’s life and legacy—from his private and political life to a virtual walking tour of Hamilton’s New York, to the creation of Modern America.

Whether in virtual reality or on the theater stage, Alexander Hamilton has a lot to teach us about the history of our country, the American dream—and most importantly–rising up to opportunity.

Bringing Alexander Hamilton’s history to life

In November 2009, the White House uploaded a video to YouTube of playwright and composer Lin-Manuel Miranda performing a piece called “The Hamilton Mixtape.” In the video, Miranda proclaims to then President Obama that he would use hip-hop and spoken word to tell the story of founding father Alexander Hamilton. The room erupts in curious laughter. Hip-hop and 18th century history? How could these seemingly different worlds come together?

Nearly eight years later, Lin-Manuel’s Hamilton: An American Musical has blown us all away. The show is a cultural phenomenon, uniting history buffs, musical theater fans, political wonks and beyond. Through its innovative storytelling and deliberately diverse cast, the show remixes American history into a powerful lesson that resonates with society’s current challenges.

Google.org supported the Hamilton Education Program with a $800,000 grant that today will bring 5,000 students from Title I schools in New York, Chicago and the Bay Area to see the musical, as the capstone of a six-week curriculum about the Founding Era. Through a combination of learning from primary source documents like original letters and newspapers, and musical performances, students from every background will be able to make American founding era history their own. Students will also perform their original, history-based works on the Hamilton stage across these three cities. Perhaps one of them might be a future Lin-Manuel!

The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History is also launching new digital content on Google platforms that enables students around the world to engage more deeply with Alexander Hamilton’s story. Six new virtual reality tours will transport students, teachers, and fans to important places in Hamilton’s life, no matter where they live. Using Google Expeditions, students can explore places like Alexander Hamilton’s home in Uptown Manhattan, Philadelphia’s Independence Hall, and the infamous site of Aaron Burr–Alexander Hamilton duel in Weehawken, New Jersey.

HamiltonExpedition_2050px.jpg
U.S. history students at Golden State College Preparatory Academy in Oakland, CA explore the sites of Alexander Hamilton’s life
HamiltonBurr_2050px.png
The American Revolution through the eyes of Hamilton.png

In addition, using Google Arts and Culture, the Gilder Lehrman Institute is bringing online dozens of rare archives and artifacts related to Hamilton’s era including early printings of the U.S. Constitution and a letter to his wife expressing his love. There are 10 digital exhibits that will allow students and others around the world to learn about Hamilton’s life and legacy—from his private and political life to a virtual walking tour of Hamilton’s New York, to the creation of Modern America.

Whether in virtual reality or on the theater stage, Alexander Hamilton has a lot to teach us about the history of our country, the American dream—and most importantly–rising up to opportunity.

Source: Education


Helping to close the education gap

Even after four years of primary education, 130 million students around the world haven’t mastered basic subjects like reading and math. Limited access to quality materials, under-resourced teachers, and barriers to learning outside the classroom present challenges for many children.

Through Google.org, we’ve given more than $110 million over the past five years to help close gaps in education—whether globally through early and ongoing support for innovators like Khan Academy or focused specifically on how we can support future technologists through our support for CS education organizations. Today, we’re expanding on those commitments with our largest dedicated portfolio of $50 million over the next two years to support nonprofits who are building tech-based learning solutions that tackle these challenges. To start, we’re funding nine organizations around the world that we will also support with Googler volunteers in areas like user experience design, translation, offline functionality and data analytics. By the end of 2017, our goal is to give grants to education nonprofits in 20 countries. And later this year, we’ll be looking for the next round of innovators to join them.

GEI EDU Grant-graphic0.png

Our education grants will focus on three areas where technology can help: giving more students access to quality learning materials, supporting teacher development, and reaching students in conflict zones. Get to know some of our grantees below, and learn about the ways they’re using technology to help close the education gap.

Giving kids the right materials

Around the world, students in low-income communities have to learn with fewer books, out-of-date texts, and materials that are culturally irrelevant or even in the wrong language. Technology can bypass the geographic and financial boundaries that block educational resources from reaching students, while also making those resources more engaging, interactive and effective.

GEI EDU Grant-graphic1.png

One of our first grantees in this area is the Foundation for Learning Equality, which builds free open-source software to bring online materials—including books, video tutorials and quizzes—to the 4.3 billion people who lack consistent access to the internet. Their new platform, Kolibri, runs on numerous devices and helps educators access, organize and customize digital content, even in the most remote locations. So far they’ve brought 7,000 videos and 26,000 interactive exercises offline for students in about 160 countries.

Our funding, along with Google volunteers providing technical support, will help Learning Equality build a bigger content library and scale their reach to hundreds of thousands of new students. This summer, Google engineers and product experts are volunteering to spend four weeks working side-by-side with Learning Equality’s product team in areas such as UX/UI, content integration, and video compression technology.

Keeping teachers trained and engaged

Having a great teacher is one of the best predictors of a student’s academic success, but in many countries there simply aren’t enough of them. By 2030, India alone will need 3 million new primary school teachers just to keep up with its growing population of students.

Google.org is helping local leaders invest in digital tools that offer teachers quality training and confidence-building tools that encourage creativity in the classroom. The first of these grants goes to Million Sparks Foundation's ChalkLit, an app-based platform that combines bite-sized, curriculum-aligned content with an online community to support first-rate teaching. Google engineers volunteering their time and skills will advise the Million Sparks team on how to optimize the ChalkLit app for teachers in low-bandwidth and offline environments.

Helping students learn in crisis

Thirty-two million primary school-aged students can’t reach traditional classrooms because of violent conflict and displacement. Quality primary education is especially important to kids who, living in camps or other hard-to-reach settings, are highly vulnerable to poverty and exploitative labor.

One interesting approach to this problem comes from Google.org grantee War Child Holland, whose game-based method, Can’t Wait To Learn, children affected by conflict from falling behind by providing a year of lessons and exercises that align with a host country’s curriculum.

Data collected from Can’t Wait To Learn’s first deployments in Sudan showed that students learned significantly from the approach, with boys and girls progressing at equal rates. Supported by Google product experts who are volunteering to help build their product road map and expand their tech team, War Child Holland aims to reach significant numbers of children in the Middle East and Africa the next five years.

GEI EDU Grant_A.png
Brigitte Hoyer Gosselink, Education lead Google.org in SF office.jpg
Brigitte Hoyer Gosselink, Education lead Google.org in SF office
GEI EDU Grant_2.png

We’re continuing to work with these grantees, and are aiming to expand our efforts throughout the next year. If you’d like updates on our program, please let us know. We look forward to continuing this work to make education more equitable for children around the world.

Source: Education


Helping to close the education gap

Even after four years of primary education, 130 million students around the world haven’t mastered basic subjects like reading and math. Limited access to quality materials, under-resourced teachers, and barriers to learning outside the classroom present challenges for many children.

Through Google.org, we’ve given more than $110 million over the past five years to help close gaps in education—whether globally through early and ongoing support for innovators like Khan Academy or focused specifically on how we can support future technologists through our support for CS education organizations. Today, we’re expanding on those commitments with our largest dedicated portfolio of $50 million over the next two years to support nonprofits who are building tech-based learning solutions that tackle these challenges. To start, we’re funding nine organizations around the world that we will also support with Googler volunteers in areas like user experience design, translation, offline functionality and data analytics. By the end of 2017, our goal is to give grants to education nonprofits in 20 countries. And later this year, we’ll be looking for the next round of innovators to join them.

GEI EDU Grant-graphic0.png

Our education grants will focus on three areas where technology can help: giving more students access to quality learning materials, supporting teacher development, and reaching students in conflict zones. Get to know some of our grantees below, and learn about the ways they’re using technology to help close the education gap.

Giving kids the right materials

Around the world, students in low-income communities have to learn with fewer books, out-of-date texts, and materials that are culturally irrelevant or even in the wrong language. Technology can bypass the geographic and financial boundaries that block educational resources from reaching students, while also making those resources more engaging, interactive and effective.

GEI EDU Grant-graphic1.png

One of our first grantees in this area is the Foundation for Learning Equality, which builds free open-source software to bring online materials—including books, video tutorials and quizzes—to the 4.3 billion people who lack consistent access to the internet. Their new platform, Kolibri, runs on numerous devices and helps educators access, organize and customize digital content, even in the most remote locations. So far they’ve brought 7,000 videos and 26,000 interactive exercises offline for students in about 160 countries.

Our funding, along with Google volunteers providing technical support, will help Learning Equality build a bigger content library and scale their reach to hundreds of thousands of new students. This summer, Google engineers and product experts are volunteering to spend four weeks working side-by-side with Learning Equality’s product team in areas such as UX/UI, content integration, and video compression technology.

Keeping teachers trained and engaged

Having a great teacher is one of the best predictors of a student’s academic success, but in many countries there simply aren’t enough of them. By 2030, India alone will need 3 million new primary school teachers just to keep up with its growing population of students.

Google.org is helping local leaders invest in digital tools that offer teachers quality training and confidence-building tools that encourage creativity in the classroom. The first of these grants goes to Million Sparks Foundation's ChalkLit, an app-based platform that combines bite-sized, curriculum-aligned content with an online community to support first-rate teaching. Google engineers volunteering their time and skills will advise the Million Sparks team on how to optimize the ChalkLit app for teachers in low-bandwidth and offline environments.

Helping students learn in crisis

Thirty-two million primary school-aged students can’t reach traditional classrooms because of violent conflict and displacement. Quality primary education is especially important to kids who, living in camps or other hard-to-reach settings, are highly vulnerable to poverty and exploitative labor.

One interesting approach to this problem comes from Google.org grantee War Child Holland, whose game-based method, Can’t Wait To Learn, children affected by conflict from falling behind by providing a year of lessons and exercises that align with a host country’s curriculum.

Data collected from Can’t Wait To Learn’s first deployments in Sudan showed that students learned significantly from the approach, with boys and girls progressing at equal rates. Supported by Google product experts who are volunteering to help build their product road map and expand their tech team, War Child Holland aims to reach significant numbers of children in the Middle East and Africa the next five years.

GEI EDU Grant_A.png
Brigitte Hoyer Gosselink, Education lead Google.org in SF office.jpg
Brigitte Hoyer Gosselink, Education lead Google.org in SF office
GEI EDU Grant_2.png

We’re continuing to work with these grantees, and are aiming to expand our efforts throughout the next year. If you’d like updates on our program, please let us know. We look forward to continuing this work to make education more equitable for children around the world.

Source: Education


Doing more for racial justice

I'm the grandson of a Port of Seattle police officer, the nephew of a Washington State Trooper, and the son of a Snohomish County Detention Chief. The Black men in my family were all engaged in some form of law enforcement, and throughout my lifetime, I’ve seen law enforcement officers be a force for good in communities. But I’ve also borne witness to injustices that have shaken my faith in our criminal justice system. In my work at Google.org, I help identify causes and organizations that aim to ultimately help correct many of these injustices.

Since 2015, Google.org has committed more than $5 million to nonprofits advancing racial justice, and we’ve aimed to get proximate and better understand how racial bias can lead to exclusion from opportunity. Today we’re doubling our previous commitment, and investing $11.5 million in new grants to organizations across the country working to reform our criminal justice system.

Mass incarceration is a huge issue in the United States, and a major area of focus for our grants. The U.S. penal population has exploded, growing by 400 percent since 1984 to more than 2 million today, with Black men sentenced at over five times the rate of white men. We have the highest rate of incarceration in the world, dwarfing the rates of every developed country and even surpassing those in highly repressive regimes.

Videos of police shooting unarmed people of color have woken many of us up to the impact that racism and internalized bias have on black and brown communities. But we have almost no data on police behavior and criminal sentencing at a national level. Individual agencies and court systems keep track of some information, but aggregated reporting is nearly nonexistent and the data is often not complete enough to identify potential bias. Each agency collects and reports data in their own way, making comparisons between jurisdictions nearly impossible.

MeanUse Force Rates.png
The average rate of police use of force for Black residents is 2.5 times as high as the overall rate and 3.6 times as high as the rate for White residents (Source: CPE’s report The Science of Justice)

We believe better data can be can be part of the solution, which is why we’re investing in organizations using data and evidence to reduce racial disparities in the criminal justice system. We’re giving $5 million to support the Center for Policing Equity (CPE), which partners with police agencies and communities by bringing together data science, trainings and policy reforms to address racial disparity. This intersection gives CPE a unique opportunity to both identify the cause of problems, and propose concrete solutions. CPE’s National Justice Database is the first in the nation to track national statistics on police behavior, including stops and use of force, and standardizes data collection across many of the country’s police departments. Soon, Google engineers will be volunteering their time and skills with CPE to help build and improve this platform.

We’re also supporting two organizations in California that are focused on ways that data can help bring about more equity in our court systems. Our $1.5 million grant to Measures for Justice aims to create a first-of-its-kind web platform that allows anyone to get a snapshot of how their local justice system treats people based on their offense history and across different categories of race/ethnicity, sex, indigent status and age. And $500,000 to the W. Haywood Burns Institute is helping to ensure this data across each of California’s 58 counties is accessible to criminal justice reform organizations so they can make data-informed decisions.

RacialJustice_2.jpg
JustLeadershipUSA Event
RacialJustice_1.png
Justin Steele (middle) with his family in Seattle in 2004. His father is on the left, and his grandfather is in the middle
RacialJustice_3a.png
The staff of the Center for Policing Equity in New York (Dr. Goff is on the far left)

The goal of these efforts is a society where everyone, regardless of race, is ensured an equal outcome under the law. That’s why we’re also supporting Impact Justice with $1 million for their national Restorative Justice Project, an effort that aims to keep 1,900 youth, primarily youth of color, out of the juvenile justice system. And a $650K grant to JustLeadershipUSA will support their efforts to train a growing national network of formerly incarcerated leaders from across the country to lead reform efforts at the local, state and national level. We’ve also reinvested in organizations working to provide services to people who were formerly incarcerated and their communities like Defy Ventures, Center for Employment Opportunities, Silicon Valley De-Bug and Code for America.

We believe that these 10 organizations can create meaningful change around racial, social and criminal justice in the U.S., and we hope that our grants will provide resources and support to bring about this much-needed change. But there’s also a lot going on here at Google in the fight for justice and against bias. Our Black Googler Network (BGN) is a group of employees that fosters success in the Black community at Google and beyond. They lead mentorship programs and events, and have also driven social justice movements across the company, including solidarity for #BlackLivesMatter. Last November, the BGN held Google’s first ever “Blackout Week,” where they helped raise $70,000 for four organizations leading the Movement for Black Lives, and helped sponsor community screenings of the Netflix documentary “13th” in 12 Google offices across the country.

GoogleOrg Screening.jpg
Google.org’s community screening of the documentary 13th at Google’s Mountain View HQ  

A person's race should not determine how they are treated by the law. We’re proud to support these organizations, and we hope that their focus on data and community-driven solutions to will bring us closer to a more just society.

Doing more for racial justice

I'm the grandson of a Port of Seattle police officer, the nephew of a Washington State Trooper, and the son of a Snohomish County Detention Chief. The Black men in my family were all engaged in some form of law enforcement, and throughout my lifetime, I’ve seen law enforcement officers be a force for good in communities. But I’ve also borne witness to injustices that have shaken my faith in our criminal justice system. In my work at Google.org, I help identify causes and organizations that aim to ultimately help correct many of these injustices.

Since 2015, Google.org has committed more than $5 million to nonprofits advancing racial justice, and we’ve aimed to get proximate and better understand how racial bias can lead to exclusion from opportunity. Today we’re doubling our previous commitment, and investing $11.5 million in new grants to organizations across the country working to reform our criminal justice system.

Mass incarceration is a huge issue in the United States, and a major area of focus for our grants. The U.S. penal population has exploded, growing by 400 percent since 1984 to more than 2 million today, with Black men sentenced at over five times the rate of white men. We have the highest rate of incarceration in the world, dwarfing the rates of every developed country and even surpassing those in highly repressive regimes.

Videos of police shooting unarmed people of color have woken many of us up to the impact that racism and internalized bias have on black and brown communities. But we have almost no data on police behavior and criminal sentencing at a national level. Individual agencies and court systems keep track of some information, but aggregated reporting is nearly nonexistent and the data is often not complete enough to identify potential bias. Each agency collects and reports data in their own way, making comparisons between jurisdictions nearly impossible.

MeanUse Force Rates.png
The average rate of police use of force for Black residents is 2.5 times as high as the overall rate and 3.6 times as high as the rate for White residents (Source: CPE’s report The Science of Justice)

We believe better data can be can be part of the solution, which is why we’re investing in organizations using data and evidence to reduce racial disparities in the criminal justice system. We’re giving $5 million to support the Center for Policing Equity (CPE), which partners with police agencies and communities by bringing together data science, trainings and policy reforms to address racial disparity. This intersection gives CPE a unique opportunity to both identify the cause of problems, and propose concrete solutions. CPE’s National Justice Database is the first in the nation to track national statistics on police behavior, including stops and use of force, and standardizes data collection across many of the country’s police departments. Soon, Google engineers will be volunteering their time and skills with CPE to help build and improve this platform.

We’re also supporting two organizations in California that are focused on ways that data can help bring about more equity in our court systems. Our $1.5 million grant to Measures for Justice aims to create a first-of-its-kind web platform that allows anyone to get a snapshot of how their local justice system treats people based on their offense history and across different categories of race/ethnicity, sex, indigent status and age. And $500,000 to the W. Haywood Burns Institute is helping to ensure this data across each of California’s 58 counties is accessible to criminal justice reform organizations so they can make data-informed decisions.

RacialJustice_2.jpg
JustLeadershipUSA Event
RacialJustice_1.png
Justin Steele (middle) with his family in Seattle in 2004. His father is on the left, and his grandfather is in the middle
RacialJustice_3a.png
The staff of the Center for Policing Equity in New York (Dr. Goff is on the far left)

The goal of these efforts is a society where everyone, regardless of race, is ensured an equal outcome under the law. That’s why we’re also supporting Impact Justice with $1 million for their national Restorative Justice Project, an effort that aims to keep 1,900 youth, primarily youth of color, out of the juvenile justice system. And a $650K grant to JustLeadershipUSA will support their efforts to train a growing national network of formerly incarcerated leaders from across the country to lead reform efforts at the local, state and national level. We’ve also reinvested in organizations working to provide services to people who were formerly incarcerated and their communities like Defy Ventures, Center for Employment Opportunities, Silicon Valley De-Bug and Code for America.

We believe that these 10 organizations can create meaningful change around racial, social and criminal justice in the U.S., and we hope that our grants will provide resources and support to bring about this much-needed change. But there’s also a lot going on here at Google in the fight for justice and against bias. Our Black Googler Network (BGN) is a group of employees that fosters success in the Black community at Google and beyond. They lead mentorship programs and events, and have also driven social justice movements across the company, including solidarity for #BlackLivesMatter. Last November, the BGN held Google’s first ever “Blackout Week,” where they helped raise $70,000 for four organizations leading the Movement for Black Lives, and helped sponsor community screenings of the Netflix documentary “13th” in 12 Google offices across the country.

GoogleOrg Screening.jpg
Google.org’s community screening of the documentary 13th at Google’s Mountain View HQ  

A person's race should not determine how they are treated by the law. We’re proud to support these organizations, and we hope that their focus on data and community-driven solutions to will bring us closer to a more just society.

Bringing digital skills training to more classrooms in Korea

Recently a group of Googlers visited Ogeum Middle School in Seoul, where they joined a junior high school class that had some fun trying out machine learning based experiments. The students got to see neural nets in action, with experiments that have trained computers to guess what someone’s drawing, or that turn a picture taken with a smartphone into a song.

Ogeum School - Giorgio Cam
Students at Ogeum Middle School trying out Giorgio Cam, an experiment built with machine learning that lets you make music with the computer just by taking a picture. It uses image recognition to label what it sees, then it turns those labels into lyrics of a song.

We’re always excited to see kids develop a passion for technology, because it seeds an interest in using technology to solve challenges later in life.

The students at Ogeum Middle School are among the first of over 3,000 kids across Korea we hope to reach through “Digital Media Campus” (or 디지털 미디어 캠퍼스 in Korean), a new digital literacy education program. Through a Google.org grant to the Korea Federation of Science Culture and Education Studies (KOSCE), we plan to reach junior high school students in 120 schools across the country this year. Students in their ‘free semester’—a time when middle schoolers can take up electives to explore future career paths—will be able to enroll in this 32-hour course spanning 16 weeks beginning next month.

KOSCE-trained tutors will show kids how to better evaluate information online and assess the validity of online sources, teach them to use a range of digital tools so they can do things like edit videos and create infographics, and help them experience exciting technologies like AR and VR. By giving them a glimpse of how these technologies work, we hope to excite them about the endless possibilities offered by technology. Perhaps this will even encourage them to consider the world of careers that technology opens up to them.  

Helping kids to recognize these opportunities often starts with dismantling false perceptions at home. This is why we’re also offering a two-hour training session to 2,000 parents, who’ll pick up tips to help their kids use digital media.

We ran a pilot of the program last year, and have been heartened by the positive feedback we’ve received so far. Teachers and parents have told us that they appreciate the skills it teaches kids to be competitive in a digital age. And the students are excited to discover new digital tools and resources that are useful to them in their students.

While we might not be able to reach every high school student with this program, we hope to play a small role in helping to inspire Korea’s next generation of tech innovators.

Bringing digital skills training to more classrooms in Korea

Recently a group of Googlers visited Ogeum Middle School in Seoul, where they joined a junior high school class that had some fun trying out machine learning based experiments. The students got to see neural nets in action, with experiments that have trained computers to guess what someone’s drawing, or that turn a picture taken with a smartphone into a song.

Ogeum School - Giorgio Cam
Students at Ogeum Middle School trying out Giorgio Cam, an experiment built with machine learning that lets you make music with the computer just by taking a picture. It uses image recognition to label what it sees, then it turns those labels into lyrics of a song.

We’re always excited to see kids develop a passion for technology, because it seeds an interest in using technology to solve challenges later in life.

The students at Ogeum Middle School are among the first of over 3,000 kids across Korea we hope to reach through “Digital Media Campus” (or 디지털 미디어 캠퍼스 in Korean), a new digital literacy education program. Through a Google.org grant to the Korea Federation of Science Culture and Education Studies (KOSCE), we plan to reach junior high school students in 120 schools across the country this year. Students in their ‘free semester’—a time when middle schoolers can take up electives to explore future career paths—will be able to enroll in this 32-hour course spanning 16 weeks beginning next month.

KOSCE-trained tutors will show kids how to better evaluate information online and assess the validity of online sources, teach them to use a range of digital tools so they can do things like edit videos and create infographics, and help them experience exciting technologies like AR and VR. By giving them a glimpse of how these technologies work, we hope to excite them about the endless possibilities offered by technology. Perhaps this will even encourage them to consider the world of careers that technology opens up to them.  

Helping kids to recognize these opportunities often starts with dismantling false perceptions at home. This is why we’re also offering a two-hour training session to 2,000 parents, who’ll pick up tips to help their kids use digital media.

We ran a pilot of the program last year, and have been heartened by the positive feedback we’ve received so far. Teachers and parents have told us that they appreciate the skills it teaches kids to be competitive in a digital age. And the students are excited to discover new digital tools and resources that are useful to them in their students.

While we might not be able to reach every high school student with this program, we hope to play a small role in helping to inspire Korea’s next generation of tech innovators.

Bringing digital skills training to more classrooms in Korea

Recently a group of Googlers visited Ogeum Middle School in Seoul, where they joined a junior high school class that had some fun trying out machine learning based experiments. The students got to see neural nets in action, with experiments that have trained computers to guess what someone’s drawing, or that turn a picture taken with a smartphone into a song.

Ogeum School - Giorgio Cam
Students at Ogeum Middle School trying out Giorgio Cam, an experiment built with machine learning that lets you make music with the computer just by taking a picture. It uses image recognition to label what it sees, then it turns those labels into lyrics of a song.

We’re always excited to see kids develop a passion for technology, because it seeds an interest in using technology to solve challenges later in life.

The students at Ogeum Middle School are among the first of over 3,000 kids across Korea we hope to reach through “Digital Media Campus” (or 디지털 미디어 캠퍼스 in Korean), a new digital literacy education program. Through a Google.org grant to the Korea Federation of Science Culture and Education Studies (KOSCE), we plan to reach junior high school students in 120 schools across the country this year. Students in their ‘free semester’—a time when middle schoolers can take up electives to explore future career paths—will be able to enroll in this 32-hour course spanning 16 weeks beginning next month.

KOSCE-trained tutors will show kids how to better evaluate information online and assess the validity of online sources, teach them to use a range of digital tools so they can do things like edit videos and create infographics, and help them experience exciting technologies like AR and VR. By giving them a glimpse of how these technologies work, we hope to excite them about the endless possibilities offered by technology. Perhaps this will even encourage them to consider the world of careers that technology opens up to them.  

Helping kids to recognize these opportunities often starts with dismantling false perceptions at home. This is why we’re also offering a two-hour training session to 2,000 parents, who’ll pick up tips to help their kids use digital media.

We ran a pilot of the program last year, and have been heartened by the positive feedback we’ve received so far. Teachers and parents have told us that they appreciate the skills it teaches kids to be competitive in a digital age. And the students are excited to discover new digital tools and resources that are useful to them in their students.

While we might not be able to reach every high school student with this program, we hope to play a small role in helping to inspire Korea’s next generation of tech innovators.

Supporting nonprofits around the world this holiday season

From remote villages in India, to schools across the U.S., to refugee and migrant camps in Africa, technology can help people start a business, further their education, or access new — and sometimes vital — information.

Google.org supports hundreds of nonprofits globally who are working to open up opportunities for the most vulnerable populations. As part of this ongoing work, this holiday season we’re donating $30 million in grant funding to nonprofits to bring phones, tablets, hardware and training to communities that can benefit from them most. This holiday giving brings our total grant funding for nonprofits this year to more than $100 million.

HolidayNonProfit_1_450px.jpg
Students in Tim Jones’ classroom in East Palo Alto during class time

In the U.S., Google.org is supporting classrooms in need by funding projects that have requested Chromebooks and other technology via the educational giving platform DonorsChoose.org. For example, Mr. Jones, a teacher at Ronald McNair Academy in East Palo Alto, CA, where many students come from high-poverty communities, requested devices to help his students learn both inside and outside of the classroom. Our $5 million grant to DonorsChoose.org will provide more than 150,000 K-12 students across the United States — from Bunche Middle School in Atlanta, GA to Timberland Charter Academy in Muskegon, MI — with critical learning resources.

We're also supporting nonprofits whose programs ensure that everyone has a chance to participate equally in society — from people experiencing homelessness to individuals disconnected from pathways out of poverty. In the Bay Area, Abode Services will help more than 1,200 re-housed homeless people receive laptop computers and related training as they move into their new homes in order to provide access to employment, social services and transportation information.

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Young adults completing applications during LeadersUp hiring event in South LA

Across the nation, LeadersUp will increase access to opportunities for unemployed young adults to connect to careers that lead to family-sustaining wages 350 percent above the poverty line. By providing funding for thousands of devices to assist people being served by organizations like Defy Ventures and LifeMoves, we're ensuring that more people have a fair shot at opportunity.

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Defy Entrepreneur-in-Training Rudo C. and volunteer David R. at Business Pitch Competition in New York City
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Students of Mazahua  indigenous group explore learning materials on a tablet at an UNETE-supported school in San Felipe del Progreso, State of Mexico.

In Latin America, we’re supporting UNETE to bring computers, tablets and charging stations to classrooms across Mexico — giving students access to new curriculum materials, videos, and learning games. UNETE is committed to helping teachers be successful, and we’ll pair funding for this technology with training and support services. And in India, our grant to Pratham Education Foundation will help them expand their work to help kids in rural communities learn. By using tablets across a range of their programs, from preschool through middle school, Pratham will be able to bring new, engaging content to kids and instructors.

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Children in Uttar Pradesh, India share what they’ve been learning on a Pratham-provided tablet with their family.

For millions of people who have been displaced from their homes, the ability to start or continue an education can become a lifeline. As part of our refugee relief efforts, we’ve expanded our support of Libraries Without Borders for their “Ideas Boxes” — portable multimedia centers with Internet access and their own power source. This grant will help fund 14 additional Ideas Boxes, enabling more than 90,000 refugees to access educational resources in refugee camps in Europe and Africa.

Around the world, we're funding NetHope to distribute and deliver devices through organizations working with the most vulnerable populations, including women and girls, who often struggle most to get the resources, education and opportunities they deserve.

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NetHope WiFi network helps refugees connect with family and friends and seek asylum

In addition to these Google.org grants, every holiday season, we hold a "Giving Week" where our employees around the world can donate to the causes and organizations they want to support, and Google matches all donations. This year's Giving Week was our biggest yet. More than 50 offices participated, a third of the company pledged, Google matched, and the total impact will be $24 million to 750 nonprofits around the world. Causes ranged from supporting the victims and survivors of the Ghost Ship fire in Oakland, to helping vulnerable women in Mexico through VIFAC, to fighting hunger and malnutrition with Akshaya Patra in India. Other giving trends this year included causes like refugee assistance and transgender rights, and support for civil liberties and women’s health organizations.

We hope the combined $54 million in grants for technology, employee donations and Google matching will help those in need around the world this holiday season. As we look ahead to 2017, we’ll continue our work to support nonprofits and communities around the world.