Europe Blog
Our views on the Internet and society
Happy holidays from our Brussels policy team
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
It has been an exciting and eventful year, even by the Internet’s own exacting standards. Arab activists inaugurated 2011 by revealing the web’s power to help bring freedom to their countries. All too many governments have responded by pressing for controls to throttle the Internet’s liberating power.
Yet we have seen policy makers here in Brussels taking a strong stance in support of an open Internet. After the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur
Frank La Rue
published a
manifesto
for Internet freedom, the European Parliament and Commission extended him a warm welcome. E.U. officials were intrigued to meet the creators of our
Transparency Report
that details government requests for content removals and information on users. The European Parliament even hosted part of our
“hackathon”
in support of Open Data.
In other areas, too, appreciation of the Internet advanced in Brussels. A significant shift was visible measuring and understanding the Internet’s economic impact. At the beginning of the year we commissioned a series of studies that demonstrated that the Internet has become the most important single driver of
growth
in the E.U.. Instead of destroying jobs, the net is creating millions of them. Crucially,
small businesses
benefit disproportionately from the web’s power to reach the entire world with a few keyboard strokes. A contest we sponsored even crowned Europe's leading
eTowns
.
Instead of threatening culture, technology provides new and innovative ways to preserve history and heritage. Our
Art Project
brings online masterpieces from great museums across Europe. Our
book project
is digitizing and bringing online public domain books from more than a dozen European libraries. At the end of the year,
StreetView
came to Belgium, allowing anyone in the globe to stroll along the streets hosting European institutions. As the Internet becomes a significant force for policymakers to converse with citizens, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, shown above, appeared live on
Euronews
and
YouTube World View
.
The European Union is heading towards the 20th anniversary of the creation of the single market, and the Internet will play an important in realizing its full potential. Just like the European Union, the Internet represents a major shift towards openness and collaboration. While Europe faces undeniable challenges on the economic and social fronts, the Internet’s progress is an optimistic story that we believe Europe can demonstrate pride in the coming year.
Posted by Antoine Aubert, Head of Brussels Policy Team
Remembering a remarkable Soviet computing pioneer
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Cross-posted with the
Official Google Blog
In many parts of the world, today is Christmas—but in Russia and Eastern Europe, which use the
Orthodox calendar
, December 25 is just an ordinary day. Little known to most, however, it’s also a day that marks the anniversary of a key development in European computer history.
Sixty years ago today, in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, the Soviet Academy of Sciences finally granted formal recognition to
Sergey Lebedev
’s pioneering
MESM project
. MESM, a Russian abbreviation for “Small Electronic Calculating Machine,” is regarded as the earliest, fully operational electronic computer in the Soviet Union—and indeed continental Europe.
Recently we were privileged to get a first-hand account of Lebedev’s achievements from Boris Malinovsky, who worked on MESM and is now a leading expert on Soviet-era computing.
Turn on captions for the English translation.
Described by some as the “Soviet
Alan Turing
,” Sergey Lebedev had been thinking about computing as far back as the 1930’s, until interrupted by war. In 1946 he was made director of Kyiv’s Institute of Electrical Engineering. Soon after, stories of “electronic brains” in the West began to circulate and his interest in computing revived.
Sergey Lebedev*
Initially, Lebedev’s superiors were skeptical, and some in his team felt working on a “calculator”—how they thought of a computer—was a step backward compared to electrical and space systems research. Lebedev pressed on regardless, eventually finding funding from the Rocketry department and space to work in a derelict former monastery in
Feofania
, on the outskirts of Kyiv.
Work on MESM got going properly at the end of 1948 and, considering the challenges, the rate of progress was remarkable. Ukraine was still struggling to recover from the devastation of its occupation during WWII, and many of Kyiv’s buildings lay in ruins. The monastery in Feofania was among the buildings destroyed during the war, so the MESM team had to build their working quarters from scratch—the laboratory, metalworking shop, even the power station that would provide electricity. Although small—
just 20 people
—the team was extraordinarily committed. They worked in shifts 24 hours a day, and many lived in rooms above the laboratory. (You can listen to a lively account of this time in programme 3 of the
BBC’s ”Electronic brains”
series.)
MESM and team members in 1951. From left to right: Lev Dashevsky, Zoya Zorina-Rapota, Lidiya Abalyshnikova, Tamara Petsukh, Evgeniy Dedeshko
MESM ran its first program on November 6, 1950, and went into full-time operation in 1951. In 1952, MESM was used for top-secret calculations relating to rocketry and nuclear bombs, and continued to aid the Institute’s research right up to 1957. By then, Lebedev had moved to Moscow to lead the construction of the next generation of Soviet supercomputers, cementing his place as a giant of European computing. As for MESM, it met a more prosaic fate—broken into parts and studied by engineering students in the labs at Kyiv’s Polytechnic Institute.
*All photos thanks to
ukrainiancomputing.org
.
Posted by Marina Tarasova, Communications Associate, Ukraine
New exhibitions at London’s Science Museum
Thursday, December 15, 2011
At Google, we’re passionate about finding ways to inspire the next generation of technologists and engineers, and we think museums are a great way to do it.
Earlier this year
, and again
this week
we announced how we are supporting science museums internationally through charitable gifts.
Today, one of those museums, the
Science Museum
in London, gave details of two forthcoming exhibitions supported by their Google grants.
A new temporary exhibition celebrating the centenary of the birth of English mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst, and computer scientist
Alan Turing
will open in June 2012. Turing formalized the concepts of "algorithm" and "computation" with the Turing machine. The Science Museum’s biographical exhibition will examine Turing’s inspirational (and tragic) story, using objects (including some which have never been on public display), archive material, interactive exhibits, photographs and quotations.
The second is a new permanent exhibition which opens in summer 2014. Situated at the heart of the Museum, Making Modern Communications will explore the history of information and communication technologies. It will tell powerful stories about how these technologies have shaped our world over the last 200 years, showcasing never-before-seen objects and the most advanced multimedia and interpretive techniques.
We’re delighted to be able to support these new exhibitions which will help explain both the birth of modern computing and how that revolution touches all our lives today.
And we’re thrilled that Alan Turing, widely regarded as the father of modern computing and a hero to many of the engineers who work at Google, is finally getting the recognition that his work deserves. This week we also announced support for educational activities at
Bletchley Park
, where Turing’s code-breaking genius helped shorten the second World War and saved thousands of lives.
We look forward to seeing how these exhibitions will inspire tomorrow’s technologists.
Posted by Peter Barron, Director, External Relations, EMEA
Protecting intermediaries - and copyright
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Earlier today the Court of Rome issued an important decision around ISP liability limitation, copyright and video hosting. It reaffirmed that web platforms are not liable for content uploaded by their users and found - referring to the
ECJ ruling
in the SABAM case, and the European Union’s E-Commerce Directive - that web platforms do not have to monitor user uploads for copyright-infringing material, nor prevent future infringements by users.
The background to this ruling is a case brought last summer against Google by RTI, a subsidiary of the Mediaset Group. RTI sued Google for copyright infringement because a web portal, hosted on Blogger, was allegedly streaming football matches broadcast on RTI's TV channels.
Today, the Court of Rome rejected RTI’s claim because - following notification to Google - the allegedly infringing content was removed from Blogger. The Court found that any other interpretation would be contrary to the European Union’s E-Commerce Directive.
Today’s ruling is important because it further clarifies the rules on liability online. But it’s also clear that copyright infringement is a serious matter - and its something we take very seriously. We invest heavily in technology to fight piracy; earlier this year we launched four
new initiatives
to tackle copyright infringement online, including a range of tools to make it easier and faster for rightsholders to report infringing material - and get it removed from our platforms quickly.
It’s important that right holders and intermediaries work together. Without rightsholder cooperation it is impossible for a platform like Blogger to know whether an item has been uploaded with or without a rightsholder’s permission. Today’s decision re-affirms this principle.
Posted by Marilù Capparelli, Italian Senior Legal Counsel
Giving back in 2011
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Cross-posted from the
Official Google Blog
As the holiday season approaches we thought it was a good moment to update you on some grants we're making to support education, technology and the fight against modern day slavery.
STEM and girls’ education
Science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) open up great opportunities for young people so we've decided to fund 16 great programs in this area. These include Boston-based
Citizen Schools
and
Generating Genius
in the U.K., both of which work to help to expand the horizons of underprivileged youngsters. In total, our grants will provide enhanced STEM education for more than 3 million students.
In addition, we're supporting girls’ education in the developing world. By giving a girl an education, you not only improve her opportunities, but those of her whole family. The
African Leadership Academy
provides merit scholarships to promising young women across the continent, and the
Afghan Institute of Learning
offers literacy classes to women and girls in rural Afghanistan. Groups like these will use our funds to educate more than 10,000 girls in developing countries.
Empowerment through technology
We've all been wowed by the entrepreneurial spirit behind the 15 awards in this category, all of whom are using the web, open source programming and other technology platforms to connect communities and improve access to information.
Vittana
, for instance, helps lenders offer loans to students in the developing world who have have a 99 percent repayment rate—potentially doubling or tripling a recipient's earning power.
Code for America
enables the web industry to share its skills with the public sector by developing projects that improve transparency and encourage civic engagement on a mass scale. And
Switchboard
is working with local mobile providers to help African health care workers create networks and communicate for free.
Fighting slavery and human trafficking
Modern day slavery is a multi-billion dollar industry that ruins the lives of around 27 million people. So we're funding a number of groups that are working to tackle the problem. For instance, in India,
International Justice Mission (IJM)
, along with
The BBC World Service Trust
,
Action Aid
and
Aide et Action
, are forming a new coalition. It will work on the ground with governments to stop slave labor by identifying the ring masters, documenting abuse, freeing individuals and providing them with therapy as well as job training. Our support will also help expand the reach of tools like the powerful
Slavery Footprint calculator
and
Polaris Project
’s
National Trafficking Hotline
.
To learn more about these organizations and how you can get involved, visit our
Google Gives Back 2011 site
and take a look at this video:
These grants, which total $40 million, are only part of our annual philanthropic efforts. Over the course of the year, Google provided more than $115 million in funding to various nonprofit organizations and academic institutions around the world; our in-kind support (programs like
Google Grants
and
Google Apps for Education
that offer free products and services to eligible organizations) came to more than $1 billion, and our annual company-wide
GoogleServe
event and related programs enabled individual Googlers to donate more than 40,000 hours of their own volunteer time.
As 2011 draws to a close, I’m inspired by this year’s grantees and look forward to seeing their world-changing work in 2012.
Posted by Shona Brown, SVP, Google.org
A Big Tent for free expression in The Hague
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Google has long worked hard to raise the issue of Internet freedom in Europe. So when the Dutch Foreign Minister Uri Rosenthal took the initiative to host a meeting bringing together foreign ministers from more than 16 countries to the Netherlands, we wondered what could we do to support it.
Our answer was to hook up with the Dutch NGO
Free Press Unlimited
and host one of our
Big Tent events
, which aim to bring together corporations, civil society and politicians. We were delighted when both U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and minister Rosenthal agreed to take part. Our Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt welcomed them to the Fokker Terminal in The Hague. “We are joined in a spirit to fight people who want to shut down free speech," he said. "It makes easy sense for a government to say: 'We don't like that...we're going to censor it'.” The conference, he said, was organised "to make the point that this is not right."
Secretary of State Clinton
called
on companies to protect Internet freedoms and stop selling technology which allows repressive governments to censor the net or spy on Internet users. She urged corporations to join Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and others in the
Global Network Initiative
to resist government efforts to impose filtering or censoring requirements. And she called on governments to fight attempts to impose national controls on the net. Any such attempt would contain people in a “series of digital bubbles rather than connecting them,” she said. "It is most urgent, of course, for those around the world whose words are now censored, who are imprisoned because of what they or others have written online, who are blocked from accessing entire categories of Internet content, or who are being tracked by governments seeking to keep them from connecting with one another.”
Minister Uri Rosenthal called for legislation against exports of Internet surveillance material and promised 6 million euros to help Internet activists in repressive regimes. High-powered contributions came from the European Commissioner for the Digital Agenda
Neelie Kroes
, the Swedish Foreign Minister
Carl Bildt
, and European parliamentarian
Marietje Schaake
.
A panel brought together business leaders and prominent human rights activists, including the Thai webmaster Chiranuch Premchaiporn, better known as
Jiew
, who faces trial over comments posted on her site that were deemed insulting to the monarchy.
The Hague is our third Big Tent (
see highlights here
), a place where we bring together various viewpoints to discuss essential topics to the future of the Internet. The format seems to be a hit, and we plan to hold more around the world in the coming months.
Posted by Rogier Klimbie, Policy Manager, Amsterdam
Saluting Europe’s eTowns
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
It’s often assumed that big cities benefit the most from the Internet, but we believe the net offers giant opportunities to everyone from urbanites to small town residents, farmers and nature lovers in the far-flung countryside. We recently tested this thesis in our first-ever European
Google eTown awards
, which recognize those areas that had most embraced the web’s potential over the last year.
The results were fascinating—and surprising. Smaller, quirky and plucky towns came out ahead.
Scunthorpe
, a steel town in the north of England, topped the U.K.’s list.
Caen
, a town in rural Normandy not far from the D-Day beaches and famed as the home of camembert cheese, came first in France.
Salerno
, nestled between the Amalfi and the Cilento Coast led the way in Italy and
Elbląg
, a remote northern town located in the region of 1,000 lakes won in Poland. In all four participating countries, eTown lists included towns of all sizes.
How did we determine our eTown awards? We broke down the U.K., France, Italy and Poland into all of their thousands of towns and then ranked local areas according to the growth in small businesses using AdWords over the last year. The top towns in each country won Google eTown awards.
The results back up recent research identifying the Internet as a main force driving growth throughout Europe. For example, a recent McKinsey report
Internet Matters
states that 2.6 Internet jobs are created globally for every job destroyed. Separately, the Boston Consulting Group estimates that by 2015 the web will account for 7.3 percent of Denmark’s GDP, 10 percent of the U.K.’s GDP and 5.5 percent of France’s GDP. The net drives growth of both big and small businesses—indeed another BCG report called “
Turning Local
” (PDF) makes clear that small businesses with a website grow faster than businesses without a web presence.
We’ve seen this ourselves, in the businesses of all shapes and sizes that we encountered as part of our eTown awards. An entrepreneur in
Hartlepool
in the U.K. sells golf balls online. A Polish programmer runs a data recovery business from
Piaseczno
. An plumber directs a
heating systems
company from Vicenza, Italy and a French retailer has reached new scooter customers online in
Reims
. Online advertising has helped them grow and reach more customers than ever before. When it comes to the Internet, our eTown awards show that anybody, almost anywhere, can boost a business by going online.
Posted by Ben Novick, European Communications Manager
Measuring Internet network speeds with the OECD
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Whether it’s the nutritional value of food, the fuel economy of a new car - or the real performance of your broadband connection - good, standardised data and transparency is the key to understanding this important information. Our executive chairman Eric Schmidt outlined our views on the importance of measurement in a
speech
this week in Brussels.
Yesterday, as part of
Measurement Lab
(M-Lab), we presented important
data
on Internet network speed to a committee at the Organisation for Economic Development and Co-operation in Paris. M-Lab is a
collaborative effort
led by researchers in partnership with companies and other institutions, as part of a drive to help ISPs, regulators and consumers improve Internet services across the continent. Some regulators such as the UK’s Ofcom are also running their own comparable measurement
projects
.
At the OECD, we outlined several recent developments.
SamKnows
, an M-Lab partner, is running a project for the European Commission designed to map network performance in all EU Member States. In Greece, the country’s telecom regulator, the Hellenic Telecommunications and Post Commission, has
launched
a new consumer-focused broadband
measurement portal
, using M-Lab’s
Network Diagnostic Tool
(NDT) and data. Greek consumers now have real-time, useful information about their broadband performance. The portal uses M-Lab’s NDT to detail average speed, latency, packet loss, and other performance metrics for different areas of Greece. Interactive features allow consumers to compare the results from their tests with averages.
In the future, the Greek regulator hopes to expand the portal to allow consumers to compare speeds across Internet service providers, and to run M-Lab’s
Glasnost
test to determine the occurrence of application-specific traffic blocking. We encourage other governments and consumer advocates to take a look at M-Lab, and to consider the possibility of using this open-source code. Everyone - ISPs, regulators and consumers - will benefit from solid data about Internet network speeds.
Posted by Meredith Whittaker, Program Manager, Google Research
Inaugurating our new French headquarters
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Last year, our Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt promised to open a research and development and culture centre in France. Today, Eric returned to Paris to inaugurate our new 10,000-square meter office in a refurbished
19th century Second Empire building
near the St. Lazare Train Station.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy honored us with his presence. “Why as President, do I make this symbolic move and come to Google?" he asked rhetorically to a packed courtyard auditorium. “I love the United States, and its motto that everything is possible whatever your origins.” President Sarkozy also officially launched the
Elysee Palace’s YouTube channel
and his visit was shown on
YouTube Live
, the section of the site where we list all live streamed events.
The President participated in a Google+ Hangout, taking questions from French-speaking Google employees around the world. (“What time is it there?” he asked someone dialing in from California.) On a serious note, he expressed his gratification for how Google has moved to dig deep roots in France. “When I first met Eric, we had a frank conversation,” he recalled, saying his message was clear. “I asked him how long Google was preparing to make money in France without investing here. I told him that Google must have its feet in France.”
Our new Paris office is emblematic of our commitment to one of Europe’s fastest-growing Internet economies. According to a recent McKinsey study that we helped sponsor, the web contributed to 3,2% of the French GDP in 2009 and created more than 700,000 jobs during the past 15 years. Between now and 2015, McKinsey estimates that the digital contribution will grow to 5.5% of GDP, and 450,000 additional jobs will be created. In order to help accelerate the French digital engine, we’ve launched a
Startup Café
, an online platform offering information and tools.
Our investment plan for France is ambitious, and extends far beyond buildings. We’re expanding our engineering presence to take advantage of France’s strong engineering talent pool and are making significant academic investments, including a partnership with the French national research center
CNRS
.
France is a global cultural leader and we’re working hard to partner with French writers, filmmakers and musicians. Over the past year, we've reached an agreement with the biggest French publisher Hachette to scan and sell digital versions of out-of-print books and are providing payment systems for French news publishers from Hachette. YouTube has signed royalty-collection agreements with music copyright societies and our new Cultural Institute will be located in the Paris headquarters. It will aim at driving innovation in cultural preservation, creation and access, not just in France, but across the world.
Just before the President left, he asked to say a few final words. He praised our “dynamism” and wished well our expanded operations, before making a parting promise. “I hope this inauguration is one of a long series,” he said. “If you invite me to another building opening, I will come.”
Posted by Anne-Gabrielle Dauba Pantanacce, Head of Communications, France
Supporting innovation in Europe’s capital
Monday, December 5, 2011
In these challenging economic times, it's important to focus not just on today's immediate problems, but on innovating for the future and for growth.
European Commission President José-Manuel Barroso
and
Commissioner Máire Geoghegan-Quinn
are to be commended for tackling this long-term challenges by hosting an
Innovation Summit
today in Brussels.
We were delighted that our Executive Chairman, Eric Schmidt, was invited to give one of the keynote speeches. Eric outlined a pro-innovation agenda, focusing on how governments can identify “smart problems” and steer entrepreneurial energy in a productive direction.
Data is key, Eric said. Today’s computing power, including on mobile phones, makes it possible to address problems in new ways by taking advantage of the vast datasets available and in so doing identify big opportunities. And decisions driven by data need to measured carefully:
"GDP measures, for example, may not be enough, as the productivity benefits of IT adoption in the workplace and the uncounted consumer benefits from online services are not included in such estimates.(for details, see the
McKinsey Study for IAB Europe).
."
Eric set out an agenda designed to take advantage of data-driven innovation:
Education: “We need to invest in training a new generation of smart problem-solvers, and encourage innovative methods for teaching and learning.”
Copyright and other Internet issues: Eric called on Europe to implement a regulatory framework which fosters cloud computing and other innovations.
Patents: Europe should avoid following the U.S. lead on patents. “I don’t want to get too far into the intricacies of the various debates underway on patent legislation, but here is my top advice - don’t copy the US. You’re still light years ahead of us!,” Eric said.
Culture of entrepreneurship: Governments should provide support and investment for world-class clusters of innovation, like the UK government’s
Tech City
initiative in East London. We’re a sponsor and active participant in Tech City - and in France, we’re backers of the Startup Cafe resources center for entrepreneurs, as well as the Le Camping incubator.
Europe’s future need not be one of crisis - but one of innovation, Eric concluded. Europe has the talent. It has the human potential. Now the task is to summon new thinking and leadership at every level in society to ensure that the full promise of technology is unlocked.
Posted by Simon Hampton, Director, European Public Policy and Government Affairs
Honoring innovative digital journalism in Paris
Friday, December 2, 2011
Journalism is is in the midst of moving onto the Internet and Google is committed to helping ease this transition. We drive millions of readers to media sites every day and we split billions of dollars each year in advertising with publishers. We also aim to reward journalism that takes advantage of new digital tools.
A sign of the commitment is our partnership with the School of Journalism at Sciences Po in Paris. We created an award to showcase student projects, as well as professionals. A panel of prestigious journalists was recruited as judges: Jean-Marie Colombani, the founder of
Slate.fr
, Jean-Marc Manach, author of the blog
Bug Brother
, Thibaud Vuitton, deputy editor of the platform of continuous information France Television, Pascale Robert-Diard, author of the blog world
Chronicles Judicieres
and Alice Antheaume, deputy director of the journalism school at Sciences Po and author of the blog
Work In Progress
.
The awards were delivered at an event today at Sciences Po.
Villeneuve 5/5
, led by a group of students from the Grenoble School of Journalism, won the student award for a project that uses the video, sound, text and images to bring readers into the heart of violent riots which shook the district of Villeneuve in 2010. In the professional category, the jury praised the innovation of two journalists Slate.fr, who seized the tools used on social networks to investigate the
murky finances
of France’s richest woman Liliane Bettencourt.
Prix Google de l'innovation en journalisme
from
Sciences Po
on
Vimeo
.
This initiative is part of a comprehensive partnership with Science Po's School of Journalism, announced in May 2011. We look forward to pursuing it - and continuing to support online journalism.
Posted by Elisabeth Bargès, Institutional Relations, Google France
Making Internet a safer place in Russia
Friday, December 2, 2011
As in the real world, keeping kids safe online is a challenge. Children move fast with an insatiable curiosity which drives the questions and answers, sparks innovation, and can ultimately lead to a brighter future. At Google, we believe in empowering families with technologies and resources to help kids grow -- as well as tools to protect them online.
Google SafeSearch
,
YouTube Safety Mode
and other
safety features
are built into our products help our users make their own choices about what minors do and see online.
These controls need to be adapted to local concerns in order to be effective. We have launched more than 50
Family Safety Centres
across the world in national languages, with more countries joining all the time. Last week, the Russian Ministry of Telecommunications awarded a national Internet award. the Runet Prize, to our
Russian Family Safety Center
. This award signals government recognition of our efforts to build transparency, choice, and security into our products.
Online child safety is emerging as a major issue in Russia. A recent Law on Protection of Children from Harmful Information will enter into force in September. It stipulates several Internet-challenging issues, namely mandatory content filtering at the level of access providers. We are concerned that such an approach may not eradicate illegal content from the web and could instead impact Internet freedoms.
In less than three decades of existence, the Internet has grown into an exciting world of
e-books
,
digitised culture
and
connected communities
. Kids are naturals to this environment. While we have much to teach children about staying smart online, they, in course, have much to teach us. Harsh regulation will not solve the problem. Instead, we all should work together to develop tools that promote online responsibility and user choice. We’re glad that the Russian Ministry of Telecommunications recognizes our work in this direction.
Posted by Ksenia Karyakina, Policy Analyst for Russia
Luvvies and Boffins embrace in London
Thursday, December 1, 2011
When Eric Schmidt delivered his
MacTaggart lecture
at the
Edinburgh TV Festival
this summer he spoke of the importance of bringing the worlds of art and science back together if Britain’s creative industries are to succeed in the digital era. Luvvies and boffins, he said, need to work together.
That call seems to have struck a chord with industry, the arts and government, so this week we gathered a group of more than a hundred prominent figures from both worlds at our London offices for our first Luvvies and Boffins event.
The
Rambert Dance company
’s artistic director Mark Baldwin and resident scientist Professor Nicola Clayton explained how they worked together to create
Comedy of Change
, a ballet based on Darwin’s theory of evolution.
Ian Livingstone, founder of the video game pioneers
Eidos
and author of
Next Gen
, a new report on the future of our creative industries, made a passionate plea to the Government to include computer science in the schools curriculum.
The Science and Universities Minister
David Willetts
dropped in and showed he’s listening. This week the
government responded positively
to Ian Livingstone’s report, Prime Minister
David Cameron
agreeing that “we're not doing enough to teach the next generation of programmers.”
It was an evening of intense conversation, inspiring demonstrations and scientifically prepared cocktails. We plan to continue to meet as a group to promote the aims of what’s now being called STEAM education - Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Maths.
Posted by Peter Barron, Director, External Relations, Europe Middle East and Africa
Working together to make the web a better place for kids
Thursday, December 1, 2011
We’re strong believers in the benefits of the Internet for young people, whether in the classroom, at home, or out and about. But we also know that like all technologies, the value of the Net is what you make of it. If you’re a parent (and many of us here at Google are), then you want to ensure that your kids can navigate the web smartly and safely.
That’s why today we’re pleased to become a founding member of European Commissioner Neelie Kroes’
Better Internet for Kids coalition
. The new coalition brings together a wide range of technology companies with diverse experience in protecting children online. We’ve
committed
to working together and sharing our expertise to achieve a better Internet for kids.
Over the years, we’ve dedicated significant engineering and educational resources to providing families with choice, transparency, and security. Our
SafeSearch Lock
enables parents to block offensive content; our flagging system and
Safety Center
on YouTube provide an easy way to report abuse and find support from professionals. We also regularly run pragmatic digital literacy campaigns - the most recent being our “Good to Know” initiative (in
English
and
German
), in partnership with citizens’ advice organisations.
We’ve learned a lot in the process - but know that on the ever changing web, it's important to work with others to keep on top of the challenges. We’re looking forward to getting started with this new initiative, and we encourage other companies across the spectrum of the technology business to get involved too.
Posted by Simon Hampton, Director of European Public Policy
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Happy holidays from our Brussels policy team
Remembering a remarkable Soviet computing pioneer
New exhibitions at London’s Science Museum
Protecting intermediaries - and copyright
Giving back in 2011
A Big Tent for free expression in The Hague
Saluting Europe’s eTowns
Measuring Internet network speeds with the OECD
Inaugurating our new French headquarters
Supporting innovation in Europe’s capital
Honoring innovative digital journalism in Paris
Making Internet a safer place in Russia
Luvvies and Boffins embrace in London
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