Europe Blog
Our views on the Internet and society
Here comes the collaborative economy
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
When travelling, have you rented somebody’s flat as an alternative to booking a room in a hotel? Or prefered the car-sharing option to taking the train? These new ways of sharing resources are increasingly becoming common practise and are part of an emerging movement often coined as the “collaborative” or “sharing” economy.
We are proud to support the
“OuiShare Fest”
, the first major European event dedicated to the collaborative economy taking place in Paris from May 2 to May 4. During these three days, more than 600 entrepreneurs, designers, economists, investors, politicians and citizens will come together to reflect about how to build a collaborative future.
European Commission Vice President Neelie Kroes
supports the project and even has opened up her blog to a
guest post
from OuiShare’s organizers.
The digital economy has proved a
vector
of economic growth throughout Europe. It has allowed for the emergence of horizontal and networked organizations that offer new opportunities in traditional sectors from health to transportation, education and finance. Online platforms that offer services such as crowdfunding, taxi-sharing or flat-renting are testimony to the rise of new business models which are based on a culture of openness and transparency.
OuiShare will do much to “connect” the actors of this new movement across Europe and we wish them a successful OuiShare Fest.
Posted by Florian Maganza, Policy Analyst, Paris
Watch the Big Tent on YouTube
Friday, March 30, 2012
Our programme of Big Tent events aims to bring together digital businesses, policymakers and advocacy groups to debate some of the hot issues facing the Internet and society.
Now, with the launch of our new
Big Tent YouTube channel
, everyone can engage with these debates online.
The channel includes videos from our sessions so far in
London
,
The Hague
,
Berlin
and
Madrid
. You can filter by topic, speaker and event, so whether you’re interested in privacy or child safety, Hillary Clinton on Internet freedom or Wael Ghonim on the role of the Internet in Egypt’s revolution, it’s all available under the Big Tent.
The launch of our new channel coincides with our first Big Tent in the US--an event on Digital Citizenship held at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California. Over the course of the day, we discussed child safety online, the most effective ways to incorporate technology with educationa and what governments and civil society can do to maintain a responsible and innovative web.
Stay tuned for videos from that and future Big Tents as the programme continues to roll out across the world.
Posted by Peter Barron, Director of External Relations EMEA
Visualise the world’s economic recovery - and win $2,000
Thursday, March 29, 2012
The summer before I left university, banks - overburdened with housing bubble debts - started collapsing. My fellow students and I had anticipated that finding a job would be challenging - but not that we would get to unemployment rates as high as 9.6% in both the
United States
and the
European Union
in 2010, the highest they’ve been in almost 30 years.
So we figured it would be pretty interesting to see which government policies are reversing the trend - which is why we’ve teamed up with the
Guardian Datastore
to launch a
competition
to create the best visualisation of public data sets.
Using information from
Eurostat
,
the World Economic Forum
,
World Bank
,
UN
,
IMF
and some of the world's major
economic
experts
, we want you to make an argument about how to generate sustainable growth in the 21st century.
Finding solutions to these problems is critical to the future of our society and economy. To debate the issues that surface in the visualisations, we’ll be co-hosting public conversations via Google+ Hangouts that are anchored in hard numbers. Stay tuned to this blog or the Guardian Datastore for details.
The competition is open to U.K. and U.S. citizens with a prize of $2,000 going to the most compelling, beautiful and informed visualisation. Entries are due by May 21 and results will be published on the Guardian Datastore’s new site,
Show and Tell
.
A new economic reality is setting in, and if we are going to master it, citizens and leaders alike need to invest in figuring out how to adapt. Check out the data from our list or bring your own as long as it’s freely available to the public - and submit your entry to datavisualisation@guardian.co.uk!
Posted by Dorothy Chou, Senior Policy Analyst at Google
News Innovation contest opens for applications
Monday, January 23, 2012
We are eager to see journalism flourish in the digital age. Last week, we announced our support of the
Global Editor Network’s data journalism prize
. Today, we’re happy to see that the
International Press Institute
has begun accepting applications for the second round of Google-funded media innovation prizes.
Click
here
for more information and to enter. Applicants are eligible from anywhere in Europe, Middle East and Africa.
The Vienna-based International Press Institute is our European partner for Google’s ambitious
$5 million global program
announced in 2010 to help journalism create new ways of reaching readers online. As media organizations globally continue to broaden their presence online, we’re eager to play our part on the technology side—experimenting with
new ways
of presenting news online; providing tools like Google Maps and
YouTube Direct
to make websites more engaging for readers. But while we’re mostly focused on working with news organizations to develop better products for users, we also believe it’s crucial to encourage innovation at the grassroots level. Our grants to non-profit organizations are designed to benefit news publishers of all sizes.
More than 300 applications were received for the first round of International Press Institute-run Google-sponsored prizes last year;
three winners
were named at the end of last year.
This year’s News Innovation Contest offers prizes in two categories:
News Platforms: The International Press Institute is looking for projects that leverage online tools to enhance news gathering and delivery. It aims to encourage the creation of new online news platforms that offer new revenue models for supporting high quality journalism.
Training: Little proper training in online media exists. The Press Institute is looking for initiatives that help traditional journalists transition into online media, by improving their technology skills and familiarising them with online news models.
The contest deadline is February 23 at 15:00 Central European Time. Winners can be announced at the beginning of April.
Posted by Simon Morrison, Copyright Communications and Policy Manager.
Data Journalism Awards Now Accepting Submissions
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Last November, we
announced
our support for a new Data Journalism competition, organized by the
Global Editors Network
. The competition is now open to submissions and today we hosted an event at our offices in London to share details on how to compete and win a total of six prizes worth EUR 45,000. The
European Journalism Centre
is running the contest and Google is sponsoring.
Journalism is going through an exciting—if sometimes wrenching—transition from off to online. Google is keen to help. We see exciting possibilities of leveraging data to produce award-winning journalism. “Data journalism is a new, exciting part of the media industry, with at present only a small number of practitioners,” said Peter Barron, Google’s Director of External Relations. “We hope to see the number grow.”
In data journalism, reporters leverage numerical data and databases to gather, organize and produce news. Bertrand Pecquerie, the Global Editor Network’s CEO, believes the use of data will, in particular, revolutionize investigative reporting. “We are convinced that there is a bright future for journalism,” he said at the London event. “This is not just about developing new hardware like tablets. It is above all about producing exciting new content.”
The European Journalism Centre, a non-profit based in Maastricht, has been running data training workshops for several years. It is producing the Data Journalism Awards website and administering the prize. “This new initiative should help convince editors around the world that data journalism is not a crazy idea, but a viable part of the industry,” says Wilfried Ruetten, Director of the center.
Projects should be submitted to
http://www.datajournalismawards.org
. The deadline is April 10, 2012. Entries should have been published or aired between April 11, 2011 and April 10, 2012. Media companies, non-profit organisations, freelancers and individuals are eligible.
Submissions are welcomed in three categories: data-driven investigative journalism, data-driven applications and data visualisation and storytelling. National and international projects will be judged separately from local and regional ones. “We wanted to encourage not only the New York Times’s of the world to participate, but media outlets of all sizes,” says Pecquerie. “Journalism students are also invited to enter, provided their work has been published.”
An all-star jury has been assembled of journalists from prestigious international media companies including the New York Times, the Guardian, and Les Echos.
Paul Steiger
, the former editor-in-chief of the Wall Street Journal and founder of the Pulitzer Prize-winning
ProPublica
, will serve as president.
Winners will be announced at the
Global News Network’s World Summit
in Paris on May 31, 2012.
Posted by William Echikson, External Relations
Celebrating innovation in digital journalism
Monday, November 28, 2011
Cross-posted with the
Official Google Blog
Journalism is changing fast as media businesses adapt and experiment with ways of gathering and reporting the news in the digital age. Here’s news of two contests we’re sponsoring to help stimulate innovation in digital reporting.
IPI News Innovation Contest
We’re pleased to congratulate the first three winners selected by the Vienna-based
International Press Institute
in its News Innovation Contest. The prizes are part of a $5 million
global contest
launched by Google last year.
Today’s winners, who will receive grants totalling $600,000, are:
World Wide Web Foundation
for its Voice-based Citizen Journalism project in France, the Netherlands and Mali. The project will enable voice-based citizen journalists to gather and deliver news in rural areas through community radio and mobile phones.
Internews Europe
for its crowd-sourced journalism project in five African countries. The project aims to promote expertise in crowd-sourced journalism techniques to contribute to press freedom.
Journalism Leaders Programme
at the University of Central Lancashire, for its digital media training programme for the U.K. and Turkey. The project will focus on training in data journalism skills and the fundamentals of digital business aimed at disseminating learning to the wider news industry.
This is just the first round of the contest. In 2012, the IPI will consider a new set of proposals and award the remainder of the grant. More details are available at
www.ipinewscontest.org
.
GEN Data Journalism Awards
In Hong Kong, at the News World Summit hosted by the Global Editors Network, we're announcing a partnership on a new data journalism contest.
GEN’s Data Journalism Awards will celebrate the best examples of this new form of journalism from established news organisations and newcomers.
The winners will be chosen by an international jury and prizes awarded at the next GEN conference in Paris next year. Details on how to take part are at
globaleditorsnetwork.org
.
We look forward to seeing the impact these initiatives will have on digital journalism and hope they will encourage continued experimentation at every level of the media.
Posted by Peter Barron, Director, External Relations, Europe, Middle East and Africa
UPDATE: More Hack4Transparancy for everyone
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
A few weeks ago we told you about the Hack4Transparancy event, bringing techies together November 8th and 9th in the European Parliament for an all-expenses-paid good time eating, talking, and making important data
Well, now we’ve got more exciting news. We’ve broadened the scope of the event and extended the application deadline for those wishing to make data on Internet performance visible and meaningful.
What’s changed?
• The application deadline for the Internet Quality track has been extended through noon, CET, Friday October 21st (that's this coming Friday).
• To diversify the skill-set of interested hackers, we’ve added a data visualization option to the Internet Quality track.
• We’ve expanded the criteria -- now, eligible hackers from anywhere in the world can apply.
• And, we’ve increased the prize money. One winning team or individual on each track will now receive €5.000,00.
Now, sharpen your coding and data visualization skills, and send in your application! Winners will be notified the week of October 24.
Posted by Marco Pancini, Google Sr. Policy Counsel, Brussels
Open source code meets law at Hack4Transparency
Friday, September 23, 2011
Cross-posted from the
Google Open Source blog
What do you call a group of talented hackers in the European Parliament for a 24-hour window, enjoying free food while improving data transparency? We call it
Hack4Transparency
, and it’s not your everyday hackathon. Google is proud to be one of the sponsors of this upcoming event, a code sprint this November 8-9 that, literally, brings code to law. This is the first ever hacking event within the premises of European government, taking place in the heart of Brussels and giving dedicated hackers an opportunity to bring the power of good code to the place where it can matter most.
Over the course of 24 hours, hackers will work to make data more accessible and intelligible to consumers, to government, and to anyone who’s interested in the state of Internet access and information availability around the world.
Hackers will work along two tracks. The Internet Quality track focuses on making broadband performance data meaningful to the average consumer by improving the user interfaces of existing broadband measurement tools. The Global Transparency track asks hackers to take data from existing sources including
Google’s Transparency Report
, the
Open Net Initiative
, and
Herdict
, and using these sources to create compelling visualizations showing what type of Internet content is available or unavailable to users.
There will be free food, free WiFi, and the opportunity to win prizes while working with a lot of cool people dedicated to making big improvements.
Applicants that are selected to attend will have their travel and accommodations covered, and winning hackers on each track will receive €3.000.
If you're an EU-based hacker and you want fun, food, a free vacation, and the opportunity to make a big impact,
we invite you to apply
.
The deadline for applications is Monday, October 10, noon CET.
Posted by Marco Pancini, Senior Policy Counsel, Google Brussels
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