Europe Blog
Our views on the Internet and society
Championing Free Expression - The Hay Festival in Hungary
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Her father was tortured and her mother was made to kneel on broken glass. Jung Chang, the author of the global sensation
Wild Swans
, which at the last count has sold 13 million copies, talked with passion and humanity about human rights during the Cultural Revolution in China at the first ever
Budapest Hay Festival
this past weekend.
Google has been working with the
Hay Literary Festival
for more than a year, helping it grow from its origins in Wales into an international organisation that now hosts festivals around the globe. This was the first festival ever held in Central Europe.
In Budapest, Chang described how she cornered the late Zairean dictator,
Mobutu Sese Sosuku
, under a hairdryer at a salon in Hong Kong, to persuade him to give details of his friendship with
Mao Tse-tung
. She also revealed how
Imelda Marcos
had a soft spot for
Richard Nixon
.
Another who tackled issues of free speech and technology was rock star turned global activist,
Bob Geldof
. He pointed to strong growth rates in Africa and warned policy makers in Europe and the United States that they ignored the economic potential of Africa, driven in large part by the opening up of the Internet. Other speakers at the two festival included
Tibor Fischer
, the Hungarian-born writer whose parents, both basketball players, fled the country after the Soviet suppression of the 1956 uprising, and Nigerian author
Ben Okri
.
One of the attractions of the Hay festival is the quality of speakers and the diversity of subject matter. Taking its name from a picturesque village on the border of England and Wales, made famous by its bookshops, the Hay Festival has been described as the "Woodstock of the mind.” It attracts tens of thousands of people per day during the 10 days of readings, speeches and interviews. We will unveil our
Big Tent
concept to a Hay audience at this year’s
event
, opening on May 31.
Later in the year, we will participate in four Hay gatherings that come within the Europe, Middle East and Africa region. Beirut takes place in early July, while the autumn will see festivals in Istanbul, Nairobi and Segovia, Spain.
Posted by Richard Schuster, Communications Manager, Google, Hungary
Hello from Tunisia
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
It was a perfect way to celebrate the Arab Spring.
UNESCO
last week marked its World Press Day in Tunisia, the country that led the rush for freedom in the Arab world. We sponsored the event, hosting Tunisian President
Moncef Marzouki
who met with
Daniel Calingaert
, Freedom House’s Vice President in Washington DC via an On Air Hangout on
UNESCO’s Google+ page
.
World Press Day marks an appropriate moment to review our progress in the Middle East and North Africa. We’re investing and digging deep roots. Over the past year, we have doubled our regional workforce. We have hosted g|daysreaching an estimated 12,000 entrepreneurs and developers in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan. Our
Google Media Academy
has trained nearly 2,000 journalists.
Google products are going Arabic. Only about three percent of the web now is in Arabic, while more than 10 percent of the world’s web population speaks it as a mother tongue. In order to encourage more local content, we have launched eight local YouTube domains and 11 local maps domains. An Egyptian who searches YouTube is no longer directed to Western videos but instead is able to access local content. We have introduced Arabic versions of Voice Search, Driving directions for Maps, and Google+.
Many magic moments have occurred in the past year. We hosted celebrity high profile hangouts with entertainer
Myriam Fares
and the Arab world’s biggest pop star, Amr Diab. We also launched the Official Google Arabia Google+
page
.
Earlier this month, two Qatar museums,
Museum of Islamic Art
and
Mathaf
, joined the Google Art Project. Egypt, the first episode of "Inside Google" aired on
Al Hayat Al Youm
, Egypt's number one Prime Time TV show. Egypt’s very own Amr Mohamed became a global finalist in the
YouTube Space Lab
. And next week we will crown a national winner for the
Ebda2
with Google competition to provide local entrepreneurs seed capital to start their own business kickstarting the internet ecosystem in Egypt to flourish.
This Arabization drive is producing impressive results. Google searches are up by 25 percent year on year in the region. Some 167 million YouTube videos are viewed each day in the Middle East and Africa - the second highest number in the world, behind the U.S. and ahead of Brazil. These daily views represent 112 percent increase since last October - more than double the views in just one year. An hour of YouTube video is uploaded each minute in the Middle East and North Africa. Since the launch of our local map domains, we have seen 50 percent growth in maps usage throughout the region.
Our goal is clear – to become part of the local landscape, giving people around the Middle East and North Africa access to information, preferably in their own language. For us, our contribution to UNESCO’s World Press Day represents yet another strong step towards this goal.
Posted by Maha Abouelenein, Head of Communications, Middle East and North Africa
Fostering a new generation of coders
Friday, May 4, 2012
Last year, our executive chairman
Eric Schmidt urged the UK
to take advantage of its “great computer heritage” by increasing the number of students studying computer science. We’ve now teamed up with the
Guardian
newspaper to encourage a new generation of coders.
As part of our joint initiative, the Guardian hosted a
two-day hackathon
event for pupils from four UK schools. In each school, 20 pupils - all aged between 13 and 15 - were given the challenge of creating a website in just over 24 hours. Developers from Google and the Guardian were on hand to offer advice.
Photograph: Alys Tomlinson/The Guardian
Seven projects emerged from the hackathons. They ranged from an online community for sharing and editing photos to a collaborative calendar that allows users to upload and share blogs, links and photos. By the end of the event, most students had a working knowledge of programming languages including Java, Python and html.
Much more work is required, but there are encouraging signs. In January the Education Secretary Michael Gove took the bold step of
scrapping the existing ICT curriculum
, freeing schools in the UK to teach a richer mix of programming, computer science and advanced IT rather than simply how to use software.
Most of the students who participated in our hackathon had little experience in computer coding. The promising results suggest that everyone, with a little support, can learn to code and embrace the digital future.
Posted by Peter Barron, Director, External Relations, Europe, Middle East and Africa
Celebrating World Press Freedom Day
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Update from Tunis
: UNESCO kicked off its World Press Freedom celebrations here at a ceremony at the presidential palace conducted via Google Hangout. Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki spoke with Freedom House Vice President Daniel Calingaert in Washington DC. The President said that his country's revolution last year "was done in the defense of freedom of expression," vowing that "Tunisia will never give up the freedom of expression is has won." A full two day program on press freedom continues Friday and Saturday under the theme “Media Freedom Helping to Transform Societies: New Voices, Youth and Social Media.”
The United Nations designates every May 3 as
World Press Freedom Day
. The day is designed to raise awareness about of the importance of freedom of the press and remind governments of their commitment to respect and uphold the right to freedom of expression enshrined in the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
.
This year,
UNESCO
is marking the day in Tunisia. The choice of setting honours the North African country’s recent uprising in favor freedom of expression, one in which the Internet played an important role. On Thursday afternoon,
Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki
will host the ceremony conferring the
Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize
on a deserving individual, organisation or institution that has made an outstanding contribution to the defence of press freedom.
We’re proud to be sponsoring the celebrations. President Marzouki announced the event through his official
Google
page and we’re organising a Google Hangout from the presidential palace, allowing guests from Amsterdam, Tripoli and Washington, D.C. to speak with the Tunisian President.
Thursday’s ceremony will be followed by a two-day conference bringing journalists, NGOs and officials from all over the world to Tunisia. They will discuss how to improve the safety of journalists, deal with defamation, develop opublic service broadcasting, and the issue of media ownership in a changing media landscape. Throughout, the impact of the Internet and social media will be on the agenda.
We’re involved here as well. Maha Abouelenein, our head of communications in MENA, will participate in a session about new media in the afternoon of May 4. Khaled Koubaa, our policy manager for North Africa, will appear on the same day on a panel titled “Innovation in Gathering and Sharing News. Finally, I will speak on May 5 about freedom of expression.
Please stay with us to follow UNESCO’s Tunis World Press Freedom celebrations.
Posted by William Echikson, Head of Free Expression, Europe, Middle East and Africa
Big Data, Part II: Mining gold in public data
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
European Commission Vice President Neelie Kroes, calls it a “goldmine.” Better yet, Europe enjoys plenty of the resource. What is so potentially valuable? The data collected by governments.
Under Mrs. Kroes’s lead, the Commission is taking important steps to open access to public data. It is creating a European Open Data Portal making the Commission’s data accessible and easy to use. The Commission would like other public administrations to follow suit.
Public data could boost Europe’s economies without requiring new public spending.
Estimates
suggest that the European Union could add EUR 40 billion per year in the continent’s economic activity if it fully opened up access to public data. Another recent
study
finds that direct and indirect economic impact of public data amount to about EUR140 billion annually. Individuals and firms can use this information to develop new business ideas.
Another benefit is increased accountability of public services. Openness in public administration helps to nurture trust in institutions -which is particularly needed in times of economic crisis. Empowered and informed citizens may feel more confident to explore new ideas and create new businesses.
France has taken a strong step forward in this field.
Etalab
, the French governement initiative launched the
data.gouv.fr
site late last year. Journalists, researchers, and all French citizens now can analyze line by line the budget of the French government, or know what books are held by public libraries.
Etalab encourages the public to develop apps with the information. Citizens are able to build applications such as
where does my money go
. Along with other companies, we are sponsoring a service called Dataconnexions, which aims to boost the reuse of public data in general and especially those of the portal data.gouv.fr.
Data Connxtions
is organising a number of events throughout the year 2012, including four contests application development. We are holding Google Open Data Workshop, the first of which was held on March 14. Excerpts are visible below.
Bravo! We look forward to seeing more initiatives like Etalab in the future.
Patricia Wruuck, Policy Analyst, Brussels and Elisabeth Bargès, Public Policy and Government Affairs, Google France
2012: The Year of Big Data
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
“Big Data” looks set to become one of this year’s big business trends, and to our delight, Europe is taking a new, positive view on this long overlooked resource. European Commission officials recently have outlined ambitious EU
plans
to benefit from the increasingly large and complex datasets that permeate the information economy.”
We’re excited about the promise of Big Data. This week, we hosted at a policy colloquium in Mountain View, titled “Empowering Data-driven Innovation." Our RSVP list included the United Nations, White House, and Census Bureau; scholars like UC Berkeley’s Marti Hearst; and representatives from companies such as Salesforce and General Electric.
A decade ago, researchers estimated that around five exabytes of data was produced each year. Today, more than
five exabytes
of data were stored online every day. We recently announced that 60 hours of video is uploaded each minute on YouTube and Facebook users generated an average of 3.2 billion Likes and Comments per day during the first quarter of 2012. From Fusion Tables and Public Data Explorer to Flu Trends and Translate, Google’s data innovations and initiatives have produced robust tools for making sense of data.
Recent
research
from MIT professor Erik Brynjolfsson suggests that data-guided management provides private companies with a crucial competitive edge and that companies making good use of data can have five to six percent higher productivity. Professor Brynjolfsson is coming to Brussels and speaking at the
Bruegel Think Tank
on May 7. Retailers such as Zara analyze data of sales and inventory to speed up the fashion cycle; instead of launching new collections each six months, Zara has new ideas on the shelves within weeks. By sharing data and using controlled experimentation, Fiat and Nissan have cut new model development time by 30 to 50 percent.
Data provides the raw material to uncover patterns. Digital technologies also facilitate experimentation. These insights can be used to create new products and services and keep improving them. At Google, we use data to test new services and algorithms. At any one time, we are running 100-200 experiments, analyzing patterns in the results and seeing which versions produce the best feedback. Our own chief economist Hal Varian has predicted that the skills needed to make sense of this data will turn the job of a statistician into something sexy.
Public administration, not just the private sector, can gain from data innovation. During his recent visit to Brussels, our executive chairman Eric Schmidt recounted how the Germany’s federal labour agency managed to save about EUR10 billion - all while speeding up placing people in jobs. Data based innovation similarly can help address societal problems, reducing, for example, traffic congestion and emissions through providing real-time traffic information.
Like all good things, data can be misused so we need sensible approaches to deal with privacy issues. Yet the gains from data-driven innovation far outweigh any risks. One particular area of interest here in Brussels is opening access to the reams of data collected by governments. We’ll discuss this topic tomorrow.
Patricia Wruuck, Policy Analyst, Brussels
Supporting innovation in journalism
Monday, April 30, 2012
The digital age generates reams of raw data. Much of that data is interesting or important, but since there’s a lot of it out there it’s often hard to find and analyze. This is where journalists can help. Journalists are experts at delving into complex issues and writing stories that make them accessible—essential skills for dealing with the data deluge of the digital age. In order to support and encourage innovative data journalism, we’re sponsoring a series of prizes all across Europe.
Let’s start in the Nordics, where we recently partnered with Danish newspaper Dagbladet Information and Southern Denmark University’s Center for Journalism to sponsor the
Nordic News Hacker 2012
contest. Contestants were asked to create and submit a piece of data journalism—anything from a data mash-up to a new mobile app.
This year’s winner is Anders Pedersen. Ander’s project,
Doctors for Sale
, inspired by
Pro Publica’s Docs for Dollars
investigation in the United States, used raw data to uncover doctors who receive money from the pharmaceutical industry. He wins a $20,000 scholarship to work with the
Guardian Data Blog
in London for one month to further his investigative skills.
Several thousand kilometers south of Denmark at the
International Journalism Festival
, the
Global Editors Network
announced the 60 shortlisted projects for the Google-sponsored
Data Journalism Awards
. Some 320 projects were submitted from a diverse group of applicants including major media groups, regional newspapers, press associations, and entrepreneurial journalists from more than 60 countries. Six winners will be announced during the
News World Summit
, on May 31, 2012 in Paris.
In Vienna, the
International Press Institute
recently announced the winners of their News Innovation contest, sponsored by Google. Fourteen projects were selected, including digital training in the Middle East, corruption chasing in the Balkans, and citizen photojournalism in the UK. All use digital data and new technologies to tell stories or reach new audiences. The
winners
received a total of more than $1.7 million.
Congratulations to all the journalists and publications who are embracing the digital world!
Posted by Peter Barron, Director, External Relations Europe Middle East and Africa
Labels
Academics
18
Advertising
10
Africa
26
Austria
7
Belgium
25
Big Tent
11
Bosnia and Herzegovina
2
Browsers
1
Brussels Tech Talk
7
Bulgaria
5
Campus
2
Child Safety
24
Cloud computing
17
Competition
16
Computer Science
35
Computing Heritage
37
Consumers
11
controversial content
2
COP21
1
copyright
34
Crisis Response
2
Culture
116
Czech Republic
16
Data Centre
15
Denmark
4
Digital News Initiative
6
Digital Single Market
1
Diversity
7
Economic Impact of the Internet
57
Economy
24
Elections
7
Energy + Environment
16
Engineering
6
Environment
5
Estonia
6
European Commission
21
European Parliament
14
European Union
104
exhibitions
1
Finland
13
France
77
Free Expression
88
Free flow of information
47
German
1
Germany
65
Google for Entrepreneurs
9
Google in Europe Blog
846
Google Play
1
Google TechTalk
2
Google Translate
1
Google Trends
3
Google+
4
Greece
16
Growth Engine
3
Hackathon
3
Hungary
16
Innovation
70
Internet Governance
7
IP
10
Ireland
16
Israel
17
Italy
42
Journalism
34
Latvia
1
Lithuania
1
Luxembourg
3
Maps
17
Middle East
18
Netherlands
6
News
2
News Lab
1
North Africa
6
Norway
3
online
1
Online Safety
2
Open data
8
Open Government
7
Open source
2
Poland
24
Portugal
6
Power of Data
25
privacy
49
Publishing
30
Right to be Forgotten
9
Rio+20
1
Romania
3
Russia
18
Safer Internet Day
4
San Marino
1
Science
5
Security
7
Single Market
7
Slovakia
16
Slovenia
2
SMEs
24
Spain
39
Startups
6
State of the Union
2
STEM Education
36
Street View
38
Surveillance
1
Sweden
13
Switzerland
11
Telecoms
11
The Netherlands
4
Tourism
1
Transparency
12
Tunisia
4
Turkey
3
Ukraine
3
United Kingdom
94
Vatican
2
Youth
2
YouTube
42
Archive
2016
Sep
Introducing YouTube Creators for Change
Announcing a Google.org grant for XperiBIRD.be, a ...
Bringing education to refugees in Lebanon with the...
Juncker embraces creators -- and their concerns
Tour 10 Downing Street with Google Arts and Culture
European copyright: there's a better way
Digital News Initiative: Introducing the YouTube P...
#AskJuncker: YouTube creators to interview the Eur...
An extinct world brought back to life with Google ...
Project Muze: Fashion inspired by you, designed by...
Come Play with us
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2015
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2014
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2013
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2012
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2011
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2010
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2009
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Feed
Give us feedback in our
Product Forums
.
