Europe Blog
Our views on the Internet and society
Hosting a ‘Big Tent’ in Japan on crisis response
Friday, June 8, 2012
(Cross-posted on the
Lat Long
,
Japan
and
Google.org
blogs
)
When natural disasters strike, more and more people around the world are
turning to the web
, social media and mobile technologies to connect with loved ones, locate food and shelter, find evacuation routes, access medical care and help those affected, near and far.
Over the past few years, we’ve seen some powerful examples of technology helping people and organizations cope with disasters, including:
Families in Japan turning to person finder to
locate loved ones
feared lost;
Volunteers establishing
SMS services
and using
crowdsourcing tools
to collect information after the Haiti earthquake and engage the diaspora;
First responders using digital maps to coordinate efforts to
provide medical care
;
Students in New Zealand using social networks to form a volunteer army after the Christchurch earthquake; and
Online volunteer communities
self-organizing to provide emergency crisis-mapping services around the world.
This is really only scratching the surface of the amazing things people are doing, and we’re just beginning to understand the potential. So we’re hosting a
‘Big Tent’ event in Sendai, Japan on 2 July
to explore the growing role of technology in preparing for, responding to and rebuilding from disasters.
At this day-long forum, through a series of panel discussions, keynotes and technology demos, we hope to learn from some of the leading local and global, public and private sector voices on managing crises. The day's speakers will include:
Margareta Wahlström
, UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction;
Will Rogers of the
International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
;
James Kondo
, President of Twitter Japan;
Members of
Google’s Crisis Response team
, and many more
We chose to host this event in Sendai - the largest city in Tohoku, the region devastated by last year’s Great East Japan Earthquake - to focus this forum on Japan’s impressive disaster response and recovery efforts, which demonstrated some new and innovative ways that technology can aid the efforts of responders to reduce the impact and cost of disasters.
While hard hit coastal areas remain bare, with only foundation lines to mark the many homes that have been lost and too many families still living in shelters or temporary housing, central Sendai and much of the Tohoku region are beginning to buzz with new life and commerce as the community rebuilds. There is still a lot of work to be done, but
we’ve already learned a great deal
from this region and the inspiring response and rebuilding work being done by people in Japan and around the world, and we believe there’s much more for Google, public and private sector leaders, NGOs and technologists to gain by coming together here.
For those interested in joining us in Sendai, please register to attend
here
. Though space is limited, we’ll accommodate as many of you as we can.
Posted by Nigel Snoad, Crisis Response Product Manager
Honoring Czech and Slovak Journalism
Thursday, June 7, 2012
Throughout Europe, we have been working hard to aid the often wrenching transition from offline to online journalism. We have forged partnerships with newspapers and newspaper associations and sponsored a series of digital journalism contests. Our latest effort comes in the Slovakia and the Czech Republic, where we worked with the Open Society Fund to support a series of journalism awards.
The Czech and Slovak Journalism awards are eight years old, so we wanted to bring something new to the event. Our answer was to create organize "
public online voting
” for a special Czecho-Slovak award. Our sponsorship also supported two entirely new online categories, the Google Digital Innovation for professional journalism and the Google Digital Innovation for citizen journalism.
A total of 685 entries from 409 authors too part, almost a hundred more than the previous year. Online blogs comprised the single largest share of all entries. The winners of the Google prizes are:
Google Digital Innovation: Citizen Journalism
Czech Winner: Mikuláš Kroupa, Michal Šmíd, Lenka Kopřivová:
"A memory of the nation"
Slovak Winner: Editorial team SME a
SME.sk
- "
Online updates from the day of voting about ESM and government trust
"
Google Digital Innovation: Professional Journalism
Czech Winner: Petr Holub, Sabina Slonková (Aktuálně.cz): "
Corruption in health system
vs 'Thanks, we are leaving' campaign"
Slovak Winner: Martin Filko "
Series of blogposts about Slovak health system
"
Czecho-Slovak Winner of public voting (the biggest impact on society)
:
Czech journalist Sabina Slonková (Aktuálně.cz): “
Special investigation: Top secret salaries
”
Congratulations for helping bring high-quality digital journalism to Slovak and Czech readers.
Posted by Janka Zichova, Communications Manager, Czech Republic and Slovakia
Data journalism awards announced
Friday, June 1, 2012
At the
News World Summit
in Paris this week most of the discussion was about how technology is transforming journalism. A good example is the rapid growth data journalism, the analyzing and filtering large data sets to uncover news.
Last November we announced our support for the first international
Data Journalism Awards
organised by the
Global Editors Network
and the
European Journalism Centre
. Winners were announced this week in Paris at the News World Summit.
1.
Terrorists for the FBI
(Mother Jones and UC Berkeley Investigative Reporting Program, USA) Data-Driven Investigations (national/international)
2.
Methadone and the Politics of Pain
(The Seattle Times, USA) Data-Driven Investigations (local/regional)
3.
Riot Rumours
(The Guardian, UK) Data Visualizations and Storytelling (national/international)
4.
Pedestrian Crashes in Novosibirsk
(Nikolay Guryanov, Stas Seletskiy and Alexey Papulovskiy, Russia) Data Visualizations and Storytelling (local/regional)
5.
Transparent Politics
(Polinetz AG, Switzerland) Data-Driven Applications (national/international)
6.
Illinois School Report Card
s (Chicago Tribune, USA) Data-Driven Applications (local/regional)
Congratulations to all the winners who will each receive a prize of EUR7,500 We hope you’ll take a look at their projects.
Posted by Peter Barron, Director, External Relations, Europe, Middle East, and Africa
Explore historic sites with Google World Wonders
Thursday, May 31, 2012
A month ago, we announced a major expansion of our Google
Art Project
, which featured art from museums around the world. Today, we're taking another significant step forward in our goal to increase access to culture with the Google
World Wonders
Project.
The World Wonders Project goes outdoors to bring online icons from all times and places, and from all over civilizations all over the world. It features 132 historic sites in 18 countries, from prehistoric
Stonehenge
to Ancient Rome’s vanished
Pompeii
and the mystical wooden
Kyoto temples
. The sites are natural as well as man-made, ranging from the sandy dunes of Australia’s
Shark Bay
to the rocky cliffs of America’s
Yosemite National Park
.
The World Wonders Project is the latest creation of the Google
Cultural Institute
, opened in Paris last year. Under the institute’s auspices, we have launched a series of exciting initiatives, ranging from the publication of high resolution images of the
Dead Sea Scrolls
to the digitization the archives of famous figures such as
Nelson Mandela
. For the World Wonders Project, we’ve worked with a prestigious set of partners including
UNESCO
, the
World Monuments Fund
,
Getty Images
and
Ourplace
. The partners have supplied official information and photographs.
In order to create World Wonders, we took our
Street View
technology to a new level. Most of the these historic sites could not be filmed by car. We needed to use camera-carrying trikes and pedal our way close enough. Street View helps millions each day make travel plans or get a helping hand with geography homework. With World Wonders, Street View supports preserving and promoting some of the world’s most significant monuments for future generations.
Our launch event took place today in Madrid. We chose Spain because the country enjoys a particularly rich architectural heritage, including 12 Wonders’ sites. There’s the old cities of
Salamanca
,
Toledo
,
Cuenca
,
Santiago de Compostela
and
Córdoba
, the
Roman aqueduct in Segovia
and
Roman walls in Lugo
, and the
archeological dig in Tárraco
. The Wonders website is launching in Spanish, as well as English, French, Italian, Hebrew and Japanese. The World Wonders Project YouTube channel adds a video dimension.
By bringing these sites online, we’re aiming to encourage visitors to travel to these fabulous sites. Many museum curators involved in our Art Project report spikes in entries after viewing their collections on their computers.
This project provides significant educational benefits. A
section
on the site offers valuable resources for teachers in primary and secondary schools, which enable them to teach history and geography in innovative ways. Educational packages for classroom use can be downloaded free of charge from the World Wonders website.
When I was a child, flipping through encyclopedias while researching for school projects, the thought of exploring the world’s famous historic and cultural sites was a distant dream. Today that dream becomes a little closer for all of us.
Posted by Melanie Blaschke, Product Marketing Manager, World Wonders Project
A victory for the web in France
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Today is an important day for the Web. A French court rejected claims from France’s largest television broadcaster
TF1
that
YouTube
has violated its copyright.
The case reaches back to March 2008 when TF1 sued YouTube over copyright infringement by making available of several of their TV programs on YouTube: TF1 claimed more than EUR140 million in damages.
The overall decision is a victory for everyone who uses the Web. Every day, hundreds of millions of people use computers and mobile devices, tablets and televisions to freely exchange ideas and information. After this decision, these creators can be secure to post their materials on YouTube and other platforms and we can host their content without fearing a giant liability. The end result will be more videos posted on the Net, more revenue generated for creative artists, and more exposure to a global audience for these artists. Already, we have deals in place with 3,000 media groups around the world, including important French partners such as
BFM
,
Arte
and
AFP.
The verdict demonstrates how the Internet is enriching French culture. Over the past year, we have signed contracts with five French collecting societies to pay royalties to French writers, musicians, and other artists. More generally, we have a major investment plan for the French economy and culture, demonstrating how committed we are to France.
By embracing the Web, this verdict moves France a step forward to further benefit from Internet’s massive economic and cultural opportunity. We hope this judgement will allow us to build
constructive partnerships
and bring more French language content online. Watch this space!
Posted by Christophe Muller, Head of YouTube partnerships, Southern Europe, Middle East and Africa
Helping kids answer Chancellor Merkel’s question
Monday, May 28, 2012
“How are we going to learn?”, asked German Chancellor Angela Merkel in February 2012, as she launched a “
Future Dialogue
” with citizens. At this year’s
Vision Summit
in Potsdam, Google was able to play a part in supporting a rather unusual group of education experts: twenty pupils and students aged 14 to 22 trying to come up with possible answers to Mrs Merkel’s question.
The teams used used
Chromebooks
provided by us, Tumblr’s microblogging service and other online tools to keep track of their many ideas. The youngsters discussed dropping single-subject lessons from the curriculum altogether - instead, students should work on projects that combine maths, science, languages and other subjects in an integrated learning environment. They were also keen to integrate the web into their answers, suggesting collaborative working and information sharing - via online tools and wikis.
At the end of the event, the teams’ ideas were presented to the 1500 attendees at the Vision Summit. Afterwards, they spoke to an audience of another 300, among them journalists, photographers and TV crews at the Brandenburg Gate, just a few hundred meters from the Chancellor’s office. It was an appropriate setting to offer some potential answers to Chancellor Merkel’s question.
Posted by Ralf Bremer, Senior Manager Communications and Public Affairs, Germany
Rebooting computer science education in the UK
Friday, May 25, 2012
Last August
, Eric Schmidt lamented the sorry state of computer science education in UK schools. Since then we’ve been in discussion with various educational groups about ways we might help.
Through our grant programmes like
CS4HS
and
RISE
, we’ve long supported educational schemes of merit in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. But we wanted to do more.
One key issue stood out in particular -- the lack of qualified people able to teach computing as a science. So this week,
speaking at London’s Science Museum
, Eric announced a partnership between Google and TeachFirst, which we hope will help - in at least a small way - address the teacher shortfall.
From
Eric at Science Museum
Teach First
is a UK charity which recruits exceptional graduates and puts them to work in the most challenging schools. Google has provided funds for them to train and support more than 100 first rate science teachers over the next three years, with the majority focused on computer science. Overall we anticipate this should help more than 20,000 pupils from the most disadvantaged UK communities.
It should take just a few months for the benefits to begin. After undergoing an intensive training course this summer, the first batch of Teach First recruits will be placed into schools where they can make a difference right away, whilst receiving on the job mentoring and training for a further 2 years.
And to ensure they aren’t held back by a lack of equipment, we’ll also provide each computer science recruit with a small bursary to purchase teaching aids, such as
Raspberry Pi
or
Arduino
starter kits.
Rebooting computer science education won’t be straightforward, and it will take a generation coming through schools before we see a real difference. But that’s even more reason to start today.
Posted by Peter Barron, Director, External Relations, EMEA
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