Europe Blog
Our views on the Internet and society
Blasting off from a LaunchPad in Barcelona
Wednesday, December 10, 2014
Barcelona is already known for its sunshine and seashore. Now, according to the
Financial Times
, it aims to become just as well known for its start-ups. Last week, Google LaunchPad took place in the Catalan capital. The one-week program is designed to accelerate the growth of local, early stage tech companies, and part of our
Startup Launch program
. It’s our fourth LaunchPad in Europe, following events in Tel Aviv, London, Sao Paulo, Berlin and Paris.
A strong case exists for Barcelona to become a start-up hub, the Financial Times says. “Barcelona is known as the ‘north of the south’ – combining a cosmopolitan business-friendly city with Mediterranean coast sunshine. Two international business schools,
Iese
and
Esade
, attract talent from across the world. The city hosts one of the world’s top supercomputing centres.”
At our LaunchPad, local incubators
itnig
,
Incubio
,
Connector
,
Tetuan Valley
and
Caixa Capital Risc
picked 14 startups to attend. During the week, some 30 mentors work individually with them on their projects, as they are experts in their fields and in most cases experienced entrepreneurs. Workshops cover product strategy, UX/UI, technology and marketing.
This initiative underlines our commitment, once again, to Spanish entrepreneurship. Despite suffering a drastic downturn in the financial crisis, the country is emerging as strong start-up nation. According to the
Map of Entrepreneurship
in Spain 2014, 95% of entrepreneurs decide to become so out of motivation rather than necessity AND 16% of the new projects are launched Catalonia. Barcelona always will be a beautiful city. It is in the process of becoming a modern Internet hub.
Posted by Virginia Wassmann, Communications Manager, Madrid
Apply for a computer science award
Tuesday, December 9, 2014
High schools need to increase their computer science offerings and we’re eager to support. Starting today, applications are now being accepted for the 2015 Google Computer Science for High School Awards. Universities who meet our
eligibility criteria
can apply for an award of up to $15,000.
Apply
before midnight (GMT), February 20th, 2015.
High school computer science courses face challenges throughout Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Many teachers can have limited access to training and curriculum resources, struggle to keep up with fast changing technology or have difficulty demonstrating that computer science can be a rewarding and “cool” career choice.
Google’s Computer Science for High School Awards connects school teachers with university academics, who can provide them with the training and tools. Since its pilot in 2009, the program has sustained computer science teacher professional development and helped inspire a new generation of computer scientists who will build the apps and programs of the future.
To date, our program has trained more than 12,263 teachers, reaching an estimated 613,150 students in more than 230 locations worldwide. In 2014, we supported
26 university-led education projects
in 20 countries - with projects ranging from SCRATCH and Raspberry Pi teacher workshops in Europe to android and robotics programming workshops for female students in the Middle-East.
We have resources for teachers to get ongoing, year-round help. Our
Google+ Community
page hosts Hangouts on Air with Computer Science industry leaders, Googlers, and top educators on a regular basis and we have a
resources page
with online workshops, tutorials and information on computational thinking, robotics and more.
This year we've added a new computer science
custom search
for additional materials (such as lesson plans, tutorials, activities, and videos) to support classroom activity, after school programs, or for home enrichment. Our ultimate goal is ambitious — to “train the trainer,” develop a thriving community of high school Computer Science teachers, and above all, engage pre-university students about the awe and beauty of computing.
Posted by Michelle Finnegan, Program Manager
Bringing a fresh digital vision from “New Europe” to Brussels
Monday, December 8, 2014
While Old Europe ponders its approach to the digital future, New Europe is rushing ahead to embrace the web as a motor for growth and prosperity. This past autumn, together with Financial Times, International Visegrad Fund and Res Publica, we announced the
New Europe 100 list
of innovators from Central and Eastern Europe.This past week, many of
these entrepreneurs came to Brussels
to present their ideas to the European Parliament
The event featured real-life success stories :
The European Parliament New Europe 100 event
Kamila Sidor
, CEO, Geek Girl Carrots from Poland who runs a successful social innovation movement to encourage more women into ICT careers.
Michaela Jacova
, Investment Manager, Neulogy VC from Slovakia, who supports aspiring talented entrepreneurs by awarding grants and matching with VC investors.
Paul-Andre Baran
, Director, Biblionet from Romania, who helps provides free access to computers and the internet through public libraries.
Marcin Beme
, CEO, Audioteka.pl from Poland, who founded a successful mobile platform offering digital audiobooks in Poland, Czech Republic, Hunagry , Spain, FInland, Sweden, Russia, Germany, France and Romania.
Gergana Passy
, Digital Champion of Bulgaria, who advocates for a free access to the internet, e-skills and digital transformation across the society.
MEP Boni and Google's Vint Cerf
MEP
Michal Boni
, former minister for digitization in Poland, hosted the debate, which featured a keynote address from Vint Cerf, Google’s Chief Internet Evangelist. Policymakers from around New Europe attended, including MEP
Janusz Lewandowski
, former Polish EU Commissioner; MEP
Antanas Guoga
from Lithuania, and Prof.
Ziga Turk
of University of Ljubljana and Former Minister for Growth in Slovenia.
All listened to the entrepreneurs offering important lessons on technology-driven innovation. Apart from sharing personal passion for ICT-driven innovation, the New Europe called on the politicians to create a positive environment for innovation. Their proposed ingredients include accepting business failures, attracting more women in ICT careers, increasing access to the Internet across the society, and simplifying rules for trading across the borders. Together, these measures represent a positive recipe for creating a true European digital single market.
Posted by Sylwia Giepmans-Stepien Public Policy and Government Relations Senior Analyst, Brussels
Coding for democracy in Europe
Friday, December 5, 2014
It was an audacious task - write software that would increase democratic participation in Europe. At a time when polls show increasing public disenchantment with traditional European Union institutions, the latest and 4th edition of the
EUhackathon
focused on getting European citizens more involved in the EU policymaking progress.
A total of 41 coders from all over Europe participated this week in Brussels. In addition to Google, Facebook, ICANN and Netflix sponsored the event.
Andrus Ansip,
European Commission Vice-President for the Digital Single Market, and
Alexander De Croo
, Belgian Vice-Prime Minister and Minister for the Digital Agenda, visited the coders at the Google Brussels office. Google Vice President and Internet evangelist (and “father” of the Internet) Vint Cerf, offered additional encouragement.
Belgian Minister Alexander De Croo and European Commissioner Andrus Ansip
Vint Cerf with Commissioner Ansip
After 30 hours of intense coding with only a single four-hour break, the jury heard presentations of the projects. The prize giving ceremony took place at the European Parliament – MEPs Julia Reda, Andrey Novakov, Brando Benifei, Eva Paunova and Marietje Schaake announced the winners:
First Prize: Team Videodock (the Netherlands), created a cool search for finding videos of parliamentary debates.
Second Prize: Team Commission Today (Romania/Germany/USA), created a transparency register of the meetings of the EU Commission.
Third Prize: Team Frontwise (the Netherlands),developed a tool to make easier to access to EU public consultations.
The winning Dutch team receives their prize
Posted by Marco Pancini, Senior Policy Counsel, Brussels
Bringing a key moment of Gulf history online
Wednesday, December 3, 2014
Our Paris-based
Cultural Institute
holds a global mandate to promoting culture around the globe. This week, it is reaching out to the Arab world, bringing online the United Arab Emirates national archives - our first Arab archives, and only third globally, after those of the
United States
and the
Netherlands
.
The exhibit highlights historic moments leading up to the formation of the Emirates in 1971. In three short decades, the Emirates have transformed themselves into global hubs for transport and commerce. Among the items on display range from the first flag-hoisting after the Emirates's establishment - to duplicates of the first national set of
stamps
.
We are keen to showcase more of the history of the Middle East, home to some of the most ancient cultures and civilizations. The Cultural Institute works with partners to make cultural content accessible online and preserve it for the future, whether it’s galleries like the British Museum to heritage sites like Versailles, or historical moments like
Nelson Mandela’s handwritten prison letters
and the
fall of the Berlin Wall
.
Posted by Sam Blatteis, Government Relations and Public Policy Lead, Gulf Countries
Dutch windmills to power Google’s Eemshaven data centre
Tuesday, November 18, 2014
The Netherlands is famous for its
windmills
, which over the years have been used to saw wood, mill corn, pump water and much more. Now, a new generation of Dutch windmill - wind turbines - will power a very 21st century facility: our
new EUR 600m data centre
, currently under construction in the north of the Netherlands.
Thanks to a new long-term agreement signed this week with Dutch power company Eneco, our Eemshaven datacenter will be 100% powered by renewable energy from its first day of operation, scheduled for the first half of 2016. We’ve agreed to buy the entire output of a new Eneco windfarm -- currently under construction at Delfzijl, near Eemshaven -- for the next ten years.
By entering into long-term agreements like this one with wind farm developers, we’ve been able to increase the amount of renewable energy we consume while helping enable the construction of new renewable energy facilities.
This is the third such power purchase agreement (PPA) we’ve signed in Europe in the last 18 months - the other two were with wind farm developers in Sweden and will power our Hamina, Finland datacenter with renewable energy.
Eneco’s new windfarm is an onshore-offshore development, which will use 19 turbines to generate 62 MW of renewable energy. Eneco expects the construction of the windfarm to provide employment for 80 people over the next 18 months.
This marks our eighth long-term agreement to purchase renewable energy around the globe. We sign these contracts for a few reasons: they make great financial sense for us by guaranteeing a long term source of clean energy for our data center and they also increase the amount of renewable energy available in the grid, which is great for the environment.
Posted by Francois Sterin, Director, Global Infrastructure Team
Throwing off the shackles of communism
Friday, November 14, 2014
A quarter century ago, the people of Central Europe liberated themselves, bringing down the Iron Curtain, choosing capitalism over communism, and democracy over dictatorship. This week, at an event in Prague, we unveiled ten online Google Cultural Institute exhibitions recounting the amazing and thrilling events from Poland in the north to Hungary in the south.
Communism represented an artificial transplant in Central Europe. Throughout history, the region enjoyed strong religious, economic and political ties with the West. The
Museum Masaryk T.G. Lany
brings its readers back to the founding ideas of democracy and freedom on which the Czechoslovak Republic was built through the legacy of the first Czechoslovak president.
All through the 1980s, pressure for change mounted. An independent free trade union called Solidarity swept through Poland at the beginning of the decade. Even though the government declared martial law to crush it, the light of freedom would only be dimmed temporarily. Dissidents appeared. Priests protested. Musicians revolted. The Czech Republic’s
Vaclav Havel Library’s exhibition of black and white photographs
captures not only the period of mass demonstrations in 1989 and the subsequent revolution, but also the visits and performances of cultural icons such as
Frank Zappa
and the US alternative troupe
The Bread and Puppet Theater
. For the citizens of Czechoslovakia, these first tastes of the Western world represented “the first free steps of a society.”
Starting in the spring of 1989, East Germans began fleeing to other Soviet bloc countries. The Hungarian government opened its border with Austria in May and the rush to escape was on. The Vaclav Havel Library exhibit captures the
wave of citizens of the German Democratic Republic
in September who inundated the surroundings of the embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in Prague, waiting in anticipation for longed permission to travel to the West.
In June, the Polish government legalized Solidarity and held partially free elections. Solidarity won a landslide and formed the Soviet bloc’s first non-communist led government. The
Polish History Museum
has created an exhibit called "Tearing the Iron Curtain apart.” It includes a photo of the symbolic meeting between Poland's first non-communist Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki and the German Federal Chancellor Helmut Kohl. Another exhibition from the Julian Antonisz Foundation shows experimental art from the communist era.
In November, the Berlin Wall crumbled and millions of Czechs crowded the streets.
The Muzeum umění Olomouc
has prepared a selection of images from photographer Petr Zatloukal, showing a behind-the-scenes look at the November events. The
Muzeum policie České republiky
showcases photographs of the uniforms of the riot police on 17th November 1989, as they watched, powerless, while millions of Czechs marched for their freedom. Dissident playwright Vaclav Havel emerged from prison to become president. The photographs from the Nadace Dagmar a Václava Havlových VIZE 97 exhibit maps Havel’s extraordinary journey from 1989 to 2011.
Slovakia also won its freedom and soon broke away from Prague to achieve full independence. Its
the Museum of Crimes and Victims of Communism
illustrates the path to freedom through photographs of unknown heroes who participated in country's Candle Demonstration.
The sweep of the events accelerated and the shackles of communism were gone by the end of 1989, not only throughout Central Europe, but also in the Balkan countries of Romania and Bulgaria. The Balts, within the Soviet Union itself, soon would form a human chain hundreds of miles long and win back their freedom. In Hungary, the
Open Society Archives
, is bringing online one of the world's largest archives from the Cold War, including propaganda films and surveillance documents, samizdat and opposition activist videos, publications and posters.
Take time to browse and learn. We believe putting historical material on the Internet and organizing it in a way that allows visitors to read and understand what it felt like to be in the midst of events not only gives more people access to important material but also preserves these perspectives for future generations. Today, memories of the Cold War may be fading and it is our duty to keep them alive as a reminder of the tremendous achievements of the courageous people of Central Europe.
Poste
Posted by William Echikson, Head of Free Expression, Europe
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