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A world that works for everyone: $20M in global funding from Google Impact Challenge Disabilities
Tuesday, April 12, 2016
Last spring we
kicked off our Google Impact Challenge: Disabilities
with an open call to global nonprofits building transformative technologies for the billion people around the world with disabilities. In the past year, we’ve been amazed by the innovative ideas submitted by over 1,000+ organisations spanning 88 countries. Throughout this work, the Google.org team has had the opportunity to meet some incredible people who are working hard to create a world that works for everyone.
Through this Impact Challenge, we committed $20 Million in Google.org grants. We’ve shared a
handful
of the organisations we’re supporting already—and today we’re excited to share the
full list of 30 winners
. From employment to education, communication to mobility, each of our grantees is pushing innovation for people with disabilities forward.
The organisations we’re supporting all have big ideas for how technology can help create new solutions and each of their ideas has the potential to scale. Each organisation has also committed to open sourcing their technology—which helps encourage and speed up innovation in a sector that has historically been siloe
d.
Meet some of our incredible grantees, from among the 12 EMEA winners, below. You can learn more about all 30 organisations working to improve mobility, communication, and independence for people living with disabilities at
g.co/disabilities
.
Motivation UK
For more than half of wheelchair users, postural support devices (PSDs) are necessary to ensure their health and safety, while also making it easier for them to get around. In developing countries, low-income individuals in need of a wheelchair often don't have access to PSDs, w
hich can severely impact their health and
lead to a less independent lifestyle. With a $866,813 grant from Google.org, British organisation Motivation is using 3D printing to test designs for customizable PSDs—sharing designs that perform well with other service providers through an an open database.
ProPortion
The
ProPortion
Foundation, based in The Netherlands, is working with a $1 million grant from Google.org to expand the development and distribution of Majicast, a
fully automated, easy-to-use device that produces high-quality prosthetic sockets in developing countries where access to prosthetics can be an enormous challenge.
Wheelmap
Despite efforts to rate the accessibility of the world’s public places, barriers in data collection have made it difficult to map, making planning even the simplest of outings a challenge for people with disabilities. With a $939,262 grant, Germany’s Wheelmap, a project of Sozialhelden, is developing the common standards and technology backend needed to bring this data together and make it available for use by the many apps and websites that help people with disabilities route, plan, and enjoy exploring the world.
Beit Issie Shapiro
&
TOM
The range of accessibility challenges people face around the world make it nearly impossible to build cost-effective, customized solutions for each one—meaning many go unaddressed. With $700,000 from Google.org, Israeli organisation Beit Issie Shapiro is partnering with TOM to empower a growing army of makers to help their communities. Their “Makeathon-in-a-box” is a template for community Makeathons that bring makers and people with disabilities together to prototype new solutions for “orphan” accessibility challenges.
SAFOD
In Sub-Saharan Africa, it’s estimated that 85-95% of people with disabilities who need assistive technology do not have access to it--largely because they don’t know of its existence. With a $717,728 grant from Google.org, the Southern Africa Federation of the Disabled (SAFOD) is working with with the University of Washington and AfriNEAD to establish AT-Info-Map, a system that will map the location and availability of assistive technology in Sub-Saharan Africa—providing critical information and increasing access to life-changing technology.
With a mission that is to make the world’s information accessible to everyone, accessibility is something we care deeply about at Google. The Google Impact Challenge: Disabilities set out to accelerate the use of technology to create meaningful change in the lives of the one billion people in the world with a disability. We’re eager to watch as all of the fund’s grantees, selected from over 1,000 submissions from around the world, build new solutions that will transform lives and make the world more accessible for all.
Posted by Brigitte Hoyer Gosselink, Google Impact Challenge Disabilities Project Lead for Google.org
When Bruegel met Google: immerse yourself in a masterpiece
Tuesday, March 15, 2016
Bruegel the Elder's vibrant, detailed paintings are instantly recognisable, and attract visitors to museums worldwide. But Bruegel fans have to travel, because the pictures can’t: his centuries-old oil paintings on wooden panels are fragile. Now, however, at the initiative of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts in Brussels, and together with eight major museums around the world, we’ve blended art, virtual reality and our newest technologies to create the
Bruegel / Unseen Masterpieces project
.
The project brings together a wealth of previously unexplored material online, an exhibition
in Brussels
, and fascinating new details for audiences worldwide to discover:
Since we started the Google Cultural Institute five years ago, Bruegel has been a star amongst the millions of artefacts available. The lively scenes of everything from rural life to the book of revelation contain many details invisible to the naked eye, which is why you see crowds leaning in towards his paintings in museums. We’re thrilled to be part of a international, collaborative effort with some of the world’s top museums, showing these artworks together, in unprecedented detail, for the first time.
Many of these works haven’t travelled for over 100 years. This collaboration was an opportunity to work with museums from Budapest to New York including galleries in Berlin, London and Copenhagen. Working with them to create ultra-high resolution gigapixel images of their Bruegel paintings has effectively created a new, online gallery dedicated to the Flemish master.
On top of that, when Bruegel died in 1569, he left countless playful, almost-hidden scenes in his works. Every composition depicts a whole host of characters - some familiar, others new - and narrative vignettes that provide a fascinating footnote to history. Think of them as masterpieces within a masterpiece. From today, you can explore them in just a few clicks, with a personal art historian guide by your side.
Expert curators from the participating museums have created
19 online exhibitions
exploring Bruegel's life and work, which are available to all on the Google Cultural Institute website. It's a new way to experience them -- through their computer or smartphone, users are transported to a Flemish wedding feast, a skating party, or a harvest festival five centuries ago.
Users can also be plunged into a 360-degree virtual reality universe. Google Cardboard is an affordable virtual reality viewer made of cardboard. For the project, we developed a virtual reality experience, where the Bruegel's Fall of the Rebel Angels comes to life and where viewers can step into the world of its creatures. It's also available on the YouTube channel and mobile application of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium.
Together with the Royal Museums of Fine Arts, this project is also an experiment to explore how modern technology can supercharge the museum experience. The virtual exhibitions can be viewed through special terminals, and the museum is also hosting the immersive Bruegel Box. With state of the art projectors,
gigapixel renderings
of three iconic Bruegel images, and support from energy company Engie, one room of the museum has been transformed. Spectators walk in to find themselves literally in the picture, shoulder-to-shoulder with villagers, preachers and mystical creatures.
The cutting-edge technology we've used in the Bruegel / Unseen Masterpieces / project means our partner museums can share the Flemish master's paintings worldwide. While there's no substitute for seeing the original, with works as old and fragile as these, moving them is not an option. Digital technology offers new solutions to tackle this. It preserves this irreplaceable heritage, provides a new way of seeing the works and give everyone access to culture. The works in the Bruegel Box are physically on display in Brussels, Berlin and Budapest: we're proud to be a part of showing them in one place, in a new way. We’re absolutely delighted that they’re also online, available to view everywhere, at any time -- and we hope you'll enjoy them too.
You can explore all this and more on your mobile and can download the Google Art app for your daily dose of culture - on
iOS
and
Android
.
Posted by: Pierre Caessa, program manager at Google Cultural Institute
Awarding the world’s best data journalism
Thursday, March 10, 2016
For the fifth consecutive year, as a part of our commitment to
supporting innovative journalism
both in Europe and around the world, Google is proud to support the 2016
Data Journalism Awards
.
The
deadline is fast approaching
for the only global awards recognising work that brings together data, visualisation and storytelling to produce some of the most innovative journalism out in the world today.
Past winners of the €1,000 prizes include the New York Times, ProPublica, The Guardian and Argentina’s La Nación. 2016 hopefuls don’t have long: the deadline for the 2016 Awards is
April 10, 2016 at midnight GMT.
Aimed at newsrooms and journalists in organisations of all sizes — big and small — the #DJA2016 awards will recognise the best work in
12 categories
, including:
Data visualisation of the year
Investigation of the year
News data app of the year
Data journalism website of the year
Best individual portfolio
Best use of data in a breaking news story
Open data award
General excellence (jurors’ choice and public choice).
The competition is organised by the
Global Editors Network
: a cross-platform community of editors-in-chief and media innovators committed to high-quality journalism, with the support of Google and the Knight Foundation. For Google, the Data Journalism Awards offer another way for foster innovation through partnership with the news industry, in addition to our efforts through the
Digital News Initiative
and the work of the
Google News Lab
teams around the world.
Data journalists, editors and publishers are encouraged to submit their work for consideration by joining the GEN community via
this form
by
10 April at midnight GMT.
A
jury of peers
from the publishing community, including new jury members Wolfgang Blau from Condé Nast International and Kenneth Cukier from The Economist, will choose the winners, which will be announced during a gala dinner at the Global Editors Network Summit in Vienna on June 16.
We wish you all the best of luck!
Posted by Simon Rogers, Data Editor, News Lab at Google and Director of the Data Journalism Awards
Adapting our approach to the European right to be forgotten
Friday, March 4, 2016
In the last few weeks, it has been
widely reported
that we will adapt our approach to delisting search results under the “right to be forgotten” in Europe, in response to discussions with regulators. We’ll be implementing the change next week.
The right to be forgotten — or, more accurately, the “right to delist” — was
established
by the Court of Justice of the European Union in 2014. It allows Europeans to ask search engines to delist certain links from the set of search results generated by a search query for their name.
At the moment, if someone submits a URL for delisting via our
webform
and we determine that their request meets the criteria set by the Court (the information to be delisted must be
inadequate, irrelevant, no longer relevant or excessive, and not in the public interest
), then we will delist the URL from the search results generated in response to a search for their name. Our current practice is to delist from
all European versions of Google Search
(like google.de, google.fr, google.co.uk, etc) simultaneously.
Starting next week, in addition to our existing practice, we will also use geolocation signals (like IP addresses) to restrict access to the delisted URL
on all Google Search domains, including google.com, when accessed from the country of the person requesting the removal
. We’ll apply the change retrospectively, to all delistings that we have already done under the European Court ruling.
So for example, let’s say we delist a URL as a result of a request from John Smith in the United Kingdom. Users in the UK would not see the URL in search results for queries containing [john smith] when searching on any Google Search domain, including google.com. Users outside of the UK could see the URL in search results when they search for [john smith] on any non-European Google Search domain.
We’re changing our approach as a result of specific discussions that we’ve had with EU data protection regulators in recent months. We believe that this additional layer of delisting enables us to provide the enhanced protections that European regulators ask us for, while also upholding the rights of people in other countries to access lawfully published information.
Since May 2014, we’ve worked hard to find the right
balance
as we implement the European Court’s ruling. Despite occasional disagreements, we’ve maintained a collaborative dialogue with data protection authorities throughout. We’re committed to continuing to work in this way.
Posted by Peter Fleischer, Global Privacy Counsel
A Digital Strategy for the Grand Duchy: Getting Luxembourg Online
Friday, March 4, 2016
One normally doesn't think about small business when it comes to Luxembourg. Yet, SMEs in this country contribute with an overwhelming majority to the economy. Still
, despite digital growth in the region there are a host of smaller, home-grown companies which haven’t taken advantage of the opportunities offered online. Although 93% of the population uses the internet -- one of the highest rates in Europe -- just 7% of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) market their products online.
Over the past year, Google has partnered with local organizations all over Europe to create courses and train
more than one million people
, especially entrepreneurs, in digital skills. This week we showcased our latest project in Luxembourg at an event with Prime Minister Xavier Bettel. "The digital revolution is an opportunity if we seize it, and a catastrophe if we let it pass," he told an audience of business owners, IT professionals and civil servants. "We have to be present online -- if you're not, someone else will take that place."
Luxembourg's shoppers aren't shy about going online. As Thierry Geerts, Google's Country Director for Belgium and Luxembourg explained at the event, they frequently search for goods and services online. But, out of 100 search queries, only 13% of links led to companies in Luxembourg -- meaning 87% of those opportunities are going to businesses elsewhere. With e-commerce one of the few sectors consistently growing, that's something Luxembourg's SMEs simply can't afford.
Mr. Bettel and his colleagues understand that.
Digital Luxembourg
is a project launched by the government to provide training specially targeted for SMEs, and Luxembourg's Chamber of Commerce set up a training programme together with a number of banking associations known as House of Training. Google is proud to collaborate with House of Training on the
Digital Workshop
, offering a range of free courses which combine online and offline aspects of building and promoting a business in the digital age. Letzebuergisch entrepreneurs can up their game with seminars, including "Getting your business online," "International exporting" and "How to attract visitors to your website."
At the conference, entrepreneurs were inspired by local success stories. Flibco.lu will be familiar to many in Brussels -- they provide coach transport from major cities to out-of-town airports like Charleroi and Frankfurt-Hahn. The cheapest and easiest way to book them? Online. Guests also heard from Luxcaddy.lu, which sells local product and specialities, and Abitare.lu which delivers stylish furniture all over the Grand Duchy.
"We have to be prepared for the jobs of tomorrow, and give young people appropriate training," Mr. Bettel told delegates. When it comes to the business of online commerce, "we are standing on the platform, but we need to get on the train," he concluded. Hopefully, it will be full speed ahead for SMEs with Digital Luxembourg -- especially with free training courses for essential digital skills.
Posted by: Caroline Coesemans, public policy manager for Google Belgium & Luxembourg
Accessible technology: helping people to lead more independent lives
Thursday, March 3, 2016
This week at the European Parliament, together with the
European Disability Forum
and our host MEP Evelyne Gebhardt, we explored the many ways that technology can assist people with disabilities to live more independently. European nonprofit innovators from France, Germany, Austria and the UK presented their inspiring projects and wowed the audience.
At Google we believe technology can enable independence for people with disabilities. Launched in May of last year, the
Google Impact Challenge: Disabilities
is putting $20 million in
Google.org
grants behind nonprofits using emerging technologies to realize that potential, and we were proud to spotlight four of their projects in the EU capital. We hope their work will spark continued innovation for people with disabilities. Here are a few examples of the European projects that attended the event:
Nicolas Huchet, My Human Kit, Google.org Impact Challenge grantee
My Human Kit
, whose founder Nicolas Huchet from France lost his right hand in an accident at 18. Unhappy with the high cost of prosthetics, he decided to launch an online platform to connect people in need of prosthetics to low-cost, open-source 3D printed models.
U.K.’s
Wayfindr
, which is enabling people with visual impairments navigate urban transport systems, retail spaces, and other indoor environments using beacon technology. Research shows that 43% of people with visual impairments would like to leave their homes more often, but navigating independently is challenging, especially indoors.
BLITAB
, a joint project with the
Royal National Institute of Blind People
to develop a Braille display tablet that will enable people with visual impairments to access more content in real-time. It was founded by 3 Bulgarians living in Austria.
Wheelmap
, which started in Germany and is creating a global dataset of accessible locations for people with disabilities. The crowdsourced model allows people to score public and private locations like banks, hospitals and post offices on accessibility.
Attendees engaged in a lively debate that underscored the importance of both considering accessibility from the start of product design and understanding the diverse needs of users to ensure new technologies are meeting the right needs.
More than anything, said Rodolfo Cattani, General Secretary of the European Disability Forum, it’s important to remember that the notion of “a normal user” simply does not exist.
Posted by: Florian Maganza, EMEA lead at
Google.org
How big is Google’s growth engine?
Thursday, February 25, 2016
Over the last year, we’ve been
telling the stories
of our partners - the small businesses, creators and entrepreneurs who use Google products to help them to be more successful online. For them, Google is not just a search engine, but a growth engine that is powering their businesses.
They tell us our tools help them connect with new customers, connect with global audiences and build the next great products.
And while we’ve been focused on telling their stories, we asked Deloitte to calculate how big of an economic impact our tools have. They looked at four of our markets in Europe: Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom. It turns out that our technology and tools are helping all kinds of businesses make a substantial economic contribution to these countries by generating revenue and supporting jobs across the economy.
Deloitte’s studies looked at how businesses use our Search and advertising products to connect businesses with customers; how content creators leverage our tools to reach large audiences and monetise their content; how app developers use Android and the Play Store to connect to billions of consumers; and how our collaboration tools help to make Europeans more productive.
The full reports give a detailed analysis of the impact of these products. One of the most interesting findings was the return on investment for businesses using AdWords - our Search advertising tool. Deloitte found that businesses receive between €3-€8 in gross advertising profits for every €1 they invest.
“Today, every business is a digital business - because every customer is a digital customer,” said Matt Brittin, Google’s EMEA President. “And thanks to the digital revolution, every business can be a global business. We are proud of the role Google products play in helping businesses make the most of the digital opportunity.”
The study highlights how businesses use our tools to bring in new customers and expand to new markets - whether that is across town, across the country or across the EU and beyond. These are businesses like
ChipsAway
, a car body repair specialist based in Oxfordshire. They use Google AdWords to target their marketing to a 15-mile radius of their location and have seen a 15-20% increase in business since they launched the campaign.
Here are some of the key figures. The figures are reported as a range as the analyses use a range of inputs in its methodology.
Economic Impact of Search and AdWords
Jobs Supported by Search and AdWords
Economic Impact of Publisher Tool (AdSense)
Economic Impact of YouTube
Productivity Benefits
Germany
€7bn - €30bn
120,000 - 490,000
€480m - €560m
€30m - €80m
€65m - €151m
Italy
€2bn - €10bn
40,000 - 170,000
€207m - €214m
€30m - €40m
€64m - €123m
Spain
€2bn - €7bn
40,000 - 130,000
€105m - €300m
€10m - €30m
€43m - €103m
UK
€13.9bn - €34.7bn
210,000 - 530,000
€301m - €676m
€68m - €131m
€200m - €385m
We're proud that the Deloitte study confirms what we believed to be true: that our tools and services are bringing positive economic impact to all kinds of businesses and creators around Europe. Here
you can find the full reports for
Germany
,
Italy
,
Spain
and the
UK
.
Posted by Jon Steinberg, Public Policy Manager, EMEA
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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...
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An extinct world brought back to life with Google ...
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