When we launched our Geo Challenge Grants project last fall, we hoped our small grants program would provide nonprofits with the impetus and resources they need to take advantage of powerful online mapping tools like Google Earth and Google Maps. We were, without a doubt, not disappointed. In fact, we were overwhelmed by the hundreds of exciting and innovative geospatial applications that poured in from around the world, addressing diverse issues from renewable energy resources to education.

We are excited to announce that we have awarded grants to fourteen organizations with creative geo applications. These projects address important problems through creative and scalable geospatial applications. Grants are awarded either through the Google.org Fund at Tides Foundation or directly from Google.org.

Over the next six months to one year, these Geo Challenge Grant recipients will launch their projects and open-source all of the data, making both the projects and the data accessible to people all over the world. We hope these projects will inspire others to use geospatial platforms to address global problems:

Grantee	Project Name	Project Description	Amount
Academy for Educational Development	Data Visualization for Global Education	Using the Education Policy & Data Center's existing data system, AED will develop new visual tools for better communication of education patterns, inequality, and trends to policy makers and program developers	$21,600
Appalshop, Inc.	Wise Energy Forums	Mapping the renewable energy resources in Wise County Virginia to show the opportunity of a sustainable energy future locally	$5,000
Asha for Education	Interactive geospatial web-based portal for dissemination of information related to the education of underprivileged children in India	Developing an interactive geospatial web based portal for dissemination of information related to the education of underprivileged children in India	$6,000
CartONG	REDD Pilot – Elaboration and displaying of forest gains and losses in two target communities in Vietnam	Designing a pilot system for monitoring deforestation rates for Central Highlands of Vietnam. The project will carry out forest inventories and calculate carbon stocks using models	$25,000
e-Geopolis	e-Geopolis Data Dissemination Project: Urban Growth in Africa and India, 1950-2020	Enhancing the quality and quantity of urbanization data for communities of 10,000 people in India and Africa	$50,000
Esperanza del Barrio	Street Vendor Mobile Mapping	Developing a mapping application and website that will accept multi-user texts to map and update street vendor locations, integrating data into websites like Yelp and Urbanspoon, and providing information about access to healthy foods to the community	$21,600
Green Belt Movement	The Green Belt Movement Tree Planting Project Mapping in Kenya	Creating a web-based system to visualize and monitor the Green Belt Movement supported community tree nurseries and associated tree planting sites in Kenya	$50,000
International Snow Leopard Trust	Climate Change Impacts on Snow Leopard Range: Prioritizing Conservation Efforts to Mitigate Human-Wildlife Conflict	Displaying different climate change scenarios in regions of China where the snow leopard lives to prevent human-snow leopard conflict	$5,000
King's College London	Mapping the potential of global hydropower to sustain renewable energy demands, the risks imposed by climate change and strategies for adaptation through land cover management	Mapping the global distribution of dams, contributing watersheds and the role of protected areas and community reserves in providing water-based environmental services to these dams	$25,000
Marine Conservation Biology Institute	Renewable Energy at Sea: Best Places for Wind, Wave & Current Generation in US Waters	Creating a map of offshore wind, wave and current renewable resources as well as shipping lanes, marine sanctuaries, and aquaculture that will highlight the most favorable areas for development	$5,000
Point Reyes Bird Observatory	Biodiversity Futures: Mapping Biological Responses to Climate Change	Building a dynamic and user-driven online modeling application using existing avian, climate, vegetation, and land use change data to show deviation of avian migration based on climate change scenarios	$25,000
Royal University of Phnom Penh	Mapping Healthcare Centres in Cambodia	Mapping the health centers in the country's capital city (clinics, services, contact info, languages, etc) and using this as the foundation for a Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) emergency system	$5,000
Sri Lanka Wildlife Conservation Society	To develop a dynamic Geo Portal interfaced with Google Earth and climate change data to provide a “one stop shop” Internet database for Asian elephant conservation and to identify individual elephants through an automated identification program	Developing a dynamic Geo Portal with climate change data to provide a “one stop shop” Internet database for Asian elephant conservation and to identify individual elephants through an automated identification program	$15,000
UK Consortium on AIDS & International Development	Mapping availability of HIV, AIDS and TB services in Africa	Using the Ushahidi platform, it will map organizations providing HIV, AIDS and TB related services in Kenya and create a tool that enables organizations without experience of mapping to publish data on HIV, AIDS and TB services in their own countries	$40,800

Posted by Adam Borelli, Associate, Google.org

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Ever since college, I've been driving the same car: a 2000 Nissan XTerra. It's been a great car and, after more than 100,000 miles, it has a lot of memories: a ski trip to Lake Tahoe through a blizzard, driving down the I5 to Los Angeles, driving across the entire country and then back! However, over the last few years I started to feel guilty about the how much gas my car managed to guzzle. The official stats claimed 19 miles-per-gallon on the highway, but they must have been driving slower than I do because I never saw that sort of mileage. So, I was excited when the government approved the "Cash for Clunkers" program!

I talked it over with my wife, and we decided it was time to upgrade to a more environmentally friendly car. We looked around, and decided to get a Toyota Prius. After checking out the Cash for Clunkers website, I figured out that because the Prius is rated at 50 mpg, well more than 10 mpg more than the 16 mpg my XTerra currently rates, we were eligible for a $4,500 trade-in value through the program. That made the Prius not only a environmentally friendly choice, but an economically attractive one as well. We found a participating dealer nearby and headed over to trade in our clunker.

After a quick test drive and some effective negotiations, we struck a deal and bought the new car. As always, there was quite a bit of paperwork involved, including a few extra pages for the "Cash for Clunkers" program. (Then again, $4,500 is certainly worth a couple of pages of paperwork.) After signing on the dotted line, the car was ours.

Just today President Barack Obama signed a bill extending funding for this incredibly popular program, which burned through its $1 billion budget in just one week. It's not often you can get something you want, feel like you're doing something good for the planet, and get $4,500 for doing it. So consider trading in your clunker for a more fuel-efficient model this weekend!

Posted by Jeff Keltner, Business Development Manager

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In 2007 Google.org launched our Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal initiative and announced a $10 million investment in the early-stage clean power company eSolar, Inc. Yesterday in Southern California, eSolar flipped the switch on what is to be the first solar power tower facility in the U.S. that will enter full commercial operation.

Success here could signal the emergence of a clean energy technology by which we might -- for the first time -- economically harness the sun to produce large quantities of electricity. And we would be harnessing a massive and, for all practical purposes, inexhaustible energy supply.

In many respects eSolar has turned conventional thinking about solar power tower technology on its head in order to drastically reduce the capital and operating cost of solar thermal power plants. Instead of employing a small number of large and expensive specialty mirrors eSolar takes the opposite approach – incorporating thousands of small mirrors that can be made cheaply in massive quantities. And instead of having to reinforce large mirrors to stand up to high winds, eSolar’s small mirrors have a low profile, reducing material costs including steel and concrete for the mounting structures.

Of course this massive number of mirrors requires more sophisticated software so they accurately track the sun leading to high heat output and system efficiency. At Google we’re particularly intrigued with this aspect of the eSolar product -- that is, how the performance of energy technology can be enhanced by information technology. Call it ET meets IT.

The eSolar team has taken a giant step toward cracking the code on solar power tower technology. I’m hopeful that just a few years from now we will see this facility – and many more like it – focusing the sun’s energy to produce a brighter future for our children and the planet they will inherit.

Posted by Dan Reicher, Director of Climate Change & Energy Initaitives

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(Cross-posted from the Public Policy Blog)

It's no surprise that the cheapest and most available solution to the climate problem is simply to use energy more efficiently. But a recent study issued by McKinsey & Co. details just how compelling an opportunity we are missing. McKinsey predicts that an annual investment of roughly $50 billion over the next 10 years would cut energy demand by 23% and yield savings to the U.S. economy worth $1.2 trillion! The energy savings would be equal to taking the entire U.S. passenger fleet of cars and trucks off the road.

Such efficiency gains are possible only if we overcome some major hurdles. For instance, most people have no idea how much energy we use in our homes on a daily basis or which of our appliances or devices are consuming the most energy. That's one of the reasons that we created Google PowerMeter, a software gadget that shows users detailed information on their home electricity consumption. Studies show that when people have access to this kind information they reduce their energy use by up to 15%. Greater savings are possible if people use the information to buy a more efficient refrigerator or air conditioner, insulate their home, or take advantage of off-peak electricity rates.

The McKinsey report acknowledges that energy efficiency alone won't solve our energy and climate challenges. We must continue to put major resources into low-carbon sources of energy like renewable energy, and the federal economic stimulus, with its tens of billions of targeted dollars and incentives, is a good start. But the McKinsey findings are a wake up call. As we enact more comprehensive energy policies, energy efficiency -- and giving people the information, tools and incentives to take advantage of it -- should be front and center.



Posted by Michael Terrell, Program Manager, Google.org

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An international group of scientists, including Dr. Nathan Wolfe and the Global Viral Forecasting Initiative (GVFI), announced today their discovery of the origins of the deadliest form of human malaria - Plasmodium falciparim. The falciparim parasite is responsible for more than one million deaths each year. GVFI, a 2008 Google.org grantee, monitors the spread of disease from animals to humans by analyzing blood and tissue samples collected from high-risk humans (bushmeat hunters, live-market workers, and more) and the animals they are in contact with.

The finding, documented in today's edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), disproves the long-held belief that malaria is an ancient disease that has evolved along with its human hosts for over 5 million years. Instead, analysis of several new blood samples from chimpanzees in Cameroon and Côte d'Ivoire, has shown that human malaria began as a chimpanzee disease that jumped species (presumably when a human sustained a bite from a mosquito carrying chimpanzee malaria) as recently as 10,000 years ago.

Why do we care about the origins of the disease? Firstly, it demonstrates that interspecies disease transfer has been occurring for millennia, and is not a modern phenomenon confined to our more recent experience with HIV, SARS and swine flu. We must monitor this important mechanism of disease emergence if we want to catch the next pandemic, for the sake of our health and the health of generations to come. Secondly, the study has demonstrated that chimpanzees carry a greater diversity of close relatives to human malaria than previously understood. These could be the source of lifesaving new vaccines or treatments for human malaria.

Dibamba is a chimpanzee in the Mfou National Park in Cameroon. This individual and other chimpanzees in Cameroon and Ivory Coast were found infected with parasites that show that human malaria originated in chimpanzees.
(Photo by Matthew LeBreton, Global Viral Forecasting Initiative)

Posted by Joanne Stevens, Google.org

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