Here in the U.S. I often take for granted the ability to immediately find information on if I might have a cold versus the flu or what vaccinations are recommended prior to traveling abroad. Like a lot of Americans, I often consult health information on the Internet in addition to talking with a medical professional. This information makes me more informed about my own health and more confident in making healthy decisions.

In most parts of the world, however, quality information that would help people improve their health is not available online in local languages. In fact, a 2004 Lancet article (.pdf) described the lack of access to health information as a “major barrier to knowledge-based healthcare in developing countries.” The authors noted that “among currently available technologies, only the Internet has the potential to deliver universal access to up-to-date healthcare information.”

To tackle this issue, we're introducing a new initiative called Health Speaks which aims to help increase the amount of high-quality online health information in local languages. Today we are beginning pilot projects to support community-based, crowd-sourced translation of health information from English into Arabic, Hindi and Swahili.
We encourage anyone with health knowledge who is bilingual in English and either Arabic, Hindi or Swahili to take part in the pilot projects for Health Speaks. We have chosen hundreds of good quality English language health articles from Wikipedia that we hope will be translated with the assistance of Google Translator Toolkit, made locally relevant, reviewed and then published to the corresponding local language Wikipedia site. To further show our commitment to this cause, we have funded the professional translation of a small subset of these articles.

We are additionally providing a donation incentive to encourage community translators to participate. For the first 60 days, we will donate 3 cents (US) for each English word translated to the Children's Cancer Hospital Egypt 57357, the Public Health Foundation of India and the African Medical and Research Foundation (AMREF) for the pilots in Arabic, Hindi and Swahili, respectively, up to $50,000 each. This means that community translators will help their friends and neighbors access quality health information in a local language, while also supporting a local non-profit organization working in health or health education.

We will undoubtedly learn from these three pilots and iterate on our approach as we learn how best to engage volunteers and provide tools that allow for easy and accurate translation. We hope to one day expand the Health Speaks initiative to include high-quality health content from other publishers and other languages that suffer from a lack of health information online.

According to UNESCO, 90% of the content on the Internet exists in only 12 languages. Language should not be the barrier that denies millions of people worldwide the opportunity to improve their health with valuable health information. Please join us in the effort to break down part of that barrier.

Update on 10/15 @ 10AM: We are excited to extend the donation incentive period for all three pilots to December 15, 2010. However, registration for new participants will close, as planned, on October 31, 2010.

We are honored by the response we have received so far. At our events in Egypt, India, Kenya and Tanzania we heard from so many people about the effect quality health information can have in their communities. We’ve also received a great deal of feedback on the pilot and, as expected, will iterate on how best to crowd-source the translation of the health information. In the meantime, we’ve decided to extend the donation incentive period because we know many community members have begun translating articles, but have not had enough time to complete and publish them. We hope the additional time will allow community members to complete the great work they have started so their communities can benefit.

Posted by Jennifer Haroon, Manager, Health Initiatives, Google.org

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Google PowerMeter now offers personalized energy savings recommendations to help you save more energy and show off your savings. You can find it under “Take action” in your Google PowerMeter page.

Over time, the feature will provide even more useful tips. As your energy consumption behavior changes, you will receive new recommendations to help you save even more.

In addition to receiving customized energy saving recommendations, you’ll earn a special badge when you complete a recommendation. Collecting badges is a fun way of keeping track of your accomplishments to reduce energy waste and save money. And you might even strike up some friendly competition among family and friends to see who can collect the most badges the fastest!

We’ve also made it easier to see how much energy you’re using with a new display feature on the Google PowerMeter chart. Now, when you move your cursor over the chart, you’ll see a pop-up that shows the amount of power used at that moment in time.

Stay tuned as we continue to develop new features for Google PowerMeter.

Posted by Ryan Falor, Product Manager, Google PowerMeter

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Today we celebrate World Humanitarian Day for just the second time, by honoring all those who participate in humanitarian work globally. August 19th marks the anniversary of the 2003 bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad, in which Sergio Vieira de Mello, the UN’s Special Representative in Iraq, and 21 of his colleagues were killed while working on one of the world’s biggest challenges.

Humanitarians often work in some of the least secure corners of the world. They face war, famine, disease and natural disasters. On this day, we’re honored to highlight all the work being done by our partners, and all organizations and individuals, who work to help global challenges. And we are reminded of how important it is to respond directly to the current flooding in Pakistan and the many humanitarian crises that continue today.



There are also many ways to have an impact on humanitarian crises from afar. In the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Rig explosion, for example, the Defenders of Wildlife (and latest Google Earth Hero) built the Gulf Oil Spill Recovery map to track restoration efforts from citizens, nonprofits and government agencies.

Humanitarian workers are deeply involved in solutions to the global challenges being addressed by the Millennium Development Goals. Recently the UN Secretary General issued a request for citizens around the world to become “Citizen Ambassadors,” giving people the opportunity to provide direct feedback to global leaders. Learn more about how you can participate:



Thanks again to all the organizations and individuals who help others.

Posted by Meryl Stone, Google.org and Google for Nonprofits

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(Cross-posted from The Official Google Blog)

Pakistan has been struck by the worst flooding in its recorded history. The latest estimate of the number of people affected by the flood exceeds 14 million—more than the combined total of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the 2005 Kashmir earthquake and the 2010 Haiti earthquake. Critical infrastructure has been damaged over the last two weeks and clean water is in short supply. As monsoons approach, flooding is expected to worsen.

Our Crisis Response team has been working to use existing tools and build new ones to help the relief efforts. We just launched a page in Urdu and English where you can find information, resources and donation opportunities to help the victims of the floods. We’re also donating $250,000 to international and local NGOs to immediately aid in relief efforts. Although we’ve been able to provide satellite imagery for disasters in the past, cloud cover in Pakistan has prevented us from compiling useful imagery so far. We hope to share imagery as soon as possible.

We’ve already learned a lot about building useful tools from our previous efforts to help with disaster relief. Following the earthquake in Haiti, a small team of Googlers visited relief aid workers in Haiti to understand how we could further help. In observing and speaking with the relief aid workers, we learned that they needed up-to-date information about available resources (such as which field hospitals have X-ray machines or orthopedic surgeons), their location and contact information. Coordination between various health and relief facilities that spring up in a disaster zone can be challenging.

Based on what we learned in Haiti, we’ve been working to develop Resource Finder, a new tool to help disseminate updated information about which services various health facilities offer. It provides a map with editable records to help relief workers maintain up-to-date information on the services, doctors, equipment and beds available at neighboring health facilities so that they can efficiently arrange patient transfers. We normally wouldn’t release the tool so quickly, but decided to make an early release version of Resource Finder available for supporting relief efforts in Pakistan. This is the first time the tool is being launched during a disaster situation so we’ll be working closely with NGOs to understand its usefulness and will iterate accordingly.


We’ve also launched Person Finder in both Urdu and English for this disaster. This application allows individuals to check and post on the status of relatives or friends affected by a disaster. Fortunately, we’ve heard that missing persons has not been as concerning an issue as it was during the earthquakes in Haiti and Chile, but we’ll leave the application up regardless.

Responding to a disaster of this scale is a daunting task, but we can all do something to help. We will try to do our part and continue working with the many incredible NGOs to develop tools that help them work more effectively.

Posted by Ka-Ping Yee, Software Engineer, Google.org

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I’ve learned a lot as an intern with Google.org’s health efforts the last few months. Just this week I learned about a new collaboration between Google.org grantee HealthMap - the same group mentioned in our previous post Swine flu near you? - and the Dengue Branch of the US Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC). They’ve created DengueMap to show recent reports of dengue around the world and regions where people are at risk to catch it. The reports on DengueMap are updated multiple times a day, keeping you up-to-date on where dengue is.


One week ago, I barely knew a thing about dengue. It turns out 2.5 billion people around the world are at risk of contracting dengue, and 50 to 100 million people get sick from it every year. Dengue is present in more than 100 countries, and dengue is on the rise in many parts of the world. This even includes the US. According to the CDC, there have been 28 cases where people caught dengue in Florida since 2009. While this doesn’t sound like a lot of cases, it’s somewhat alarming given that there were only a handful of cases ever recorded before 2009.

Dengue thrives in both cities and rural areas of the tropics and subtropics and is caused by a virus that is transmitted by mosquitoes. The symptoms are similar to a severe flu, and can be quite painful. There is no cure and no vaccine. Fortunately, dengue rarely causes death, though severe complications, like dengue hemorrhagic fever, can be lethal.

The bottom line? Be smart about protecting yourself from dengue. Know the areas where dengue is present (DengueMap is helpful for this) and wear bug spray.

For more info on dengue visit the CDC Dengue Branch page.

Posted by Rachael Holmes, Google.org intern

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We believe in taking responsibility for our carbon emissions and promoting sustainable environmental solutions. Today, we hosted an event with the Silicon Valley Leadership Group: Electric Bills & Oil Spills: Will California Continue to be a Clean Energy Leader? The discussion focused on AB32, California’s landmark legislation to reduce the state’s greenhouse gas emissions, and the future of the clean energy economy here in California and across the country.

California has led the nation in putting in place the right energy policies to foster growth in the clean energy economy. Google has been an early and strong supporter of AB32, legislation that creates jobs and spurs the development of clean energy technologies. In fact, last year, California's policies attracted 60 percent of all cleantech investment capital in North America -- $2.1 billion. From 1995 to 2008, California has seen a 45 percent increase in green businesses, and a 36 percent expansion in green jobs. That’s why we joined Californians for Clean Energy and Jobs, a coalition of businesses, NGOs, and labor organizations that support AB32.

Indeed, we believe our work in clean energy is good for business. We made the decision to become carbon neutral in 2007. We are minimizing our energy consumption with some of the most energy efficient data centers in the world, lowering our energy costs. And we are purchasing carbon offsets for the emissions we can’t eliminate. We also seek to power our facilities with renewable energy, like one of the largest corporate solar installations at our headquarters in Mountain View, CA. And we’re making investments in renewable energy, such as our $38.8 million investment in two North Dakota wind farms, and our recent agreement to purchase 114MW of wind energy over a 20 year period, spurring real growth in the sector by giving the developer financial certainty to develop new projects.

As a technology company, we’ve seen how the power of innovation can change the way we live our lives. Eric Schmidt said it best: “In Silicon Valley, it was the limitations of one technology or system that served as the drivers of change and led to the success of our industries here. AB32 provides a similar opportunity for new job creation in many sectors as business responds to the need for energy-efficient buildings, transportation and a growing portfolio of renewable energy resources.”

We’re committed to finding the right solutions to a clean energy future and we hope California’s policies continue to lead the way.

Posted by Bill Weihl, Green Energy Czar

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(Cross-posted from the LatLong blog)

According to the UN, the recent floods in Pakistan have affected over 4 million individuals - and the human toll continues to grow. Disease is an ever-increasing risk as relief agencies rush to the aid of those who have been hurt or displaced.

Google’s Crisis Response team has provided satellite imagery and KML layers to assist relief efforts in past disasters, including the Haiti earthquake and recent Gulf of Mexico oil spill. In Pakistan, however, the cloud cover over the impacted areas has inhibited our ability to make this valuable content available. The Crisis Response team is looking to collect and aggregate imagery and user generated KML, or other map data, with the goal of making this content more accessible to both crisis responders and the general public. We’re hoping you can help. You can submit links to KML and map data via the following form. We’ll contact you if we are able to publish your content.




View BKTEF Relief Activity in a larger map

Further, we’ve released a version of our Person Finder tool in Urdu. We realize many of the victims of this disaster lack any connectivity to the Internet, but remain hopeful that tools like this can assist the diaspora and general disaster community in collecting and dispersing information on the well-being of those impacted.



Your data might help relief efforts; we appreciate you sharing it with the world.

Posted by Steve Hakusa, Software Engineer, Google Crisis Response Team

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