Google.org extends its heartfelt congratulations to Irene Taylor Brodsky and Tom Grant on their first Oscar nomination in the category of Best Documentary (Short Film) for The Final Inch, a film produced with support from and in collaboration with Google.org. In speaking with Irene this morning, she said, "This is a great day as more people will see that polio hasn't yet been eradicated, and is still a disease affecting the world's poor. This is a story needing to be told, and now more people will see the film."

Indeed, this is a great day for polio eradication, and we salute Gates Foundation, Rotary International and the governments of the UK and Germany who yesterday announced $630M for polio eradication. Polio continues to afflict mostly children under age 3 in the poorest regions of just a few countries. We hope that our film, which will air nationally on HBO in the coming months, energizes the group of dedicated donors and health workers to bring this eradication campaign past the final inch.

Update on 2/19 @ 3pm: UNICEF issues press release about The Final Inch that effectively outlines the state of the eradication effort in India.

Posted by Gregory Miller, Managing Director, Google.org

Permalink | Links to this post |  

The Economist has just released a fascinating video showing Google.org grantee Pratham in action, conducting ASER (Annual Status of Education Report). The video colorfully illustrates a major issue in India's education system: even when they attend school, students aren't necessarily learning. So, rates of illiteracy are quite high. Watch the video here:




Posted by Katy Bacon, Google.org Team

Permalink | Links to this post |  

As you might expect from a company founded by two engineers and an infusion of start up cash, Google believes in the power of entrepreneurs and small businesses to drive innovation and spur job growth. So it wasn't surprising that when we considered areas to support with our philanthropic efforts, helping entrepreneurs in developing countries rose to the top. This past January we launched an initiative to Fuel the Growth of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs). SMEs in developed countries account for half of GDP and two-thirds of jobs, but they're largely absent in developing countries. We wanted to explore how we could help drive capital to these high-growth businesses. At the same time, we launched a parallel effort to increase access to vital information in poor countries. This effort, known as Inform and Empower, aims to help improve the quality of public services by organizing critical information and making it accessible to all (sound familiar?).

We still strongly believe that growing small businesses will help the poor, but one of Google's ten organizing principles is, "it's best to do one thing really, really well." As we evaluated our efforts this past year, it became clear that given Google.org's unique strengths - including the ability to tap Google engineers to build and link better pathways to information - we could have a greater impact on the lives of the poor by focusing our efforts on Inform and Empower. As a result, we're putting our SME initiative on the back burner. We'll continue to support the grants and investments that we've already committed under the initiative. We have observed and learned from many others addressing the challenges of financing SMEs -- many of whom are seeing significant strong results -- and we hope they continue with great success. At this time, however, we will not fund new efforts in the SME space.

Google remains committed to its philanthropic goal: using information and technology to take on some of the world's greatest challenges. We continue to draw upon resources of 1% equity, 1% profit, and employee time, as outlined by Larry Page and Sergey Brin in their 2004 letter to investors. We've had a strong year of giving since the launch of our initiatives. We know that the global financial crisis is disproportionately affecting the poor and plan to increase our overall giving in 2009.

Posted by Sonal Shah, Head of Global Development, Google.org

Permalink | Links to this post |  

In early 2008, Google.org announced its initiatives to the world and made clear how the company would leverage its people, money, and creativity to address some of the world’s most pressing and difficult problems. Among them were climate change/renewable energy, global poverty, and emerging threats.

In Africa, one of our initiatives is focused on leveraging the power of information (or the right to know) to increase transparency, accountability, and ultimately the delivery and quality of public services. "You can’t change what you can’t see" is one of our mantras, and our job is to shine light in dark places and help people decipher the black box of public service delivery. What is working? What is not? What options are available to people to plug holes in a leaky pipeline of service delivery?

Much of the initiative is about unlocking quasi-public information. One of my colleagues calls it DBHD (database hugging disorder). Why is so much “public” information not accessible (ie government budgets, service level indicators, population data) and sitting on servers in London, New York, and Geneva but not accessible to citizens, media, and even planners in Africa countries? This clearly needs to change.

What is less intuitive, however, is that there is so much information, knowledge, and wisdom within Africa that is not making its way to politicians, planners, and policy makers who make decisions about Africa. We often hear that teachers, nurses, and civil servants do not show-up for work across the continent and this is a primary contributor to the poor quality of public services. Do we bother asking why absenteeism is such a problem? Ask teachers, nurses, or administrators and they will tell you. For example, since Universal Primary Education (UPE) was adopted in many African countries more than a decade ago, classroom sizes have doubled if not tripled while teacher salaries, instructional materials, and training have hardly changed at all. Government dispensaries are rarely stocked with medications that people come to purchase so why bother staffing clinics?

Last month in rural Uganda, I saw an example of how information gathered from students is helping a local NGO address pupil absenteeism in a very targeted way. The primary school has created a student-led club that investigates why students are missing school and why they drop-out. After all, fellow students face similar challenges and know much about their peers. It turns out that most students dropping out are girls; early pregnancy and lack of finances to purchase school uniforms are leading causes of student absenteeism.

With this information in hand, the Kabarole Research Centre is working with student leaders to plant a community garden to raise money to buy uniforms for needy students, and both are working with community leaders and parents’ committees to raise the sensitive issue of early pregnancy amongst primary school students. Several young girls have returned to school after giving birth, and school administrators are more aware of what needs to happen to reduce student attrition.

And so it’s not just about delivering information to people so they can make better decisions. It’s also about listening to people to make sure donors, planners, and government officials make better decisions. Using student leaders to understand better why their peers are missing school may seem obvious, but such approaches are pretty rare in top-down systems. Better information is certainly not a panacea but it’s a necessary condition to make better decisions based on evidence rather than anecdote.

Check out my photos from the visit.

Posted by Aleem Walji, Head of Global Development Initiatives, Google.org

Permalink | Links to this post |  

There’s a great deal of talk about the high cost of oil and the billions of dollars that the US and other oil-importing nations spend each year to buy oil. As part of the Google.org Geo Challenge Grants Program, Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) has created a map of US oil imports by country since 1973. By clicking on the green light to play, you can see the countries supplying oil to the U.S. (either in terms of barrels or dollar value) and how our imports have changed over the last 35 years.The thicker the line in the map, the more oil produced or imported. While this map highlights data on United States oil imports, the picture is similar for every oil-importing country in the world.



The map highlights 5 eras of oil consumption, from the oil shocks of the 1970s to the price collapse in the 1980s to recent events including Hurricane Katrina and gas approaching $5 per gallon before retreating rapidly recently. (You can see these selections by clicking on the buttons below the map on the RMI website.) One interesting time period is from 1982 to 1985, when low prices caused oil imports from the Middle East to decline to very low levels.

The map also looks at potential oil from offshore drilling and exploration of the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). The screenshot below illustrates the impact of off-shore drilling. With the map zoomed or ‘drilled’ 3-5 levels down and centered near Alabama (and the map pushpin that represents offshore), check out the very thin line that shows the potential peak production of 220,000 barrels per day.The lines represent estimates of production in 20-30 years, and even with this very long timeline, the amount of oil that could be generated from offshore drilling is miniscule compared to our oil needs today.


Both Google and RMI are working hard to help create a future where we are not reliant on daily imports of millions of barrels of oil that pollute our atmosphere and risk our national security.

Today, along with the Brookings Institution, RMI is hosting “The Oil Solutions Initiative ” a summit to identify solutions to break America’s dependence on oil, with Google in attendance. In 2004, RMI’s Chief Scientist, Chairman and Co-founder Amory Lovins and a team of RMI collaborators drafted Winning the Oil Endgame (PDF of the book) - a roadmap for the United States to get completely off oil by 2050.

Google.org’s RechargeIT initiative is driving toward the commercialization of plug-in vehicles that can wean the US off gasoline. In our Clean Energy 2030 Plan we show that increasing conventional automobile mileage, deploying millions of plug-in hybrids and accelerating the turnover of the fleet would reduce oil consumption by 51% by 2030. That decrease would have an even larger effect on oil imports because we produce about one-third of our oil in the US. Google and RMI have worked together on a number of projects including RMI’s Smart Garage Charrette, a summit to identify the barriers and breakthroughs needed to electrify the U.S. auto fleet.

While oil prices have declined rapidly over the past five months, most people expect oil prices to remain high into the near future. When asked whether or not the drop in oil prices reduces the need to act, President-Elect Barack Obama responded that we go from “shock to trance” and as a result “never make any progress.”

If you are a non-profit with a great idea like this one, please consider applying for funding to develop your project. We are currently accepting applications for the December 22, 2008 deadline.

Posted by David Bercovich, Program Manager, Google.org

Permalink | Links to this post |  

Panchayats were Mahatma Gandhi’s original vision for a free India – an India made up of thousands of “little Republics” where people meet their needs through self-reliance. Today, panchayats are responsible for implementing development programs. They often create positive change at the grassroots level, but their success stories aren’t as well known as they should be. For example in Kerala, a panchayat that was committed to education made sure the entire village was completely literate. And in the Thar district of Rajasthan, a panchayat converted the area into a tourist destination, increasing the incomes of inhabitants.

Today we're launching the Google.org Gram Panchayat Puraskar (GGPP) to celebrate innovative panchayats and encourage more innovation in local governance throughout the country. We'll reward the top five panchayats in two states, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, with a cash prize of Rs.5 lakhs (approximately $10,000 USD) which they can use to do more good in their communities.

The prize will be awarded in one of six areas: education, health and nutrition, water supply, rural infrastructure, rural electrification, and resource mobilization. The winningpayanchat must include a wide variety of social and income groups, share information with villagers, respond to citizen feedback, and track the quality of programs.

We hope the contest helps gram panchayats celebrate successes, share ideas with one another, and improve the quality of public services in villages. Help us show these innovations to the world. The contest is open for applications through January 25, 2009. To enter, visit the contest website www.google.org/ggpp.html or pick-up an application at your district or blockpanchayat office in Karnataka or Andhra Pradesh.

And, check out what Mr. Mani Shankar Aiyar, the Union Minister of Panchayat Raj had to say about the competition:



Posted by Salimah Samji, Program Manager, Inform & Empower and Meryl Stone, Senior Associate, Inform & Empower

Permalink | Links to this post |  

A guest post from Pay Drechsel at the International Water Management Institute (IWMI):

As in many parts of the developing world, failure is the norm for urban sanitation services in Ghana. Of the approximately 60 wastewater and faecal sludge treatment plants that exist in the country, less than half have any functional capacity, and fewer than five are operating as designed. The absence of adequate sewage collection and treatment imparts an enormous public and environmental health burden in particular in Ghana’s urban areas where the risk of epidemics is highest given the large number of people in a confined area.

One of the pathways with highest risk of disease transmission is the widespread consumption of raw vegetables irrigated with surface water which is heavily polluted with excreta related pathogens. Over 200,000 people eat such dishes every day in the Accra fast food sector. While most local consumers might have a higher resistance to the diarrhea causing-rotavirus than Ghana’s average tourists, there is no resistance when it comes to cholera, as the current outbreak in Zimbabwe shows.

Most sanitation models are imported from the developed world and seldom fit the conditions and capacities in low-income countries – which explains the catastrophic statistics given above - and jeopardizes their purpose of safeguarding public health. Until this situation changes, it may make sense to challenge the traditional approach and outsource some sanitation-related public services from the financially constrained public sector to those who benefit from the waste stream, like farmers and vegetable sellers. The IWMI works with the World Health Organization and many local partners on various practical options to reduce the health risks on farms and in the street food sector where most dishes with raw vegetables are sold. Some of these findings are summarized in videos we’ve posted on YouTube.

With the support of Google.org and Canada's International Development Research Council, an international expert group brainstormed under the leadership of IWMI the about research needs to address the health risks in such situations where public sanitation services are constrained. The meeting concluded with the Accra Consensus and a renewed commitment to "rethink" sanitation. We hope you will share your thoughts on this challenge with us after viewing the videos and reading the Accra Consensus document.

Posted by Pay Drechsel, Theme Leader, Water, Health, and the Environment, IWMI West Africa Team

Permalink | Links to this post |  

Our Predict and Prevent initiative is delighted to announce support to a new regional disease surveillance network called the Southern African Centre for Infectious Disease Surveillance (SACIDS). SACIDS is the first regional network to embrace the concept of 'One Health' right from the start by linking 25 human and animal health institutions in Tanzania, Zambia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique and South Africa. Over time, it hopes to include other countries from the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

The SACIDS concept sprang from a Foresight study called 'Infectious Diseases: Preparing for the Future’ involving more than 400 scientists. SACIDS was developed through meetings with key stakeholders over a period of three years. Its mission is to harness innovation in science and technology in order to improve Southern Africa's capacity to detect, identify and monitor infectious diseases of humans, animals and plants. By sharing data, experience, training, and tools, the countries participating in SACIDS can raise the quality of disease surveillance for the entire region.

With rising international travel and trade, outbreaks can go global within hours. Once diseases are detected, responding quickly and across borders saves lives. "Too often, countries work in isolation, ignoring their neighbors, while diseases cross borders daily. We are thrilled that this effort will increase local cooperation and capacity," said Professor Mark Rweyemamu, the Executive Director of SACIDS. SACIDS will be physically headquartered at the Sokoine University of Agriculture, in Morogoro, Tanzania.

Google.org will support the establishment of the SACIDS network through an initial $500,000 grant to the Nuclear Threat Initiative's Global Health and Security Initiative (GHSI). GHSI's Director for Health Security and Epidemiology Dr. Louise Gresham said, "We look forward to applying our expertise in developing regional surveillance networks, a keystone in building capacity to combat emerging, neglected and endemic disease in Southern Africa.” GHSI will share extensive experience working with regional networks in the Middle East (the Middle East Consortium on Infectious Disease Surveillance) and Southeast Asia (the Mekong Basin Disease Surveillance network). In a second phase of the project, Google.org will make an additional contribution of $1,500,000 to African stakeholders working with SACIDS.

To learn more about SACIDS and our other partners in Predict and Prevent, download this updated Google Earth layer which highlights the details of their work.

Posted by Joanne Stevens, Associate, Predict and Prevent

Permalink | Links to this post |  

Google CEO Eric Schmidt spoke last Thursday at a Natural Resources Defense Council event held at Google offices in New York. The topic for the evening was "Partnership for the Earth: Strategies and Solutions for Energy Security." Eric spoke about Google's Clean Energy 2030 plan and the importance of rebuilding America's energy infrastructure.

The speech was followed by a panel discussion featuring Frances Beinecke, President of the Natural Resources Defense Council, Ralph Cavanaugh, co-director of NRDC's energy program, and Dan Reicher, Director of Climate Change and Energy Initiatives at Google.org.

You can check out the talk here:



Posted by Jamie Yood, Google.org Team

Permalink | Links to this post |  

(Cross-posted from the Official Google Africa Blog)

Having been in Africa for the past several months, I am beginning to see firsthand how access to information by regular citizens is starting to transform the continent. A single newspaper could be read by as many as 10 people, citizens are willing to rent-a-paper, and FM radio stations are exploding in communities where people are hungry for news, entertainment, and opportunities to make their voices heard.

It’s the last point that has really struck me. With mobile phone penetration growing everyday and airtime prices falling, people are communicating more than ever before, sending text messages and calling in to radio talk shows. They are expressing their views, sharing their opinions with each other, and communicating their delight or displeasure with government, business, and civil actors in more informed ways.

In East Africa in particular, people are bracing themselves for the broadband revolution. Within 12 months, initiatives like Seacom and EasyCom are likely to be active in the region and will connect people in completely new ways. What will happen when the super-highways open their gates? Will traffic flow in one direction or two? Will East Africans become net consumers or producers of information?

Last week, Kenya held its first “content” conference arranged by the national ICT Board. Public and private people had plenty to say about “local content” and why it mattered. What started as a technical discussion about connectivity quickly turned to issues of national pride, language, and fear that a globalized world could homogenize indigenous cultures. While Kenyans clearly yearn to be part of the global community and consume information far beyond their borders, they also want to be heard, recognized, and contribute to global conversations. They want their news, their music, their issues, and their voices to find a place in the online universe.

Today, Swahili books online for example, number in the hundreds compared to the hundreds of millions of books in English available online. What message does this send to young people about the relative importance of their knowledge, language, and culture? Fortunately, Google translation tools are beginning to address this challenge and launching search in Swahili is creating the right incentives to put more content online. But what else will it take to create symmetry between the number of people who speak a given language and content available to them?

The good news is that there is no paucity of African content in the offline world. Africa is home to some of the world’s richest musical traditions, oral histories, and physical heritage. The second piece of good news is that mobile phones are likely to be gateways to the internet in much of the continent. The challenge is how to migrate this wealth of content from the offline to the online world. If Africans are going to get online en masse, they need a reason to go there and they need to see themselves, their values, and their stories when looking through the online prism. With the availability of Google MapMaker in Africa, we’re already seeing that people are creating their own content and populating base maps with layers that are meaningful and useful to them. That is exciting. Whether its stories, pictures, or data on budgets and literacy rates, I hope we can give people a stake and a reason to get online and participate in the information society.

Posted by Aleem Walji, Head of Global Development Initiatives, Google.org

Permalink | Links to this post |