Google Data » Jamie Yood

Information resources for Egypt

Jamie Yood — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 05:15:00 +0000

We continue to follow the fast-changing events in Egypt, hopeful that compiling vital information in one place helps people on the ground and their anxious relatives and friends. We just posted the first version of a resource page in response to the need for information such as emergency hotlines, embassy phone numbers, and recent updates about the unrest in Egypt. We plan to translate the page into Arabic and will continue adding useful information.

As has been widely reported, Internet access is limited inside Egypt. We hope that the resources on this page will be valuable for those in touch with friends and family on the ground and others simply eager to find information. We believe that access to information is a fundamental global right. YouTube is helping people access and share footage from the demonstrations. We also teamed up with Twitter to turn on a speak-to-tweet service that helps people in Egypt stay connected at this challenging time.

Our thoughts remain with those in Egypt.

Posted by Essam El-Dardiry, Technical Program Manager, Middle East and North Africa and Ahmad Hamzawi, Head of Engineering, Middle East and Africa

Tech for good – catching up on Google.org

Jamie Yood — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 03:26:00 +0000

Google.org continues to ramp up technology projects and test new ideas while Google’s overall charitable giving, in-kind giving and employee volunteering have grown as well. Our newsletter outlines the latest updates to our philanthropic projects. I caught up with Megan Smith, VP New Business Development and General Manager of Google.org, to talk about how Google views philanthropy.

After two years at the helm of Google.org, what are you most optimistic about?
The Internet offers an opportunity to connect in ways never before possible. Things that have historically been far apart are now “virtually adjacent”—most people are a text away, data sets can be mashed up, and all world knowledge is coming online from both expected and surprising sources. Given all of this, I am most excited about all the extraordinary ways people are using the web to connect, be informed, use data and to start solving problems together.

For Google.org specifically, we want to contribute our knowledge and skills to help use technology to address humanity’s greatest challenges. We now have more than 50 engineers and about 40 other cross-functional Googlers working on four or five larger projects—like Google Crisis Response and RE—and over a dozen smaller experimental pilot projects.

What kind of project fits this opportunity?
One of our newer projects, Google Earth Engine, takes advantage of Google’s computing infrastructure to create a planetary sciences computation platform that could help reduce negative environmental impact at scale. The first focus is on deforestation monitoring. Earth Engine has just made it through the pilot phase to a full project with its launch last month at climate change talks in Mexico. If we meet our goals to enable global-scale monitoring of changes in the planet’s environment, I believe that Earth Engine could play an important information role in helping to slow deforestation.

What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned since joining Google.org?
Two things: first, the opportunity we have is great; and second, the work has served as a reminder that creating truly useful, innovative technology is challenging and requires patient iteration, dialog, teamwork and creativity. It takes time to gather new ideas, learn from the right partners, collaborate, pilot those ideas that pass initial assessment and then launch for scale the few projects that meet the criteria for a Google.org product.

Do Google.org projects have a specific focus?
We don’t have a topical focus—we work on technology solutions to many different kinds of global challenges. The key is to take advantage of Google’s strengths. In the area of global health, for example, we have been able to create a global flu monitoring system based on search data. For our environmental work, we were able to leverage our data center computing power to put together the finest-scale forest map of Mexico to date (processing this data would take two years on one computer, but we made it in less than 24 hours using our computing infrastructure).

How does Google.org start and ramp up its technology projects?
We work to tap into the talent at Google. Some projects have come out of hallway conversations and others from extensive talks with partners in the field. Formally, we have a bimonthly new initiatives meeting with senior engineers where talented individuals or teams within Google bring ideas or prototypes. If we think the idea is a match and has promise, we give it budget, headcount, guidance and time to see where it can go during a pilot period. Once we have a live pilot or project, we take advantage of Google.com’s standard project review and management processes that our company has effectively used for years.

What if those pilots fail?
That’s normal. We should expect that some of them will fail or will only have smaller impact. If you’re not failing some of the time, you’re not taking risks. As we progress, some of our failures will hopefully teach us as much as some of our successes.

What other charitable giving does Google do?
As a company that has been doing well, it’s important that we push ourselves to be amongst the most generous companies. We have several charitable giving programs supporting, for example, education (especially K-12 science and math programs), university research, communities where we work, and technology solutions for underserved groups. Last year the company gave more than $145 million to non-profits and academic institutions, and more than $184 million when including Google Grants, Google.org technology projects and in-kind product support for non-profits.

How is this philanthropic work different from that of other companies?
Like other companies, we have charitable giving programs, we provide products in-kind and we have a range of employee volunteering programs. Some companies like ours may also have experiments like Google.org to leverage their strengths—a form of skills-based giving. However, many companies do amazing charitable work through a centralized Corporate Social Responsibility arm that tackles a key issue or two. We approach philanthropy the way we do our core business, with big goals and a “launch early and iterate” approach. Ideas come from all over the company and we work to tackle a range of issues we care about, from clean energy to education to development. It may not be as clean as the process that some others have, but we think this is how we can have the most impact.

We remain determined, as our founders said when they set the vision for Google.org, "to find original ways to extend our assets, so that we can drive scalable, sustainable efforts. ...the underlying principle: Never stop looking for ways to do the best with what you have."

Posted by Urs Hölzle, Senior Vice President, Operations

Queensland Flood Emergency Information

Jamie Yood — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 16:26:00 +0000

(Cross-posted from The Official Google Australia Blog)

The flood emergency in Queensland continues to unfold.

We’ve been working over the last 24 hours to access the latest information from authorities about river levels and projected road closures due to flooding and to display the information on a Google Map. You can view the map here to see layers of information including which roads are projected to be closed or river levels in a particular area.

We hope this map is of some use to people who may be affected and that it takes the load off some other websites that are coping with lots of queries. We will let you know of any additional updates on this blog.

If your personal safety is impacted by floods, please visit the official sites:

Queensland Government Flood Information

ABC emergency website

To donate to the flood relief appeal visit the Premier’s Flood Relief Appeal site.

For eligible charities working directly on flood assistance, we have made available additional emergency funding through our Google Grants program. More information for charities not currently participating in the program is available here.

Our thoughts are with everyone affected by the floods, and we add our thanks to those from around the country for the work of emergency services personnel and SES volunteers.

Posted by Anthony Baxter and James McGill, Software Engineers
(on behalf of the team of willing Googlers who helped out on this)

Health Speaks pilots result in 266 new local language health articles

Jamie Yood — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 20:55:00 +0000

In September we announced Health Speaks, an initiative to make more quality health information available in local languages on the Internet. We began by launching three pilots for which people crowd-sourced translation of English Wikipedia health articles into Arabic, Hindi and Swahili.

After an inspiring 3.5 months, these pilots have come to a close. Health Speaks communities translated, reviewed and published 266 new health articles (177 in Arabic, 79 in Hindi and 10 in Swahili). My colleague, Dr. Joanne Stevens, and I met hundreds of enthusiastic volunteers, and heard powerful stories about the importance of local language health information. We’ve also learned invaluable lessons about providing tools that allow for community coordination and easy and accurate translation.

Our first Health Speaks pilots pledged a donation of 3 US cents per English word translated to three non-profit organizations working in health. As an extra thank you to the volunteers who were so generous with their time as we tested our approach for the first time, we are adding an additional $10,000 donation to each NGO. Their contribution has resulted in donations of $26,611, $16,815 and $10,580 to the Children's Cancer Hospital Egypt 57357 (Arabic), the Public Health Foundation of India (Hindi) and the African Medical and Research Foundation (Swahili) respectively.

Dr. Joanne Stevens and I lead a translation session in Tanzania.

While we iterate on our future approach for crowd-sourcing the translation of health content, there are still many ways to contribute to the goals of Health Speaks. We encourage anyone who is passionate about local language health information to consider one or more of the following:

Authoring a health article on Wikipedia or another platform
Creating a health information-based blog
Translating Wikipedia or other health articles into another language
Bringing offline local language health information online, through digitization programs such as Google Books

Lastly, we would like to give a special mention to the many Wikipedians who worked with us by training others and providing help with Wikipedia, as well as to our top contributors for each pilot.

We’re already seeing evidence of the impact of our volunteers’ hard work. For example, three reproductive health-related articles in Arabic have been viewed over 20,000 times. Articles from the Health Speaks pilots (including the professionally translated articles commissioned by Google.org) have been viewed over 145,000 times. We think it’s a great first step towards making important health information accessible online in all languages.

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

Learn about the human side of climate change with Kofi Annan

Jamie Yood — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 17:16:00 +0000

(Cross-posted with the Official Google Blog and the LatLong Blog)

Climate change is too often misunderstood to be simply an environmental issue, rather than a human issue. For our children and grandchildren, climate change is an issue of public health, economics, global security and social equity. This human side of climate change is explained in a new Google Earth tour narrated by former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan. Within these stories, you’ll find data and tools to explore this topic in more depth, and meet some of the people who are actively working on managing the risks of climate variability and change. We encourage you to take the tour to learn more about these human issues and the inspiring work of groups like the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) that are helping farmers cope with climate change. We hope this video will serve as a useful tool as educators help students around the world understand the complexity of this issue.

This is the latest in our series of climate change tours that we’re releasing leading up to the global U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP16) talks in Cancun, Mexico this week.

As part of the Google Earth for Educators Community, we’ve also created a special Climate Change Educators Resources page that teachers can use in their classrooms. Here, teachers can find the tools they need to create lesson plans about climate change, including all the individual Google Earth KML layers available for download. Teachers and students can overlay multiple data layers that help illustrate climate change, and discuss and analyze them as part of K-12 and higher education curriculum. We’re also looking for lessons plans for any school grade that use this narrated tour or these Google Earth KML layers, so if you’re a teacher or instructor, please submit your lesson plan for review now.

Visit google.com/landing/cop16/climatetours.html or the Climate Change Educators Resources page to learn more about climate change today.

Posted by Dr. Amy Luers, Google.org

Be Part of Improving Google Person Finder

Jamie Yood — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 22:42:00 +0000

Google Person Finder has become a useful tool in responding to natural disasters by reconnecting people with their family and friends. We’ve been looking at the next phase of Google Person Finder and decided to begin hosting the open source project at Google Code. We’re inviting the developer community to help improve Google Person Finder and the PFIF data format.

Google Person Finder provides a common place to search for, comment on, and connect records from many missing person registries. After the January 12th earthquake in Haiti, a team of Googlers worked with the U.S. Department of State to quickly create a site that helped people who were affected by the disaster. The site was used heavily after the Chile earthquake in February and put in action again in April after the Qinghai earthquake in China and in August for the Pakistan floods.

The software powering Google Person Finder is open source so we’re listing the open issues and feature requests we’ve received over the past few months in hopes the community can help us improve the code. We’ve created a Developer Guide to help developers get started. As always, we invite those interested to post questions on our public Person Finder discussion group. Those who are interested in improving the PFIF data format can also join the PFIF discussion group.

In addition to opening our product for developers, we’ve decided it’s now time to turn off our Google Person Finder instances for Haiti, Chile, China, and Pakistan. It doesn’t seem useful to be serving these missing person records on the Internet indefinitely, so we intend for each instance of Google Person Finder to be running for a limited time. Once an instance has served its purpose, we will archive the PFIF records in a secure location for historical preservation for one year while we work to identify a permanent owner for these records. Assuming a long-term owner cannot be found, we will delete the records after one calendar year. For more information, please feel free to review the Google Person Finder FAQ.

Posted by Prem Ramaswami, Product Manager, Crisis Response Team

Comparing Flu Around the World

Jamie Yood — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 17:16:00 +0000

Earlier this year, we asked a global group of public health officials and influenza experts how we can make Google Flu Trends better. Their most common request was for visualizations that enable easy comparison of flu levels across regions, so that differences in the trend of the season could be easily identified. We now publish the flu levels of all countries and regions on Google Public Data Explorer which provides this feature and much more. Also, as part of our annual model update for the Northern Hemisphere, we’re refreshing our models in 13 countries and adding new regional estimates for the Netherlands, Belgium, Canada, Switzerland, and Spain.

It’s important to note that the flu level is a normalized number indicating how unusually high or low our estimate of flu-related activity is in a place. Zero means business as usual. Eight means flu activity is unusually high for that country or region. So, you can’t use these visualizations to say there was more flu in one place than in another, but you can know whether the situation deviated more from normalcy in one location than in another.

Let’s look at some of the ways these new visualizations allow us to compare flu activity across the globe:

Has the flu season started in Western Europe? There was a bit of activity in Germany and Austria at the beginning of October. Otherwise, there is not much flu in that region as of this week.

Let’s look at the data on a map. On the chart below, each bubble has a size proportional to the flu level for November 9, 2008 (a minus sign indicates less flu activity than is usual). The flu season hasn’t started anywhere. Hit the “Play” button to see how the flu season develops first in the Northern hemisphere.

Check out how flu seasons alternate between the northern and southern hemispheres.

Click on "Explore data" in any one of the charts above to go to Public Data Explorer and start exploring!

Posted by Julia Kodysh, Software Engineer

Helping you find emergency information when you need it

Jamie Yood — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 08:16:00 +0000

We know that in times of crisis, it's especially important for you to find the crucial information you're looking for—and find it fast. Today, in 13 countries, we’ll begin displaying some combination of special search results for searches around poison control, suicide and common emergency numbers that point to emergency information.

This effort started last year when I received an email from a mother in the U.S. who had trouble finding the phone number for the poison control hotline after her daughter accidentally ingested something potentially poisonous (fortunately, her daughter was fine). As a result, people in the U.S. performing various searches including "poison control" began to see a special result displaying the national phone number for the American Association of Poison Control Centers last fall.

Example of the poison control result in Spain

Soon after we added poison control information to search results, we heard from Googlers whose lives had been affected by suicide and who thought that suicide prevention could be another case for a special search result. In April we began prominently displaying the number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at the top of the results page for certain search queries in the U.S. Since then, our friends at the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline have reported a 9 percent increase in legitimate calls to its hotline.

Example of the suicide prevention result in the UK

So, following positive feedback from consumers and our hotline partners, we decided to expand the poison control and suicide prevention special search results beyond the U.S. Each of these 13 countries will see one or more of these results: Australia, Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. We looked for hotlines that are available nationally and 24/7 and we hope to add additional countries in the future.

We're also introducing a new special search result for common emergencies, such as fire, medical and police emergencies. We want to make this information easier to find for residents as well as travelers, especially as some countries have different numbers for different emergencies.

Example of the emergency number result in France

An emergency is stressful enough. We hope this small step helps connect people with the information they need immediately.

Posted by Roni Zeiger, MD, Chief Health Strategist

Ideas for Haiti’s Internet

Jamie Yood — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 18:12:00 +0000

In the nearly ten months since the Haiti earthquake, Google has engaged with and learned a lot about the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. When we looked at our internal data a few months ago we were particularly saddened, although not entirely surprised, to find that the country’s Internet bandwidth -- a critical component of any modern economy -- was radically lower than that of its close neighbors.

At the request of the Clinton Foundation, and with some input from external experts like Inveneo, we recently came up with some ideas for improving access to the Internet in Haiti and wrote them up in this paper (.pdf). They include opening TV or other appropriate spectrum for use, as the FCC recently approved in the United States, and different possibilities for connecting to undersea cables that would help make easy, cheap broadband connectivity a reality for Haitians.

These are some ideas to start the discussion. Multilateral institutions, entrepreneurs from around the globe, and the Haitian government and its citizens can all play a role in helping the Internet grow there. We believe a stronger Internet means a stronger economy and democracy, and we hope this discussion will help Haiti succeed.

Posted by John Lyman, Program Manager, Google.org

West Virginia – Country Roads to Geothermal Power

Jamie Yood — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 21:54:00 +0000

Could clean, reliable, baseload geothermal energy be produced in the Pioneer State?

The SMU Geothermal Laboratory, led by Principal Investigator Dr. David Blackwell, has discovered unexpectedly high temperatures beneath West Virginia capable of supporting geothermal energy production. As a result, they have increased estimates of West Virginia's total heat content by 78% and geothermal generation potential by 75%. The discovery was made as part of SMU's project to update the Geothermal Map of North America supported by Google's RE initiative. The finding, first reported today in Science News, will be presented at the upcoming Geothermal Resources Council conference in Sacramento, CA.

The finding indicates that West Virginia potentially holds the highest grade geothermal resources east of the Mississippi River. SMU estimates that 2% of West Virginia's geothermal resources could support over 18,890 megawatts of electrical generating capacity using Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) and other advanced geothermal technologies such as Co-Produced Fluids and Low Temperature Hydrothermal.

The results can be seen in the updated Google Earth layer on U.S. Geothermal Resources:

BEFORE............................AFTER

How'd they do it?

The SMU team has been developing entirely new pictures of the earth's geothermal resources. They have started by aggregating thousands of new Bottom Hole Temperature (BHT) temperature readings from oil, gas, and water wells in previously under-sampled regions of the U.S. For example, The 2004 Geothermal Map of North America featured only four temperature points informing geothermal estimates for West Virginia, compared to 1,455 points in the updated version. In addition, the team has improved estimates of heat flow through the earth's crust with better regional lithologic data. The new results indicate the potential for temperatures as high as 200c (392 f) at depths of 5 kilometers (16,404 feet).

SMU's full U.S. project will be completed in early 2011 with a new map and national resource estimatess. With improvements in EGS technology, these resources can be harnessed to provide clean, reliable, baseload renewable power 24/7/365.

Our congratulations go out to the SMU team for their exiting discovery: Dr. David Blackwell, Maria Richards, Zachary Frone, and Joseph Batir.

For more information on Google.org's geothermal investments and research projects, please visit google.org/egs.

Posted by Charles Baron, Geothermal Program Lead, Google.org

Preparing for the 2010-2011 flu season with the flu vaccine finder

Jamie Yood — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 22:42:00 +0000

Last year’s flu season began with significant fanfare and concern. The H1N1 virus posed a new threat to public health and sent governments around the world scrambling to protect people’s well-being. We don’t yet know the severity of this flu season, but have learned in the past that many people come to Google to search for information about the flu.

In time for the upcoming flu season, Google is again collaborating with the U.S. Department for Health and Human Services (HHS), their flu.gov collaborators and the American Lung Association to release a feature which allows people to more easily find nearby locations for getting the flu vaccine. By searching for terms like [flu] or [flu shot], information will appear at the top of your search results, including tips from flu.gov as well as the flu vaccine finder box with an expanding map that displays locations where you can receive vaccine.

In addition to finding it in our search results, you can check out the flu vaccine finder at www.google.com/flushot. The same tool will also be available shortly on www.flu.gov and the American Lung Association websites.

This year’s flu vaccine protects against the three viruses that research suggests will be most common, including the H1N1 virus, so officials do not expect the need for multiple vaccines.

We continue to hope for a relatively uneventful flu season, but encourage you to prepare appropriately.

Update on 9/30: Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health & Human Services, just announced that the flu vaccine finder is now embedded on flu.gov, along with instructions for how others can embed it on their site.

Posted by Roni Zeiger, MD, Chief Health Strategist

Our Clinton Global Inititive commitment to Pakistan

Jamie Yood — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 15:27:00 +0000

(Cross-posted from The Official Google Blog)

At the opening ceremony of the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) this morning, President Clinton discussed the urgent need to help the people of Pakistan recover from widespread floods which have affected more people than the 2004 South Asia tsunami, the 2005 South Asia earthquake, and the Haiti earthquake combined. The floods have put one-fifth of the land underwater, impacting more than 20 million people, damaging or destroying 1.9 million homes, putting 3.5 million children at risk of waterborne diseases, and wiping out livestock and crops.

Unfortunately the global response has been anemic. While U.S. corporations, foundations and individuals responded admirably to the earthquake in Haiti by donating $900 million in the first five weeks after the disaster, that same group donated $25 million to Pakistan in the first five week weeks after the floods hit. In an interview with citizens hosted by YouTube, President Clinton called for a dramatically increased global response.

As part of our CGI commitment this year, Google is providing $1 million in charitable grants, as well as technology support to help the people of Pakistan recover from these floods. Roughly one-third of our grants support organizations providing clean water, shelter, medical care and other immediate needs, while two-thirds will be focused on longer-term rebuilding efforts. Partners for the first round of support include: A.S. Edhi International Foundation, Architecture for Humanity, CARE, The Citizens Foundation, Naya Jeevan for Kids, Real Medicine Foundation, SIUT North America, Sungi Development Foundation and UM Healthcare Trust.

Amazing work is already being done by these organizations. SIUT, for example, has already established seven medical relief camps and three field hospitals in different parts of the country. Their doctors and paramedics have treated more than 100,000 people, many of whom are suffering from gastroenteritis, malaria and skin diseases.

In remarks during the opening plenary today, Eric Schmidt noted the importance of bringing 21st century technology solutions to disaster relief work. In collaboration with numerous NGOs, for example, Google developed Person Finder, an application that allows individuals to check on the status of friends and loved ones affected by a disaster, a few days after the Haiti earthquake. We developed Resource Finder, an experimental tool that aggregates information on health facilities to help first responders, and shared our MapMaker data with the U.N. We’ve published sites linked from our homepage to provide updated maps and imagery, videos, news and ways to donate in the wake of recent natural disasters in Haiti, Chile, China, Pakistan and the Gulf oil spill.

We’re excited to be at CGI this week to learn about innovative ways to use technology to assist with health, development and disaster response. We encourage non-profits to visit our newly updated Google for NonProfits site to learn how Google’s free tools can help expand the impact of each organization.

Posted by Jacquelline Fuller, Advocacy Director, Google.org

Official data underestimate global water and sanitation crisis, showing need for improved monitoring

Jamie Yood — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 01:06:00 +0000

Official data on the number of people still lacking access to adequate water and sanitation services prove that the current situation is simply unacceptable: 884 million people lack adequate access to clean water and 2.6 billion lack access to proper sanitation, according to the WHO and UNICEF’s Joint Water Monitoring Program. Disease spreads rapidly with over one billion people forced to defecate outside due to a lack of sanitation and indoor plumbing; in fact, unsafe water and sanitation is the most important environmental cause of ill-health, with millions dying every year as a result of poor water, sanitation and hygiene conditions. Young children in particular tend to suffer from water-borne diseases such as diarrhoea.

Success in water supply and sanitation interventions is commonly measured in terms of the number of wells dug, public water points connected or public toilets constructed. This is what the official data - available at national scale only - reflect. The assumption is that every water point and every toilet will provide adequate and sustainable services to a fixed number of people. Too often, though, wells run dry, hand pumps break, toilets go “out-of-service,” or the quality of the water provided is not safe.

As a result the official data seriously underestimate the water and sanitation crisis. A realistic assessment requires continuous monitoring at local levels. Modern technology now makes that possible.

The H2.0 group of partners set out to demonstrate that community level monitoring of operational water and sanitation services is feasible at national scales. Google.org is one of the H2.0 partners. We have co-funded the effort and provided technical support. Yesterday the group launched the H2.0 platform at a World Water Week event in Stockholm. Over the past several years, the partners have collected detailed water and sanitation service data and developed a data management and mapping platform. This platform will enable users open access to analyse, visualise and interact with the data. We want to support government and development partners prioritize water investments and help NGOs and service providers assess their performance in a transparent manner.

Three components of the platform show Google tools in action.

The data show that the number of people with access to safe and affordable water is significantly lower than official estimates have previously shown:

For Kenya, the initial analysis of data collected by the Water Services Trust Fund shows, according to Han Seur of GTZ, that: “In over a thousand low income urban areas with a total population over 4.5 million less than 25% have access to safe and affordable water.”
For Tanzania WaterAid and partners mapped over 25 thousand rural public water points in 2006. Vincent Casey of WaterAid summarized their report as: “Water point data mapped by WaterAid Tanzania has demonstrated that nearly half (46%) of rural water points are not functional. A quarter of all new water points are no longer working just two years after installation.”
For Zanzibar, according to Graham Alabaster of UN-Habitat: “Counting only those who are paying less 10% of their income for water as having affordable access, the water access rate had to be revised from 90% down to 22%.”

Unfortunately this information implies that the water and sanitation crisis is affecting two to three times more people in the areas surveyed than the official data suggest.

Better data on water services can help consumers hold their water service provider accountable. H2.0 partner ITC developed the Human Sensor Web, a system that allows Zanzibar citizens to report water outages by SMS and receive alert messages on water quality and availability.

To understand the issue and invest in solutions that work, we need to stop measuring success as construction of taps and toilets, and start measuring success by monitoring the number of people with sustainable access to safe and affordable water and sanitation services.

Posted by Frank Rijsberman, Director Program, Google.org and Chair, H2.0 Consortium

Health Speaks begins pilots in Arabic, Hindi and Swahili

Jamie Yood — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 00:29:00 +0000

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

Honoring humanitarian work across the world

Jamie Yood — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 23:12:00 +0000

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

Where in the world is dengue?

Jamie Yood — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 17:09:00 +0000

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

Seeking map data in response to Pakistan floods

Jamie Yood — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 18:59:00 +0000

(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.

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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

Open Source Altruism

Jamie Yood — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 15:11:00 +0000

Down a remote alleyway in Dar es Salaam, Gregory Mchopa picks up his paint brush and studies the empty canvas. He closes his eyes and visualizes his next painting, whether that be a group of Maasai women collecting water from a well, or villagers dancing before a brilliant Tanzanian sunset. For years, Gregory has been capturing the rich heritage of the Tanzanian Maasai with painstaking dedication. His delicate strokes against the canvas radiate a warmth and brightness unrivaled by his peers - one that had once never reached far beyond that maze of streets in Dar es Salaam.

It wasn't until the summer of 2007 that I first had the privilege of meeting Gregory Mchopa and witnessing his work. I had traveled to Tanzania as part of an outreach trip for google.org, during which we met with local businesses in Dar es Salaam and gave presentations with the goal to spark local economic growth. We spoke before local entrepreneurs, established businessmen, and government politicians; but it wasn't until we met a young artist deep in that maze of streets that we truly recognized the potential for sparking local enterprise. After watching Gregory paint a brilliant work of three Maasai women carrying water over their heads to the backdrop of a sweeping red sky, he sat down to explain the difficulties of being an artist in Tanzania: a limited market, a lack of connectivity, and an absence of distribution channels.

Gregory suffered not for lack of passion or talent, but from the lack of technologies and services that could broadcast his work to a far wider audience. After returning to the States, I worked with BRUTE LABS (a non-profit I founded with several other Googlers) to build a simple website, www.mchopa.com, that would bring Gregory's work before a global audience. Using several Google tools that are free and easy to use - App Engine, Checkout, Spreadsheets, Gmail - we developed a website and interface for Gregory that serves as an open source model for other artists in the developing world seeking to showcase and sell their work.

Since the launch of mchopa.com in 2009, Gregory has sold 47 paintings and kept all of the profits. Perhaps more significantly, Gregory's web presence has connected him with gallery representatives and individual collectors in the US, Canada, and the UK, many of whom have requested custom works for display. The culture of the Maasai has now spread to people around the world.

Down a remote alleyway in Dar es Salaam, Gregory Mchopa continues to faithfully wield his paint brush, capturing the heritage of his country and people. But through Google's online suite of tools, he now wields the power to broadcast his work far beyond that maze of streets to a global audience of buyers, suppliers, and admirers. The only question left for us now: who's the next Gregory Mchopa?

Posted by Joshua To, Program Manager

In honour of Stephen Schneider

Jamie Yood — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 07:02:00 +0000

The world has lost a brilliant scientist, a dynamic communicator, and a caring soul. Dr. Stephen Schneider, a Stanford Professor and a global leader in climate change science died Monday morning of a heart attack.

Steve was an important mentor and friend to me, as I know he was to many scientists and activists around the world. For many years I turned to Steve for advice on climate science and insights into the political process. I remember one line he often repeated to me:

“Amy, when it comes to climate science, always stick to the facts, the truth is bad enough.”

Steve was brilliant at communicating the facts in plain language – always driving home the message of risk. Managing climate change was like his struggle with leukemia, it required making decisions with incomplete information to improve the odds that you live a better and longer life.

Last year Steve collaborated with us on developing a Google Earth tour that provides a glimpse of his communication power. I remember as we were putting the final touches on this Google Earth Tour, I asked Steve if he would be at the World Climate Conference in Geneva, hoping we could meet up in person. His response in a late night email was:

“Nope, I won’t be there. I was at first two, as described in detail in Science as a Contact Sport—we got the ball rolling. SO your generation now takes up the baton--have fun.”

We have the baton Steve and will not let it go. And in your honor, I promise to have fun.

Posted by Dr. Amy Luers, Sr. Environmental Program Manager

It’s flu o’clock somewhere

Jamie Yood — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 14:59:00 +0000

It’s flu season. Well, below the equator, it’s flu season. As we turn towards summer heat in the northern hemisphere, half of the globe has colder weather and more flu activity on the way. Just as we expanded Google Flu Trends to much of Europe last fall in advance of the winter flu season, we’re bringing Google Flu Trends to eight additional countries in the southern hemisphere where winter is approaching.

We now show national estimates (and a few regions too!) of flu activity for Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, Peru, South Africa, and Uruguay, bringing our grand total of countries with Google Flu Trends estimates to 28. As flu affects millions every year, these estimates made in near real-time give health officials an additional early warning tool which can help them to respond more quickly to flu outbreaks. This can be especially important when people from many countries converge in one place, like in South Africa for the World Cup. South Africa is the first country we’re adding in Africa, and we hope Google Flu Trends will provide useful information for football fans and foes alike.

Several of the newly added countries are near the equator which means they won’t show a strong seasonal peak of flu activity. Brazil provides a neat example of how the flu season in a country becomes more pronounced as you are further away from the equator. In Ceará, a Brazilian province that is nearer to the equator, the Google Flu Trends estimates generally don’t show a strong peak. The chart below shows the current season curve as compared with last year’s curve:

You can, however, see a stronger peak emerge as you move further south, away from the equator. Rio Grande do Sul offers a fine example of this, again comparing the current season with last year:

Where more people are searching, our models will likely be more robust. We won’t be able to provide flu-related estimates if people aren’t searching for flu-related information online. In the U.S. we’ve given estimates that are more than 90% accurate as compared with the CDC’s ILINet data from which our model was built.

Upon annual review of a country’s model, we may release an updated model. Just as we updated the U.S. model one year after launching, today we’re also updating the Australia and New Zealand models. We’ve retrained these models with an additional year of surveillance data and they should better reflect current activity levels.

You can also see animated Google Flu Trends for the world in the Google Earth layer now also available on the website. This video visualizes flu activity over the last two years in North America and Europe:

Check out flu activity in your area and stay healthy!

Posted by Corrie Conrad, Google.org

Largest supplier of energy monitors now compatible with Google PowerMeter

Jamie Yood — Mon, 24 May 2010 15:59:00 +0000

Today we are excited to offer a new way for many more people to access Google PowerMeter: our new Featured Device partner Current Cost - the largest global supplier of real time displays for monitoring energy use. Having already sold one million energy monitoring devices, Current Cost will now offer devices that are compatible with Google PowerMeter. They will also offer upgrades to existing customers so that they too can monitor their energy consumption anywhere online with our software.

Devices that integrate with Google PowerMeter will first be available in North America, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand. Current Cost uses the Google PowerMeter API that we released back in March and joins others as a Featured Device partner that allows customers to understand their energy use. Our partnership is another example of hardware meeting our software to help customers save energy and money.

E.ON, one of the UK’s largest utilities, has also teamed up with Current Cost to offer its customers a Google PowerMeter compatible energy monitor as part of its free “Energy Fit Starter Pack.”

Current Cost estimates that their customers have already saved close to 400,000 tons of CO2 through monitoring their electricity use. One Australian restaurant recently learned that something as easy as turning off their coffee pots each night would save them $3,000 dollars per year.

Curious how you can start saving? Sign up for Google PowerMeter today.

Posted by Scott Coleman, Partnership Development Manager, Google.org

Researching with Google Flu Trends

Jamie Yood — Wed, 19 May 2010 03:26:00 +0000

When creating Google Flu Trends, we decided early on to make all of our estimates of flu activity available to the public for download. We’re always excited to hear about researchers using this data and recently learned about a study which compares Google Flu Trends estimates of flu activity with estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Almost any public health expert will tell you that there isn’t a single perfect measure of flu activity. Instead, there are several good measures, each of which tells a slightly different story. A good picture of flu activity emerges when these stories are examined together. One such measure is the CDC’s influenza-like illness surveillance network (ILINet) which shows the proportion of people who visit a physician with flu-like symptoms such as fever, cough and sore throat. This network can highlight areas where activity is unusually high given the time of year but cannot provide insight into the specific pathogens which are causing the illness. Another is the CDC’s Virologic Surveillance which shows the proportion of people who visit a physician, get tested, and have lab-confirmed influenza. This network shows the specific strains of influenza in circulation but can be affected by changes in testing practices, making it difficult to interpret the data over long periods of time.

We collaborated with the CDC when designing Google Flu Trends and decided to build a system that would make estimates based on the CDC’s ILINet data. Historically, we’ve shown a strong correlation with CDC’s ILINet data, typically with a correlation of greater than 0.9 (or more than 90% accurate as compared with CDC’s ILINet data). This recent study shows that Google Flu Trends is 72% accurate as compared with CDC's Virologic Surveillance data. This doesn't come as much of a surprise since the virologic data is telling a different story than the ILInet data. However, it’s good to see research showing the differences in these measures, as it highlights the need for multiple networks to exist.

We provide Google Flu Trends as an additional source of information for helping to understand the flu season. Google Flu Trends helps paint the picture of flu activity by providing estimates daily while some traditional flu surveillance systems can take days or weeks to collect and release data.

Posted by Matt Mohebbi, Software Engineer

Response to China Earthquake

Jamie Yood — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 16:55:00 +0000

(Translated from the Google China Blog)

Yesterday, when a powerful earthquake struck the Qinghai province in Western China, Googlers within China and internationally mobilized to see how we could help with disaster response.

We are working on several tools to help people on the ground find out more information about the earthquake, connect with loved ones, as well as help with recovery efforts.

For those concerned about loved ones in Qinghai, the China Person Finder tool can be used to submit or search for information about individuals who may have been affected. The tool is available in Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese and English. We encourage organizations and media sites to embed the gadget on their sites and help spread the word.

In addition, users can access earthquake information on Google News and Google Maps from a link on our homepages on google.com.hk, and google.com.tw. The site also includes links to real-time search information, which includes people’s posts to Twitter and other sources.

We will keep posting updates to the Google China blog as more information and tools become available. Please visit this page for updated resources.

Powering consumers with information about their energy use

Jamie Yood — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 14:59:00 +0000

(Cross-posted from the Google Public Policy Blog)

We all receive an electricity bill once a month that is hard to decipher besides the total amount due. What if we instead had access to more useful and actionable information about our energy consumption? What if consumers could use this information to automatically adjust appliances, lights, and other equipment to save money and cut energy use?

That’s what a group of over 45 major companies and organizations said today in a letter to President Obama. Signers include companies like AT&T, General Electric and Intel and NGOs like The Climate Group, NRDC and the Alliance to Save Energy. The group also includes start ups, smart grid companies, venture firms and trade organizations.

This diverse group shares a common vision: giving consumers the ability to monitor and manage their power use will save them energy and money. It will also unleash innovation in homes and businesses as new energy saving technologies and apps are developed.

This group will continue to look for ways to offer ideas to policymakers on how to empower consumers with energy saving tools and information. Join the discussion tomorrow at an event in Washington, DC co-hosted by Google and The Climate Group. If you can make it, RSVP here.

Posted by Michael Terrell, Energy Policy Counsel

Liberia: A Country in Transition

Jamie Yood — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 19:22:00 +0000

The international community likes to define Liberia’s recent history primarily through two events: its fourteen-year civil war, which ended in 2003, and the work of the country’s president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the first democratically elected female leader in Africa. The chart below illustrates both. On my recent trip to Liberia, first with a group of Bay Area philanthropists hosted by the government and then as part of a small group of Googlers on a country visit, I learned more about how terrible the 1980s and 90s were in this small West African nation. GDP -- a crude measure of the health of a nation, but an indicator nonetheless -- dropped 90% as the country endured brutal dictatorship after brutal dictatorship. That decline is the largest in any nation since World War II, and nearly twice the percentage drop that Rwanda, Zimbabwe, and other states experienced during their crises. The good news is that although Liberia essentially had no economy at the depths of the war, GDP has almost risen to pre-conflict levels during Johnson Sirleaf’s tenure, and foreign direct investment has returned.

The numbers also tell a third story. Throughout the 1960s and 70s Liberia’s economy grew at a steady pace in a way that most other African economies did not. The growth was inequitable -- but real -- and the ingenuity and entrepreneurship that drove it are on full display today, albeit in ways that can sometimes puzzle a visitor to the country.

During the ten days I was in Liberia my colleagues and I always had a driver; it’s the only way for foreigners to get around. The first day we reserved our car for 9:00am but when I looked out the hotel window at 9:02am I noticed the car speeding off with three other passengers. When I frantically called the driver he responded, “My man, don’t worry -- I will get you to your meeting on time.” And he did. Then there was the night a local friend suggested dinner by saying, “Come on -- this place has a nice outdoor patio at the base of Sniper Hill. . . wait, that didn’t quite sound as inviting as I meant it.” When we arrived our waiter was Frankie, a cheerful eight-year old sporting an Alex Rodriguez Yankees jersey who delivered our food and drink on the jog. At the local family restaurant, everyone pitched in.

Like most of Africa, cell phones are ubiquitous in Liberia and are the technology of choice for the vast majority of the population. Our meetings with the mobile providers there could have taken place anywhere in the world. They’re making money but are fiercely competitive with one another, slashing prices and offering new products to gain market share, and desperately trying to expand into new markets like broadband. Their activities are far from philanthropic, but they’re arguably having a more positive affect on Liberians’ day-to-day life than any other segment of society. The mobile penetration rate is 40% and rising, particularly in rural areas where phones are often the first “big” purchase a Liberian will make.

The country’s trademark ingenuity is of course noticeable here as well. Liberians will often carry SIM cards from different mobile carriers and switch back and forth depending on coverage and prices (a noticeably nice option that’s not available in the locked-down U.S. market). Since unanswered calls don’t incur a charge and the person who initiates the call pays more than the receiver, Liberians will also occasionally call and hang up, meaning, “I want talk to you but you can afford this more than I can, so call me back.” Scratch cards, which give you twenty or thirty minutes of talk time, are practically used as cash and are sold virtually everywhere.

The past thirty years have been difficult ones for most Liberians, and with an 80% unemployment rate and known war criminals still occupying high government offices, there are still huge problems to address. In the next two years the country will hold elections and most of the UN peacekeepers will withdraw. Watch closely: if both go well, a stable Liberia may finally be back.

Posted by John Lyman, Google.org

Easing the development of Google PowerMeter compatible devices

Jamie Yood — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 22:07:00 +0000

At Google, we are encouraged to experiment and tinker to see if there is a better way of doing things. We want to encourage others in the energy monitoring space to do the same. To this end, I'd like to introduce our most recent strategic partner Microchip, which is a supplier of cost-effective, innovative products for the embedded developer. Today, Microchip will include as part of their developer demonstration environment the Google PowerMeter API library that we recently announced. This integration will make it much easier to create devices compatible with Google PowerMeter which means one can more quickly go from concept to demo to product.

The Google PowerMeter API is designed to work with a variety of energy monitoring devices - from utilities with smart meters, back haul networks and enterprise scale meter data management systems - to small embedded consumer devices that can send energy information directly to Google PowerMeter.

Google's belief in open source also means that the Google PowerMeter API library is available to everyone under the Apache 2.0 license. Embedded developers, tinkerers and makers are welcome to explore the code and use it in their products.

As we search for clean energy alternatives, it is important that everyone - from utilities to garage inventors - get a chance to try out new technologies and methods so that we all benefit from their inspirations.

Posted by Charles Spirakis, Google Software Engineer

Share your Power(Meter)!

Jamie Yood — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 00:41:00 +0000

Google PowerMeter now gives you the ability to share your data with others. What does this mean? Everyone in your household can now activate Google PowerMeter on her own personalized iGoogle page so families and roommates can all track their energy consumption online together.

You can also share your data with friends or other Google PowerMeter users to get advice on your usage, compare trends or even strike up a friendly competition to see who can save the most. After all, how can you keep up with your friends, the Joneses, when you don't know how much they are consuming?

Members of the Google PowerMeter team routinely compare their energy usage data and share energy saving tips and suggestions with one another.

For instance, by comparing his PowerMeter data with his friend's data during a heat wave, a fellow Googler discovered that his home air-conditioning system was consuming much more energy than his friend's system. The friend lives in the same area and in a similar sized house. By sharing this data, the Googler found out that his air conditioner was malfunctioning, and after making the necessary repairs, was able to reduce the amount he spends on electricity for air conditioning.

All sharing is completely opt-in and your privacy will still be protected. If you are already a Google PowerMeter user, please visit our help center to get started. Don't have Google PowerMeter yet? Visit our website to see how you can get it.

We hope that this feature sparks some interesting energy-related conversations between you and your friends!

Posted by Danan Sudindranath, Google Software Engineer

Applications now open for the 2010-2011 Global Heath Corps

Jamie Yood — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 01:22:00 +0000

We are pleased to share with you that the Global Health Corps (GHC) is now accepting applications for their 2010-2011 class. GHC sent their inaugural class of 22 recent university graduates to complete year-long assignments in public health organizations in various countries. This program came to fruition after discussions at the aids2031 conference hosted by Google.org in March 2008.

GHC is a unique program that enhances a fellow's cultural experience by pairing cross cultural teams - one fellow from the host country and one international fellow. Once accepted, all chosen fellows must complete a summer training course sponsored by Stanford University. This year GHC has 32 open positions with locations ranging from Burundi, Rwanda, New Jersey, Malawi, and Massachusetts. We believe that Global Health Corps offers a unique experience that enables young professionals to gain valuable experience for strengthening global public health equity.

The American application deadline is set for March 1st while the deadline for in-country fellows is April 1st. Applicants must be under 30 years old, possess at least an undergraduate degree, and be proficient in English. Fellows wlll be chosen based on their skills that meet organization's assignment goals once they successfully complete GHC's intense interviewing, application and orientation process. Good luck!

Posted by Kataneh Sarvian, Google.org

FCC broadband plan to call for access to real-time energy info

Jamie Yood — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 06:00:00 +0000

(Cross-posted from Public Policy Blog)

Over the past six months we have been providing you with periodic updates and comments on the FCC's National Broadband Plan, which is scheduled for release in mid-March. Earlier today FCC energy and environment director Nick Sinai gave a sneak preview of one of the Plan's key components: how broadband will facilitate smarter energy usage.

He told an audience at the Clean-tech Investor Summit that the FCC will call on States and the Congress to give consumers and consumer-authorized third parties access to real-time energy information. This kind of information could have a huge financial and environmental impact. Studies show that access to real-time usage data results in energy savings of up to 15%. He talked about how, combined with other measures, this information could create a platform that could lead to new products and services to help consumers manage energy. Picture it: a smart phone apps store for home energy management.

Sinai singled out for praise technologies like "smart" electricity meters and recent efforts in California to include consumer data access policies as part of a statewide smart meter roll out. (Learn more by reading Google's comments.) While encouraged by state-led initiatives like this, Sinai said if state efforts don't work, the FCC could recommend that Congress consider national energy data accessibility legislation.

Posted by Michael Terrell, Energy Policy Counsel

A simple way to curb climate change

Jamie Yood — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 17:39:00 +0000

(Cross-posted from Google's Public Policy Blog)

People often get up in settings like the international climate change conference in Copenhagen and make complicated pronouncements that leave heads spinning. Today was different. Google, GE, the Climate Group, and NRDC, supported by other leading businesses and NGOs, had a simple message: governments across the world should ensure people have real-time access to their home energy information.

Most of us know little about how we use energy in our homes, other than what our monthy power bill tells us. Yet studies show that when people can see in real-time how much energy they are using, they save up to 15% on their electricity use with simple behavioral changes, and even more with investments in energy efficiency. The savings are huge when added up: if all US households reduced 15% of their energy use by 2020 it would be equivalent to taking 35 million cars off the road and would save consumers $46 billion on their energy bills.

As 40,000 people gather in Copenhagen to fight global warming, we think that's a solution that governments should be paying attention to. This group, which will take other actions after the meeting has ended, has begun a push to give ordinary citizens the tools to save money and save the planet. A lot of the decisions on the table in Copenhagen are hard, we believe this one is simple.

Copenhagen statement signers: Google, GE, The Climate Group, NRDC, Alliance to Save Energy, Center for American Progress, Demand Response and Smart Grid Coalition, Digital Energy Solutions Campaign, Dow, Energy Future Coalition, Intel, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, US Green Building Council, Whirlpool

Posted by Michael Terrell, Energy Policy Counsel, Google.org

Innovation and the Transformation of the Global Energy System

Jamie Yood — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 19:22:00 +0000

Last Monday, we hosted experts from the U.S. Department of Energy, MIT, Stanford, UC Berkeley, Nth Power and Google for a discussion on clean energy innovation in our San Francisco office. The panelists focused on the important role innovation plays in seizing the economic benefits of developing and deploying cost-effective low carbon technologies.

We were honored to have Under Secretary of Energy Kristina Johnson deliver the opening remarks live from Washington DC. Panelists included Dr. Ernie Moniz, Director of the MIT Energy Initiative, Dr. Daniel Kammen, Director of the UC Berkeley Center for Renewable and Appropriate Energy, Dr. Lynn Orr, Director of the Precourt Institute for Energy at Stanford University, Dan Reicher, Director of Climate Change and Energy Initiatives at Google, and Tim Woodward, Managing Director of Nth Power.

The discussion centered on key themes and policy solutions for advancing clean energy innovation:

Promptly establishing a price on CO2 emissions to drive an economically efficient private sector market for new clean energy capital investments;
Accelerating the introduction of economy-wide energy efficiency standards and incentives that drive substantial reduction in energy use within a decade;
The central role of university research;
Expanding and sustaining a clean energy technology innovation agenda focused on both supply and demand. On that point:
The unprecedented boost that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 provided for clean energy technology research, development and demonstration (RD&D) and the upcoming challenges of the post-stimulus funding "cliff";
The need to increase federal RD&D investment to a minimum of $15B/year and sustain funding for at least a decade;
Establishing a Clean Energy Deployment Administration, as currently under development in Congress, to help jump-start full-scale cost-competitive commercial deployment.

These policies, if adopted and supported, will help us at last put in place what has been lacking in terms of clean energy innovation: a robust pipeline extending from basic research to applied research to demonstration projects to commercial scale-up to full deployment. At Google, we call this cycle "Lightbulbs to Lightbulbs" -- from the initial "lightbulb moment" of invention to full commercial deployment. Each one of these steps is vital to the whole process. Ignoring any of these steps can inhibit the effectiveness of the whole innovation cycle.

Watch the full event here:

With equal measures of smart policy, investment and will, we can realize the great role clean energy innovation can play to solving climate change and boosting the American economy.

Posted by Charles Baron, Google.org

Smart grid stimulus is a big win for consumers

Jamie Yood — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 18:53:00 +0000

(Cross-posted from the Google Public Policy Blog)

President Obama today announced $3.4 billion in federal stimulus funding to build a "smarter" electricity grid. The funds are the largest single energy grid modernization investment in U.S. history, according to the Department of Energy, and are expected to create tens of thousands of jobs.

We're excited because the vast majority of the projects will benefit consumers directly by giving them tools and information to save energy and cut utility bills. For example, the Sacramento Municipal Utility District will receive $127 million to install 600,000 smart meters and 50,000 programmable thermostats and home energy management systems. Oklahoma Gas and Electric Company will receive $130 million to provide 771,000 meters to 100% of its customers. These technologies will enable consumers to receive direct feedback on their energy use, which can lead to energy savings of up to 15% on average. Altogether the awards will fund the installation of 18 million smart meters, 1 million in-home energy displays and 170,000 smart thermostats.

With the advent of smart meters and other information technologies, we have the opportunity to rebuild the electricity grid, which still uses century-old technology in places. Most importantly, we can make the grid work better for consumers. Today's announcement is an ambitious step toward that goal.

Posted by Michael Terrell, Energy Policy Counsel

Will genomics help prevent the next pandemic?

Jamie Yood — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:11:00 +0000

The first outbreak of the new "swine flu" strain, now known as H1N1, earlier this year in Mexico caught the world by surprise. Public health officials around the world tried to stop the virus at the borders but were largely helpless. Shortly after, on the other side of the world from Mexico, I saw the health check posts in Cambodia at the airport and at a borderpost with Vietnam, right when the country found its first H1N1 cases which were flown in by US exchange students. The weapons used by the health officials to combat the spread of the virus were primarily paper survey forms and thermometers; the virus won, very quickly. Genomics is rapidly changing both the way diseases are diagnosed and the way medications and vaccines are developed - but will it give us the tools to prevent the next pandemic?

What if countries where emerging infections originate, from Cameroon to Cambodia, could rapidly sequence suspect samples and discover new pathogens when only a few people have become sick?
What if all such sequence data were immediately shared in a single global open access database?
What if you could search for a string of sequence data and all associated data, annotations or publications as easily and effectively as a Google search?
What if markers discovered for a new disease would quickly be incorporated into affordable hand held multi-pathogen diagnostic tests widely available at the point of care?
What if the results of those tests were uploaded to a database where surveillance tools like Google Flu Trends could discover outbreaks?

Today the Public Library of Science, a mission driven, non-profit and open access publisher, presents "The Genomics of Infectious Disease" a collection of essays, perspectives and reviews that explores how genomics—with all its associated tools and techniques—can provide insights into our understanding of emerging infectious disease. This collection was produced with financial support from Google.org with the editorial independence and rigor of PLoS and the expert opinion of leading researchers.

In one piece Rajesh Gupta, Mark Michalski (of Stanford, but at Google.org last year) and I provide Google.org’s perspective and vision for how systematic application of genomics, proteomics, and bioinformatics to infectious diseases could predict and prevent the next pandemic. To realize this vision, however, we feel that a focused, coordinated and scaled-up effort would be required. We urge the community to unite under an “Infectious Disease Genomics Project,” analogous to the Human Genome Project, to accelerate today's impressive progress as reviewed by this cross-journal open access collection.

You can read more in this blog from PLoS and listen to a fascinating audio interview debate with with Jonathan Eisen, Siv Andersson, and Raj Gupta, led by Kirsten Sanford.

Posted by Frank Rijsberman, Google.org

Pouncing on the iCat opportunity

Jamie Yood — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 23:36:00 +0000

As a relatively new philanthropy ourselves, Google.org continues to explore innovative and sustainable solutions to improving the lives and livelihoods of people in the developing world. This exploration often brings us into dialogue with many start-up social enterprises and other philanthropies trying to overcome challenges working directly with less advantaged populations. One such group, LGT Venture Philanthropy, has articulated a recurring theme: organizations with effective and innovative solutions to social and environmental problems often lack the manpower and expertise to implement these solutions in the most effective way, especially during the growth phase. They have come up with a creative solution: the iCats Program.

The iCats Program was designed to bridge the gap between philanthropic organizations or social enterprises in need of professional know-how and resources, and business professionals with the desire to apply their knowledge and experience to benefit the social sector, thus acting as “impact catalysts.” This is how the name iCats was inspired.

iCats are professionals from all over the world with diverse professional backgrounds who are willing to share their business expertise with carefully selected philanthropic organizations and social enterprises. LGT Venture Philanthropy created a web-based platform to match experienced professionals with specific needs in trusted partner programs.

In 2009, eight fellows are working in organizations in Africa, India, and Latin America. Peter Shrimpton, CEO of Heart in Capetown notes of the iCAT program, “Your funds may have mobilized us, but it is your fellows who are optimizing our performance. If your funds are the vehicle, your fellows are the fuel.”

I wanted to share with you that applications for the 2010 iCat Program are now underway. A fellow works 11 months on-site with a portfolio organization from February to December 2010 and receives regular mentoring from the LGT Venture Philanthropy team. In addition, a 4-day induction workshop brings all fellows together in the Swiss mountains.

The fellow positions for 2010 are now online on www.icatsprogram.com. Application deadline is 26th October 2009.

Posted by Mark Smolinski, Google.org

Swine flu near you?

Jamie Yood — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 21:47:00 +0000

Well, there's now an app for that.

Today Google.org grantee HealthMap launched a new iPhone application called "Outbreaks Near Me" available for free download.

Curious about what disease outbreaks have been reported in your neighborhood? Or maybe in that city you're headed to for work or vacation? "Outbreaks Near Me" empowers users to track and report outbreaks of infectious disease near them in real-time. In addition to following the reports near you with an automatic alerting function, you can even become a disease detective yourself by reporting on outbreaks happening around you. It's the latest and greatest in grassroots disease surveillance.

Outbreaks Near Me pinpoints a user’s location and maps local outbreak reports.

HealthMap co-founder Clark Freifeld explains, "In releasing this app we aim to empower citizens in the cause of public health, not only by providing ready access to real-time information, but also by encouraging them to contribute their own knowledge, expertise and observations. In enabling participation in surveillance, we also expect to increase global coverage and identify outbreaks earlier."

HealthMap is based at Children's Hospital Boston. They launched this new application in collaboration with the MIT Media Lab. Please read HealthMap's press release for more information.

Posted by Corrie Conrad, Google.org

Announcing 14 Geo Challenge Grant Recipients

Jamie Yood — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 21:03:00 +0000

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

The vast potential of energy efficiency

Jamie Yood — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 16:10:00 +0000

(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

Malaria origins revealed

Jamie Yood — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 22:25:00 +0000

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

Inaugural class of Global Health Corps

Jamie Yood — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 23:17:00 +0000

Global Health Corps (GHC) places recent university graduates to year-long assignments with public health organizations. Last night members of the Google.org team were delighted to celebrate the inaugural class of Global Health Corps Fellows as they assembled at the Stanford University School of Medicine before embarking on their year-long placements in Malawi, Tanzania, Rwanda, New Jersey, and Boston. The Fellows met for the first time during a two-week course to prepare them for their upcoming assignments.

The Global Health Corps concept was a product of some exciting brainstorming during the aids2031 conference hosted by Google.org in March 2008. GHC's 6-person leadership team includes Barbara Bush as President, and two Googlers, Charlie Hale and Andrew Bentley. "This has been an amazing collaborative effort. We've had an incredible amount of support from a number of partners, and are confident this first class of fellows will have a tremendous impact," says Charlie Hale.

The organization strives to improve the quality of health services for the poor by matching talented pairs of recent university graduates from Africa and America with health-focused non-profit organizations.

Angie Bengtson from Minnesota and Mweya Clement from Tanzania are a duo that will begin their one year assignment with SACIDs (Southern African Centre for Infectious Disease Surveillance) in August. As Research Analysts, they will develop and improve early warning systems of infectious disease. Angie and Clement are among 22 promising young fellows chosen from a pool of 1,200 applicants. The fellows will promote cultural awareness while improving healthcare systems in need.

We salute the new class of fellows and wish them luck in their exciting new adventure!

Posted by Kataneh Sarvian, Google.org

Bugs we get from the animals we live with, or eat.

Jamie Yood — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 04:00:00 +0000

Recently I was in Cambodia with a group of Googlers for "Gcamp" at the Royal University of Phnom Penh when the country's first H1N1 (swine flu) case was discovered - a 16-year old American girl on an exchange student visit. The pandemic had traveled the globe and reached South-East Asia. All visitors to the country are now greeted by quarantine unit officers, equipped with paper forms and a fishbowl-like isolation room for suspected carriers, trying to keep the bug out. For years the world feared a possible flu pandemic not traveling to, but coming from Cambodia or one of its neighbors - an H5N1 (bird flu) pandemic that has not happened yet. So far we have been lucky - bird flu is quite deadly but has not yet been very contagious. Swine flu has quickly become a pandemic but is not yet very virulent.

We get many new infectious diseases from the animals we eat or live with - poultry, livestock, wildlife, or insects such as mosquitoes. Some diseases have been around for a long time but we know surprisingly little about them. Rift Valley Fever, for example, periodically kills people and livestock in east Africa, most recently in early 2007 when 300 people died in Kenya, Tanzania and Somalia. But we don't know where the disease hides between outbreaks, how it gets transmitted, or whether people are getting sick because they get infected by mosquitoes or by handling, or eating, sick animals. Late last year Google.org made a $5 million grant to icipe (African Insect Science for Food and Health) and partners to improve the discovery and surveillance of insect-carried infectious diseases, particularly Rift Valley Fever in East Africa. The project will collect an estimated 25,000 insect, wildlife, livestock and human samples and hunt for bugs using state-of-the-art biotech methods. Roche, the health care company, has now donated a 454 Genome Sequencer FLX system to the project to strengthen the labs of one of the project's partners, ILRI-BecA, biotech center of excellence for East Africa. This is the first second generation sequencing platform to be installed in the region and will significantly increase the project capacity to discover new pathogens.

The project will screen the samples with multiplex PCR and/or sequence on the Roche 454 platform and will meet its goals if it finds, within 3 years:

* 5 novel Rift Valley Fever variants
* 5 new disease vectors (e.g. insects)
* 20 known viruses that are identified in Kenya for the first time, and
* 5 novel potential pathogen variants (i.e. 5 new diseases).

If those goals are met then we will be one step closer to predicting and preventing the next pandemic that may come out of East Africa.

Posted by Frank Rijsberman, Google.org

Google SMS to serve needs of poor in Uganda

Jamie Yood — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 13:00:00 +0000

(Cross-posted from Official Google Africa Blog)

Today is a big day for the Google Africa team for several reasons. We're announcing an exciting partnership between MTN Uganda, the Grameen Foundation and Google, along with the launch of Google SMS in Uganda. This launch makes available the first suite of applications resulting from an endeavor initiated by Grameen Foundation called "AppLab" (Application Laboratory) which began over a year ago. AppLab is designed to develop mobile applications that serve the needs of poor and other vulnerable individuals and communities, most of whom have limited access to information and communications technology.

At Google we seek to serve a broad base of people — not only those who can afford to access the Internet from the convenience of their workplace or with a computer at home. It's important to reach users wherever they are, with the information they need, in areas with the greatest information poverty. Hence the launch of Google SMS, a bundle of mobile services for users to access content on a range of topics. This not only includes traditional services such as sports scores and local news, but for the first time, also includes services such as health and agriculture tips.

We are also releasing Google Trader, an SMS-based "marketplace" application that helps buyers and sellers find each other, enabling greater access to markets and trade, especially for those who are most excluded today. With these services, we hope to help alleviate some of the information and access to markets barriers for the poor, especially those in rural areas. So when farmers in Iganga want to sell their maize, they can list it on Google Trader and a miller in another trading center can find and contact them to buy their goods (see picture below). If a pregnant woman has a question about prenatal services, she can text her question to 6001 and get a response right away. Now people in any part of Uganda can easily find the information that is most critical to them.

Miller in trading center calling women's farming group in Iganga to obtain maize.

These activities also represent an important milestone: our first major initiative in Uganda, one of the newest locations where Google is setting up operations. Earlier this year, I joined the Google Africa team to lead our efforts in Uganda, where we want to offer valuable services that address real needs. As East African fiber optic cables begin to connect Uganda to the global Internet community, it is vital that the foundation for a thriving Internet economy also be established. Many impressive organizations are focused on this goal, and we hope to enhance these efforts.

Finally, this launch represents the team efforts of many local partners, communities and individuals, each of whom played a role in bringing this vision to life. The Village Phone Operators represent our very first set of focus group participants and product development advisors. And the participation of farmers in more distant villages was fundamental in creating the highly local content — created by them, for them, through our local partner BROSDI (Busoga Rural Open Source and Development Initiative), in collaboration with AppLab. While developing the health tips service, students, health workers, doctors and school nurses stepped forward as leaders in their respective areas and turned this humble mission into a reality. Our partners, Straight Talk Foundation and Marie Stopes International, not only created the content with AppLab based on the input of these many constituents, but forged deep and strong links with the communities where these services are in greatest demand.

When we return to these villages with a product that will be developed through their insights, we want to understand if the service truly is having an impact. To this end, we are conducting a social impact assessment with Innovations for Poverty Action, with support from Google.org, to build from the knowledge of what users need most, to understand what works best.

We hope these services will help a variety of organizations already doing impressive work to reach a broader audience and those with the greatest need, in new and innovative ways, through the mobile phone. This is the first of many exciting collaborative efforts we will be working on to support access to information in Uganda and more broadly, across Africa. So to everyone who participated in this effort, we say Webale Nyo!

Posted by Rachel Payne, Country Manager, Uganda

Google Flu Trends for Australia and New Zealand

Jamie Yood — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 14:01:00 +0000

As the flu season begins in the southern hemisphere, we're excited to announce the expansion of Google Flu Trends to Australia and New Zealand.

By using aggregated search data, we've been able to produce estimates of flu activity for these countries in the same manner as in the United States and Mexico. We continue to see a close relationship between how many people search for flu-related topics and how many people actually have flu symptoms.

While some existing flu tracking systems may take days or weeks to collect and release data, Google search queries can be counted immediately. Google Flu Trends is updated daily and may provide early detection of flu outbreaks. We hope that this information complements existing flu surveillance efforts in Australia and New Zealand, and proves useful for individuals and public health responders.

We're keenly aware of the trust our users place in us and our responsibility to protect their privacy. Google Flu Trends cannot be used to identify individual users. The patterns we observe are only meaningful across large populations of Google searchers.

For those Kiwis and Aussies out there, avoid becoming part of our statistics and get a flu shot! And keep an eye on those graphs if you're curious to see how the flu season unfolds.

Posted by Dan Vanderkam, Software Engineer, and Corrie Conrad, Senior Associate, Google.org

Using the stimulus to advance smarter energy use

Jamie Yood — Wed, 06 May 2009 22:07:00 +0000

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, signed by President Obama in February, includes tens of billions of dollars in federal stimulus funding for clean energy. This investment gives our country an unprecedented opportunity to rebuild our energy system and make it cleaner and more efficient. It's also an opportunity to become "smarter" about the way we all use energy.

Getting smart about energy starts with empowering consumers and businesses with information and tools to make better energy choices. That's why we submitted comments today with the Department of Energy, asking them to put consumers first as they develop one of the more promising elements of the ARRA -- a $4.5 billion grant program for "smart" grid investments. We also asked the DOE to ensure the program contributes to President Obama's goal of funding the installation of 40 million smart electricity meters in American homes. You can read our comments here.

The advent of smart meters, the Internet and a myriad of other information technologies means that our interaction with electricity can be dramatically redefined. Instead of receiving a monthly bill in the mail, for example, we can receive information on electricity use in real time; instead of turning on the furnace or the A/C when once you are home, we can automate these systems or even control them remotely. We can even aggregate energy savings from appliances and electronic equipment from thousands of homes to avoid the need to build new power plants.

Using the stimulus to invest in the electricity grid can help accelerate this transformation, while in the process creating jobs and helping to diversify our energy supply. Most importantly, these investments can help consumers and businesses save energy and money. We feel it's important for the country not to miss this opportunity.

Posted by Michael Terrell, Program Manager, Google.org

Brilliant Takes on Urgent Threats

Jamie Yood — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 23:00:00 +0000

It's with a grateful heart that I leave full-time work with Google to begin a new chapter in my life. I served as start up Executive Director for Google.org for nearly three years before moving into the role of Chief Philanthropic Evangelist in February. I love Google, the people who make this such a special place and the world-class team at Google.org. Megan Smith, who has taken on the leadership of Google.org, is doing a terrific job and I am watching her and the other leaders of Google.org with admiration and a great sense of satisfaction that "the work" has passed to such competent hands.

When Larry, Sergey and Sheryl Sandberg hired me, I promised to work for at least three years. I've had a wonderful experience and learned enough to fill volumes about new ways to work in the world, trying to make it a better place. Jeff Skoll, founding president of eBay, long time friend of many Googlers, and a "practicing philanthropist" for over a decade recently described to me his fears of a world spinning almost out of control, beset with many simultaneous urgent threats: climate change, nuclear proliferation, Middle East conflict, water scarcity, and emerging communicable disease. He described to me his vision of bundling his many activities to focus them on these "Urgent Threats." Jeff is the founder of the well regarded Skoll Foundation which for ten years has funded dozens of dedicated social entrepreneurs working all over the world. He also has an extremely successful film making company, Participant Media, which has made films to inspire social change such as An Inconvenient Truth, Good Night and Good Luck, North Country, Syriana, Fast Food Nation, Jimmy Carter - Man From Plains, Darfur Now, The Kite Runner, Charlie Wilson's War and The Visitor. In addition, his financial services firm, Capricorn Investments, has made investments in electric car companies, renewable energy, and other investments that are driven by multiple bottom line returns.

Jeff's idea was to create the new Skoll Urgent Threats Fund which would do grant making and, most importantly, advocacy and find someone to lead that Fund. He wants the same person who leads that Fund to be a Senior Advisor to him in bringing together his media and film making activities, his investment interests, and the work of social entrepreneurs supported by the Skoll Foundation who focus these urgent threats, so that all of these different "tools" are working together effectively to drive the change we need. He asked me to become President of the Skoll Urgent Threats Fund, sit on the board of the Skoll Foundation, and be Senior Advisor to him on his media and financial investments companies.

I have accepted this position and effective May 5, 2009 (my 65th birthday) I will leave Google as a full time employee though I'll continue to work with Megan and the Google.org team as an advisor.

Google.org and the Skoll Foundation already work together to support "virus hunter" Nathan Wolfe whose Global Viral Forecasting Initiative collects and analyzes blood samples of humans and animals in hot spots. And many of the Skoll Awardees have played an important role in our thinking at Google.org and in the development of other projects and grants.

So these two organizations are neither competitors nor strangers, but rather friends and colleagues. I am not "leaving Google" so much as I'm going down the road to work with a friend and colleague and I hope that in the coming months and years we can expand that relationship even more.

Looking back over the past three years, I'm incredibly proud of the work done by the team at Google.org to support wonderful projects and people. Some examples: The team at Pratham in India that we support is changing the way we think about development by causing improvements in children's education in India. Irene Taylor Brodsky's Oscar nominated film, The Final Inch, is also helping to galvanize global support for the final push to eradicate polio. Working on this film helped my thinking about the media--Rotary International clubs have donated nearly $1 billion to global polio eradication, but you should see the pride in the eyes of Rotarians when they watch The Final Inch and see how much their donated time and money really matters to conquer this disease. They feel their work recognized and celebrated, and they are energized to go raise more money and do more volunteering to conquer this dreaded disease. And the group which emerged from the TED Prize, InSTEDD, is going from "strength to strength" and developing new technologies to enable quick communication and effective response after disasters. At one time they were funded only by Google.org but their work has now been recognized by CDC and by the United Nations emergency relief groups as best in the world and they are being supported by a wide group of organizations.

We've also partnered with Rockefeller Foundation in supporting the Mekong Basin Disease Surveillance Network program which is providing early warning about possible pandemic flu outbreaks to the six countries which border the Mekong River. We've given millions of dollars and direct support using Google Earth, other Google projects and people to support the heroic efforts to respond to Katrina, the cyclone in Myanmar (Burma) and the terrible earthquakes in Sichuan, China. But it might be in the area of clean energy that Google.org has made its largest contribution to the national debate. It was our joint Google.org+Google.com climate team that created "RE our geeky way of saying that until we have renewable energy -- wind, solar, advanced geothermal (EGS) -- cheaper than coal, fossil fuels will continue to be burned and continue to release the CO2 which is suffocating the planet. We've invested in wind, solar and geothermal companies, we've supported leaders like NRDC, and we advocated in DC for climate change policy and for more resources to drive clean energy R&D. And it has made a big difference in how our government has now responded.

And now we also have intensified "Dotorg's" efforts to leverage Google's skills in technology, partnerships and information; examples of this approach include Flu Trends, RechargeIT, Clean Energy 2030, and PowerMeter.

Larry and Sergey wrote in their initial Letter from the Founders that they wanted to make approximately 1% of Google's equity and profits and substantial employee time devoted to philanthropy. I hope other corporations will follow the example to devote significant resources to the greater good and I support Google.org's fundamental mission "to use the power of information and technology to address the global challenges of our age."

I lack the words to adequately thank Larry and Sergey for hiring me, for giving me a chance to lead this wonderful "experiment in active philanthropy" that Google.org has become, and I want to thank Megan Smith and her advisory team of Urs Hoelzle, David Fischer, and Salar Kamangar for their leadership going forward. I especially want to thank the Googlers, both in "dotorg" and "dotcom" that make Google such a special place. I wish time and space allowed me to name each and every one who has taught me, touched me, helped and supported me. I do believe the press which says that this is the best company to work for anywhere. Googlers are the kindest and most wonderful colleagues and friends anyone could ask for. Thank you for your friendship and support---and remember I am not going far away so I do hope Google.org and the Skoll philanthropies will find many areas for working together in the months and years ahead.

Posted by Dr. Larry Brilliant

The Final Inch on YouTube

Jamie Yood — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 07:01:00 +0000

Today the YouTube homepage is featuring an Oscar®-nominated film set in the slums of India. No, not that one -- this film tells a true story. In honor of World Health Day, YouTube is highlighting The Final Inch, an inspiring short documentary created by Google.org and Vermillion Films about a group of dedicated health workers who are going door-to-door to give polio vaccines to children in the poorest areas of the world. You can watch the film here and embedded below.

In addition to hosting the film in its entirety on YouTube today, the film is also airing tonight at 7:15pm ET/PT on HBO2 and is available on HBO on demand. (See the full HBO schedule here).

Since polio no longer exists in the developed world, many people assume the disease has been eradicated. Tragically, it has not. In the early days of Google.org, the team wanted to bring attention to the global challenge of polio eradication and tell the story of those who are on the front lines helping the most vulnerable -- children under age 5 living in the world's poorest, most remote regions. The result is a stunning 38-minute film which depicts the crippling disease and offers a hopeful account of the eradication effort. We hope the film will encourage those working hard on wiping out polio - and those who have forgotten it still exists - to bring the eradication effort over the finish line.

In 1988, before the WHO eradication effort began, the polio virus was endemic in more than 125 countries, paralyzing more than 1000 children every day. Today, only four countries in the world are considered polio-endemic by the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (Nigeria, India, Pakistan and Afghanistan) and there are fewer than 1700 reported cases of polio. As the eradication effort closes in on the disease, the work becomes more difficult as polio’s strongholds remain in the world’s poorest countries which often lack the basic health infrastructure to distribute vaccine.

The millions of public health workers putting themselves on the front lines vaccinating children are the true heroes of the eradication effort. Our film tries to capture their story. We hope you enjoy the film; but more importantly we hope that you're inspired to contribute and advocate for the cause. You can find out how to participate by clicking 'learn more' on The Final Inch website.

Posted by Jamie Yood, Google.org Team

One video that should go viral

Jamie Yood — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 16:30:00 +0000

In 2006, Dr. Larry Brilliant - Google.org's Chief Philanthropic Evangelist - won the prestigious TED Prize. He delivered a powerful talk that highlighted the risk of a devastating future pandemic, and described one of his big ideas for combating the threat. His mantra of 'Early Detection, Early Response' inspired other groups such as InSTEDD, who recently launched a suite of open-source applications to allow collaboration between first responders during disease outbreaks and disasters, and the team behind Google Flu Trends.

Now, this important theme has been revisited at TED by Dr. Nathan Wolfe, founder of the Global Viral Forecasting Initiative (GVFI), a new non-profit funded by Google.org and the Skoll Foundation. Dr Wolfe's rousing message is that when it comes to pandemics, early detection in humans isn't early enough. We know that 75% of new human diseases begin in animals – so to discover a pandemic before it devastates the human population, we need to catch new viruses when they take the very first leap from animals into humans.

This mission has taken the GVFI team into some remote and difficult locations, from the jungles of Cameroon and the Democratic Republic of Congo (profiled on CNN's Planet in Peril), to the wet markets of China and Malaysia. Here, they collect blood samples from animals and the humans with whom they're in contact, in order to analyse them for evidence of early viral crossover.

You can hear more about this important work and some of GVFI's exciting viral discoveries by watching Dr Wolfe's talk at TED. Pass this on, and help spread ideas, not diseases!

Posted by Joanne Stevens, Associate, Google.org

Smart Outbreak Detection Using Online Info

Jamie Yood — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 00:51:00 +0000

An interesting article making a case for the use of online information for earlier detection of disease outbreaks came out last week in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. The article, co-authored by HealthMap co-founder and Google.org grantee John Brownstein, looks at an outbreak of listeriosis in Canada and compares online search trends, news reports, and diagnosed case counts during the outbreak period.

Listeriosis is a bacterial infection often caused by contaminated food. The outbreak in Canada killed about 20 people last summer. By using Google Insights for Search data combined with HealthMap's news surveillance data, the authors discovered that a specific search query provided even earlier indication of the outbreak than news reports.

So, what was that key search term that gave the earliest indication of the outbreak? Listeriosis. That's right, when the researchers looked at trends for people searching online for the technical term "Listeriosis," they discovered that the peak of the search trend for that term was the same as the actual peak of medically diagnosed Listeriosis cases. The increase in online searches for "Listeriosis" began in mid-July, one month before the federal announcement that an outbreak was underway in Canada. This means that people diagnosed with Listeriosis, or others close to them, were likely to be the ones searching for that term online at the time of diagnosis, causing a spike.

In contrast, search trends for "Listeria," the term used in the public announcement about the outbreak, peaked around the time of the announcement and other news reports in mid-August. Thus, people searching for "Listeria" were probably doing so in response to the press about the outbreak, not because they'd been diagnosed.

Early detection is critical to helping health officials respond more quickly. While documenting the potential for using online info for earlier outbreak detection, the authors also recognize the challenges. This seems to be the tip of the iceberg for research in this area, and it has others talking too - check out the Wall Street Journal blog which calls this "a wonkier example of Google Flu Trends."

Posted by Corrie Conrad, Google.org

The Next Chapter for Google.org

Jamie Yood — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 00:17:00 +0000

When Larry and Sergey laid out their vision for Google.org, they hoped that this "experiment in active philanthropy" would one day have an even greater impact on the world than Google itself. They committed resources from Google's profits, equity and substantial employee time to this philanthropic effort, and they created the mission: "to use the power of information and technology to address the global challenges of our age." They structured Google.org so that in addition to traditional grant making, it can also invest in for-profit companies, advocate for policies and, most important, tap into Google's strengths: its employees, products and technologies. At first I was skeptical about "going corporate," but I came on board convinced that Google could make real progress on these issues. I think we have made an excellent beginning, but it is just a very few steps on a long path.

Now, three years after Google.org was founded, we've been reviewing our progress, and how best to take things forward. It's clear that I am most effective in helping to identify "big ideas" and potential partners, as well as raising awareness about society's biggest challenges. I am therefore very excited to become Google's Chief Philanthropy Evangelist. I think this is the highest contribution that I can make both to Google.org and to fighting the urgent threats of our day: from climate change to emerging infectious diseases, to issues of poverty and health care. By focusing my energy outwards I hope to be able to spend more time motivating policy makers, encouraging public and private partnerships, and generally advocating for the changes that we must make as a global society to solve these problems. Long-time Googler Megan Smith will take over day-to-day management of Google.org, joining as General Manager to lead us through this transition, in addition to her existing role as Vice President of New Business Development.

One of the first things that Megan will focus on is how Google.org can best achieve its mission. During our review it became clear that while we have been able to support some remarkable non-profit organizations over the past three years, our greatest impact has come when we've attacked problems in ways that make the most of Google's strengths in technology and information; examples of this approach include Flu Trends, RechargeIT, Clean Energy 2030, and PowerMeter. By aligning Google.org more closely with Google as a whole, Megan will ensure that we're better able to build innovative, scalable technology and information solutions. As a first step, Google has decided to put even more engineers and technical talent to work on these issues and problems, resources which I have found to be extraordinary. In this global economic crisis, the work Google.org is doing, together with our many colleagues around the world, to help develop cheap clean energy, find and fight disease outbreaks before they sweep the globe, and build information platforms for underserved people globally, is more important than ever. We stand behind the commitment made in 2004 to devote 1% of Google's equity and profits to philanthropy, and we will continue to iterate on our philanthropic model to make sure our resources have the greatest possible impact for good.

Posted by Dr. Larry Brilliant, Chief Philanthropy Evangelist, Google.org

Power to the people

Jamie Yood — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 05:07:00 +0000

(Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog)

Imagine how hard it would be to stick to a budget in a store with no prices. Well, that's pretty much how we buy electricity today. Your utility company sends you a bill at the end of the month with very few details. Most people don't know how much electricity their appliances use, where in the house they are wasting electricity, or how much the bill might go up during different seasons. But in a world where everyone had a detailed understanding of their home energy use, we could find all sorts of ways to save energy and lower electricity bills. In fact, studies show that access to home energy information results in savings between 5-15% on monthly electricity bills. It may not sound like much, but if half of America's households cut their energy demand by 10 percent, it would be the equivalent of taking eight million cars off the road.

Google’s mission is to "organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful," and we believe consumers have a right to detailed information about their home electricity use. We're tackling the challenge on several fronts, from policy advocacy to developing consumer tools, and even investing in smart grid companies. We've been participating in the dialogue in Washington, DC and with public agencies in the U.S. and other parts of the world to advocate for investment in the building of a "smart grid," to bring our 1950s-era electricity grid into the digital age. Specifically, to provide both consumers and utilities with real-time energy information, homes must be equipped with advanced energy meters called "smart meters." There are currently about 40 million smart meters in use worldwide, with plans to add another 100 million in the next few years.

But deploying smart meters alone isn't enough. This needs to be coupled with a strategy to provide customers with easy access to energy information. That's why we believe that open protocols and standards should serve as the cornerstone of smart grid projects, to spur innovation, drive competition, and bring more information to consumers as the smart grid evolves. We believe that detailed data on your personal energy use belongs to you, and should be available in an open standard, non-proprietary format. You should control who gets to see your data, and you should be free to choose from a wide range of services to help you understand it and benefit from it. For more details on our policy suggestions, check out the comments we filed yesterday with the California Public Utility Commission.

In addition to policy advocacy, we're building consumer tools, too. Over the last several months, our engineers have developed a software tool called Google PowerMeter, which will show consumers their home energy information almost in real time, right on their computer. Google PowerMeter is not yet available to the public since we're testing it out with Googlers first. But we're building partnerships with utilities and independent device manufacturers to gradually roll this out in pilot programs. Once we've had a chance to kick the tires, we'll make the tool more widely available.

There is no one-size-fits-all solution to providing consumers with detailed energy information. And it will take the combined efforts of federal and state governments, utilities, device manufacturers, and software engineers to empower consumers to use electricity more wisely by giving them access to energy information.

Posted by Ed Lu, Engineering Team

The Final Inch is Nominated for an Oscar!

Jamie Yood — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 17:31:00 +0000

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

Eric Schmidt speaks about solutions for energy security

Jamie Yood — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 22:22:00 +0000

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

Moving quickly to rebuild the economy through clean energy

Jamie Yood — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 21:27:00 +0000

With a new President and Congress, we have an unprecedented opportunity to transform our fossil fuel economy to one based largely on clean energy, while creating millions of jobs in the process.

Last month, we offered a Clean Energy 2030 proposal for how the U.S. can dramatically scale up renewable energy, become smarter about how we use energy, and deploy millions of plug-in electric cars. Our energy team has continued crunching the numbers and just posted new data on job creation and cost savings on our knol. We'll keep updating the information and encourage everyone to take a look and comment - and offer alternative approaches if you disagree.

Reaching the goals of Clean Energy 2030 will require a comprehensive effort by the new President and Congress. At a minimum, we believe it should include putting a price on carbon emissions, setting national energy efficiency and renewable energy goals, and modernizing our electricity grid. With the right policies, we can drive trillions of dollars of new investment in clean energy and create millions of new jobs.

Stimulating the economy and creating jobs will be the first item of business when the new President and Congress take office in January. We hope that clean energy will be front and center. In its last effort to address the financial crisis, Congress passed several measures to advance clean energy, but much more needs to be done. Here are some ideas on how to advance clean energy as part of a stimulus package:

Get money flowing to renewable energy. Many wind and solar project developers can’t take advantage of the renewable tax credits that were just extended. The continuing economic decline has wiped out profits in many companies - and the otherwise expected tax liability that credits offset. Congress should make changes, such as making the credits refundable, to make it possible for investors to get the value Congress intended.

Start building a smarter electricity grid. The last large energy bill passed in 2007 authorized, but did not fund, matching grants and demonstration programs to encourage investment in a "smart" electricity grid. These programs should be fully funded and expanded so more consumers have the opportunity to better monitor and control their electricity use and reduce their bills. A new Department of Energy (DOE) sponsored book explaining smart grid describes it as "the internet brought to our electric system."

Help people make their homes more efficient. The DOE has a Weatherization Assistance Program that enables low-income families to permanently reduce their energy bills by making their homes more energy efficient. On average, weatherization reduces households' heating bills by about 30%. President-elect Obama adopted our proposal to weatherize one million low income homes per year for the next 10 years. Current federal weatherization funding supports barely 10% of that number. A roughly $3 billion appropriation would weatherize roughly one million homes.

Green the Government. The U.S. government is the largest consumer of electricity. Accordingly, federal departments and agencies should lead by example when it comes to stimulating the economy through expanded energy efficiency efforts and increased use of clean energy. In addition, the Congress and the President can provide support to State and local governments for efficiency and smart grid projects; the purchase of renewable power; and converting vehicle fleets to low-emission vehicles, particularly plug-in electric cars and trucks. Such concerted government action will speed the advent of a new era of energy security and domestic job creation.

We need quick action to jumpstart the economy and improve energy security. If you have ideas to share, join the discussion on the Clean Energy 2030 knol.

Posted by Michael Terrell, Program Manager, Google.org and Harry Wingo, Policy Counsel, Google

The Final Inch

Jamie Yood — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 18:46:00 +0000

Early readers of the Google.org blog may recall us embarking on a film project portraying public health heroes working in the field to eradicate polio. Gone from the modern world, new cases of polio continue to afflict mostly children under age 3 in the poorest regions of just a few countries — India, Nigeria, Afghanistan and Pakistan. When we first announced this project and the collaboration between Google.org and Vermilion Films, filming was underway primarily in India and Afghanistan, documenting the front lines of public health in some forgotten corners of our world.

David Heymann of the World Health Organization reminds us, "When you haven't seen a disease for quite a while, which is the case in the industrialized countries, you forget about the terrible disease that it really is." Polio is such a disease, as it can ruin the lives of children even before they are old enough to understand how to prevent it.

We're proud to announce The Final Inch, a 38-minute film about the historic global effort to eradicate polio. Here, the story told is as much about the messengers as the message. You'll meet Munzareen Fatima, one of the thousands of community "foot soldiers" across India working to sway reluctant families to vaccinate their children, and Dr. Ashfaq Bhat, who travels into the backwaters of India's Ganges Basin by boat and foot to detect emerging cases of polio. Martha Mason and Mikail Davenport bring us into their lives and describe the paralyzing challenges of childhood polio, reminding us how endemic polio once was in the United States.

Filmed in high-definition (HD) in cinematic style — wide open shots to give a strong sense of place — The Final Inch captures their stories, and we hope it is both a tribute and an inspiration of hope. With a final push, this is a disease that can, and should, be eradicated finally.

The Final Inch will air nationally on HBO in 2009. We invite you to check out TheFinalInch.org, where you can view clips from the film and learn more about the people and the organizations tirelessly working on this global effort. You can also check out the film trailer here:

Update on 1/22: The Final Inch received an Oscar nomination in the category of Best Documentary (Short Film). Check out our post on the Google.org blog for more information.

Update on 3/31: The Final Inch is coming to a TV screen near you! You can tune into HBO2 on Wednesday April 1 at 8:00pm (ET/PT) to see our film. It will re-air on April 7 at 7:15pm and is available on HBO on demand. You can check out the full schedule on HBO's website.

Posted by Gregory Miller, Managing Director, Google.org, and Irene Taylor Brodsky, Vermilion Films, Producer and Director of The Final Inch

Tracking Flu Trends

Jamie Yood — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 21:14:00 +0000

(Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog)

Like many Googlers, we're fascinated by trends in online search queries. Whether you're interested in U.S. elections, today's hot trends, or each year's Zeitgeist, patterns in Google search queries can be very informative. Last year, a small team of software engineers began to explore if we could go beyond simple trends and accurately model real-world phenomena using patterns in search queries. After meeting with the public health gurus on Google.org's Predict and Prevent team, we decided to focus on outbreaks of infectious disease, which are responsible for millions of deaths around the world each year. You've probably heard of one such disease: influenza, commonly known as "the flu," which is responsible for up to 500,000 deaths worldwide each year. If you or your kids have ever caught the flu, you know just how awful it can be.

Our team found that certain aggregated search queries tend to be very common during flu season each year. We compared these aggregated queries against data provided by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and we found that there's a very close relationship between the frequency of these search queries and the number of people who are experiencing flu-like symptoms each week. As a result, if we tally each day's flu-related search queries, we can estimate how many people have a flu-like illness. Based on this discovery, we have launched Google Flu Trends, where you can find up-to-date influenza-related activity estimates for each of the 50 states in the U.S.

The CDC does a great job of surveying real doctors and patients to accurately track the flu, so why bother with estimates from aggregated search queries? It turns out that traditional flu surveillance systems take 1-2 weeks to collect and release surveillance data, but Google search queries can be automatically counted very quickly. By making our flu estimates available each day, Google Flu Trends may provide an early-warning system for outbreaks of influenza.

For epidemiologists, this is an exciting development, because early detection of a disease outbreak can reduce the number of people affected. If a new strain of influenza virus emerges under certain conditions, a pandemic could emerge and cause millions of deaths (as happened, for example, in 1918). Our up-to-date influenza estimates may enable public health officials and health professionals to better respond to seasonal epidemics and — though we hope never to find out — pandemics.

We shared our preliminary results with the Epidemiology and Prevention Branch of the Influenza Division at CDC throughout the 2007-2008 flu season, and together we saw that our search-based flu estimates had a consistently strong correlation with real CDC surveillance data. Our system is still very experimental, so anything is possible, but we're hoping to see similar correlations in the coming year.

We couldn't have created such good models without aggregating hundreds of billions of individual searches going back to 2003. Of course, we're keenly aware of the trust that users place in us and of our responsibility to protect their privacy. Flu Trends can never be used to identify individual users because we rely on anonymized, aggregated counts of how often certain search queries occur each week. The patterns we observe in the data are only meaningful across large populations of Google search users.

Flu season is here, so avoid becoming part of our statistics and get a flu shot! And keep an eye on those graphs if you're curious to see how the flu season unfolds...

Update on 11/21: The team just published an academic paper in Nature, the international journal of science, explaining the science and methodology behind Flu Trends. Check it out for more information.

Posted by Jeremy Ginsberg and Matt Mohebbi, Software Engineers

Supporting U.S.-Chinese renewable energy collaboration

Jamie Yood — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 22:47:00 +0000

Google.org has given the U.S. National Academies a grant for $250,000 to develop recommendations for U.S.-Chinese cooperation on renewable electricity. The 18-month study is being funded in collaboration with other U.S. sponsors and the Chinese Academies of Sciences and Engineering.

The study has three goals:

Assess the resource potential in China and the U.S. for grid-scale electricity generation
Explore near-term market opportunities for mature technologies
Recommend priorities for enhanced collaboration, with a focus on cost reduction, improved efficiency and grid connectivity, and storage

The study will help national governments, their relevant agencies/ministries, and private industries assign priorities for meaningful cooperation in developing and utilizing electricity from renewable energy.

By focusing on grid-scale electricity generation, the study will give special attention to three major resources: wind, solar, and biomass. It will also consider technologies with longer time horizons, such as enhanced geothermal systems (EGS). It will build on a current U.S. National Academies study, which is assessing the technology risks and tradeoffs for various energy technologies. An understanding of the geographic, technical, and economic constraints will help guide Chinese decision makers to develop appropriate strategies to sustainably meet their energy needs. China’s manufacturing prowess, combined with its growing domestic market, provide opportunities to accelerate progress and reduce costs for renewable energy technologies.

The U.S. and China represent the world's two largest consumers of energy. Getting renewable electricity right for both countries will be a significant step to decelerating global climate change.

Posted by Jeffrey Greenblatt, Climate and Energy Technology Manager, Google.org