Google Data

At Google, we’re passionate about introducing students to open source software development. Since 2005, the Open Source Programs team at Google has worked with over 10,000 students and over 485 open source projects in a variety of fields to create more code for us all.

For students ages 13-17 interested in writing code that could make a difference in the world, we're excited to tell you about a program designed to introduce you to open source software development: Google Code-in.


December 1, 2014 kicks off the fifth consecutive year of this international, online contest designed to introduce pre-university students to the world of open source development. Open source projects are about more than just coding, and this contest highlights a variety of ways to contribute to open source projects.

You might be thinking to yourself:

• What is open source?
• What types of work do open source projects do?
• I’ve only taken one computer science class, can I contribute to an open source project?
• I’m not really into coding, how else can I contribute to open source?
• I’ve never participated in open source or an online contest before, can someone help guide me?
• Open source sounds fun, how can I get started?

If you’ve wondered about any of these questions and are a pre-university student (age 13-17) then we hope you'll join in the fun and excitement of the Google Code-in contest starting Monday, December 1st.

For seven weeks from early December to mid January, the Google Code-in contest will have students working with up to 12 selected open source projects on a variety of tasks. The different categories of tasks that students will be able to work on include:

1. Code: writing or refactoring
2. Documentation/Training: creating/editing documents and helping others learn more
3. Outreach/research: community management, outreach/marketing, or studying problems and recommending solutions
4. Quality Assurance: testing and ensuring code is of high quality
5. User Interface: user experience research or user interface design and interaction

For more details on how you can sign up and participate, please visit the Frequently Asked Questions page on the Google Code-in site. On November 12, we'll also announce the open source organizations that will be participating in the contest.

We look forward to welcoming hundreds of students from around the world into the open source family again this year, and hope you'll be a part of it.


Posted by Stephanie Taylor, Open Source Programs

At Google, we are passionate about introducing students to open source software development. Since 2005, the Open Source Programs team at Google has worked with over 10,000 students and over 485 open source projects in a variety of fields to create more code for us all.

Ready for more holiday treats? Tune in to the DoubleClick Advertisers blog tomorrow for even more tips for media agencies, and sign up to receive our newsletter for regular product updates: http://goo.gl/p03ZMS

When entrepreneurs are empowered to dream big and take action, they’re capable of tackling significant problems—and they can be an important pillar of a thriving economy. As a former startup ourselves, entrepreneurship is still part of Google's DNA. That’s why two and a half years ago we opened our first Campus in London, a space designed to help entrepreneurs learn, connect, and build companies.

Campus is a hub for the startup community, where entrepreneurs can fuel up on caffeine at the Campus Cafe, gather in our free event space, rent coworking space, and connect with mentors, accelerators and Google teams. So far, we’ve seen great results at our first locations, Campus London and Campus Tel Aviv. In 2013, startups at Campus London raised more than $54 million in funding and created more than 570 jobs. They’ve also created great products and services that are reaching consumers and customers. For example, Borrow My Doggy, which began at a Startup Weekend in London and also received funding from Seedcamp, one of our partners, lets dog owners with limited time for walking share their pooches with city dwellers who can't have their own. Eyetease, which created a HD digital taxitop and high-speed WiFi system for taxis, has been a resident at Campus since their launch and have grown their revenue 100X during that time. In Tel Aviv, local community groups have hosted more than 1,000 events at Campus (and consumed 6,000+ slices of free pizza!).

Building on the success of these spaces, this year we've announced new Campuses in Warsaw, Poland, São Paulo, Brazil, and Seoul, South Korea. And today, we’re welcoming another new member to the Campus family: Campus Madrid. We’re excited to open doors in all these new locations in 2015. Each of these cities has a growing startup community, as well as a Google office so our teams can get directly involved with supporting Campus. We hosted more than 1,000 Google mentoring sessions through our Campus Office Hours Program in London, and are planning similar efforts at our other locations.
We’re also trying out new programs at all our locations to help even more aspiring entrepreneurs succeed. For example, Campus for Moms is a baby-friendly startup school for new moms on maternity leave. CampusEDU offers courses for founders both in person and streamed for free online, like this Friday’s session, Hiring Rockstars and Keeping Them.

As with all our Google for Entrepreneurs programs, we hope Campus will provide a home for entrepreneurs and startup founders, and put resources at their fingertips to help them build transformative products and companies around the world.

Posted by Mary Grove, Director of Google for Entrepreneurs

Posted by Leslie Yeh Johnson, University Relations

(cross-posted on the Google for Education blog)

College students are more interested than ever in studying computer science. There has been an unprecedented increase in enrollment in Computer Science undergraduate programs over the past six years. Harvard University’s popular introductory CS course CS50 has recently claimed the spot as the most enrolled course on campus. An astounding 50% of Harvey Mudd’s graduates received engineering degrees this year. However, while the overall number of students in introductory computer science courses continue to climb, the number of students who go on to complete undergraduate degrees in this field, particularly among women and under-represented minorities, does not match this increase in individual course enrollment (2013 Taulbee Survey).

Recent findings show that while students may begin a CS degree program, retaining students after their first year remains an issue. Research indicates that one of the strongest factors in the retention of students in undergraduate CS degrees is early exposure to engaging courses and course material, such as high quality assignments that are meaningful and relevant to the student’s life or classroom activities that encourage student-to-student interaction. When an instructor or department imbeds these practices into the introductory CS classroom, students remain excited about CS and are more likely to complete their undergraduate CS degree.

At Google we believe in the importance of preparing the next generation of computer scientists. To this end, we’ve created the CS Engagement Small Grants Program to support educators teaching introductory computer science courses in reaching their engagement and retention goals. We’ll give unrestricted gifts of $5,000 to the selected applicants’ universities, towards the execution of engaging CS1 or CS2 courses in the 2014-2015 school year. We encourage educators who are teaching CS1 and CS2 courses at the post-secondary level to apply to the Google CS Engagement Small Grants Program. Applications will be accepted through November 15, 2014 and will be evaluated on an ongoing basis. If you’re interested in applying, please check out the Call for Proposals.

By +Wayne Piekarski, Developer Advocate, Android Wear

For developers using the Android Wear APIs in Google Play services, it is important to correctly handle all the error conditions that can occur on legacy phones or when users do not have a wearable device. This post describes the best practice in handling error conditions with the GoogleApiClient connect() method. If you do not implement this correctly, your existing application functionality may fail for non-wearable users.

There are two ways that the connect() method can return ConnectionResult.API_UNAVAILABLE for wearable support with Google Play services:

• When requesting Wearable.API on any device running Android 4.2 (API level 17) or earlier
• When requesting Wearable.API when no Android Wear companion application or device is available

Google Play services provides a wide range of useful features such as integration with Google Drive, Wallet, Google+, and Google Play games services (just to name a few!). During initialization, the application uses GoogleApiClient.Builder() to make calls to addApi() to request the features that are necessary. The connect() method is then called to establish a connection to the Google Play services library, and it can return error codes if any API is not available.

If you request multiple APIs from a single GoogleApiClient, such as Drive and Wear, and the Wear support returns API_UNAVAILABLE, then the Drive request will also fail. Since Wear support is not guaranteed to be available on all devices, you should make sure to use a separate client for this request.

The best practice for developers is to implement two separate GoogleApiClient connections:

• One connection for Android Wear support, and
• A separate connection for all of the other APIs you need

This will ensure that the functionality of your app will remain for all users, whether or not there is wearable support available on their devices, as well as on older legacy devices.

It's important that you implement this best practice immediately, because your current users may be affected if not handled correctly in your app.

Diseases, protests and DUIs? Search wasn’t a pretty place this week.

Somebody call a doctor
This week, searchers went into a frenzy following news that someone had been diagnosed with Ebola on U.S soil—causing a surge in interest for the deadly disease. While this hopefully will remain an isolated case in the U.S., the virus is taking its toll on the people in West Africa. The region is experiencing its worst outbreak in history, with more than 3,000 people dying from the illness.

An indefinite break
It was a bad day at the office for several prominent figures this week as they were asked to step down from their positions. After a couple of bizarre security breaches like allowing the President to share an elevator with an armed man or when a person literally jumped the White House fence and walked inside the building (knife in tow), Secret Service director Julia Pierson handed in her resignation.

American Olympian and swimming icon Michael Phelps was arrested on charges of a DUI after he was pulled over for going 84 mph in a 45 mph zone. Amidst a firestorm of bad behavior from athletes, some are calling for USA Swimming to suspend Phelps, who had a previous DUI in 2004, for at least a year. Across the Pacific, students in Hong Kong staged massive demonstrations against the country’s Chief Executive, C.Y. Leung, seeking to oust him from office. The government has proposed talks with the students in order to calm the chaos, but so far Leung has refused to quit.


Crossovers
Searchers were saying “what the?” this week as we were hit with a couple of crossovers on TV and in music. First up, two classic American cartoons came together for one night to give viewers double the laughter. The famed Simpsons appeared in an episode of Family Guy. Unfortunately, the laugh track was off this time around and the show received negative reviews, perhaps thanks to an awkward seven-minute fight scene between Peter and Homer (d’oh!). And we heard a new take on a popular tune as “The Queen of Soul” Aretha Franklin made a breathtaking cover of pop-soul star Adele’s song "Rolling in the Deep." Listen to it and prepare to have your mind blown.

Who’s got game?
The MLB playoffs are in full, um, swing. The Kansas City Royals and their fans had something to cheer about as team made the playoffs for the first time in 29 years, ending the longest postseason drought in North American sports history—and then eliminating Oakland in an extra-inning thriller. And, after an 8-0 stomping of the Pittsburgh Pirates behind ace Madison Bumgarner, the San Francisco Giants are hoping to keep their every-other-year World Series streak alive.

Tip of the week
It’s beginning to look a lot like winter. Before you head out, make sure to check the weather by saying, “Ok Google, what’s the weather like outside?” and you’ll be ready to go—mittens or umbrella in hand.

Posted by Jenise Araujo, Communications Associate, who searched for [hypochondriac] and [one day you're in, the next day you're out].

The annual Grace Hopper Conference is just a few days away! Before the festivities officially kick off, we’re shining the spotlight on several Google Women Engineers (GWEs) who have been nominated by Googlers for the great work that they do and the contributions they have made as women in the tech industry.

For our last spotlight, we’re featuring Emily Bernier.


Can you share with us your role at Google?
I joined Google Cambridge in February 2013 as a software engineer on the Android for Education team. I have a dual background in developmental psychology and computer science, so I was psyched to have the chance to combine both interests.

My team is tackling the thorny problem of making an effective, easy-to-use tablet solution for schools. I write code across many different pieces of the Android OS; one of my first projects was writing a tool to let IT admins and teachers quickly set up hundreds or thousands of tablets by passing configuration information via NFC. Doing things at Google-scale is pretty awe-inspiring; there’s nothing quite like seeing a random teacher use an app you’ve created, or knowing that schools across the country are using code you wrote (eeee!). When I’m not coding, I work with our product management and UX teams on some of our difficult big-picture questions, and visit schools and ed-tech conferences to learn more about the growing role of technology in learning.

What do you enjoy most about being a woman in tech (or at Google specifically)?
I spend a fair amount of time with our student outreach and recruiting teams. Google is hugely committed to supporting diversity in tech and engineering, and to growing the next generation of computer scientists. Numbers we published earlier this year demonstrate how far these efforts have to go, but the creativity and enthusiasm of everyone working in this space is pretty inspiring.

What are you looking forward to most at the Grace Hopper Conference?
I’m super excited to attend the Grace Hopper Conference for the first time, and to meet more of the brilliant, phenomenal women of the computing community!

To follow the fun at Grace Hopper, check out Google Students on Google+ and Twitter using our #GoogleGHC14 hashtag.

Posted by Shawn Dye, University Programs Team

For our Google Summer of Code wrap-up post this week, we put the spotlight on Worldforge, a project that provides tools to allow users to build their own virtual worlds.

Worldforge had three Google Summer of Code (GSoC) students this year. Now that the 2014 program has ended we’d like to highlight these three students and the work they've done.

Céline Noël, Smartbody integration in Ember.js
Céline worked on integrating the Smartbody system into Ember. Smartbody is a comprehensive system for simulating human behavior with all of the subtle body movements that natural motion entails.

Since Smartbody is a large system dealing with many different facets of human motion, a large part of the work done by Céline involved integration with Ember on the code level. Further work was then done modifying the Ember structure so that human entities can use Smartbody for their underlying animations and movement.

Celine’s work can be seen on Github. It will be merged into the Ember master branch in the coming months.

Péter Szücs, Android support for Ember.js
Péter worked on adding support for Android to Ember, including multi-touch support. The main difficulty initially was getting the Worldforge stack to build for Android using the existing Autoconf build system. Péter has made changes to most of the Worldforge libraries, as well as to the Hammer build tool. Hammer now has built in support for cross platform builds and will set up an Android toolchain by itself.

We expect to provide Android builds of Ember in the next couple of months. Keep an eye on the Worldforge news page for more information about Android support. In the coming weeks, we'll start moving Péter's work into the main repositories.

Yaroslav Taben, Cyphesis Entity filters
Yaroslav worked on adding entity filtering to Cyphesis, the server for Worldforge. Yaroslav’s project can basically be described as "functional filtering of entities using a query language". It is very useful for things like AI code since authors then can more easily write rules for entity behaviour using a query-like language.

Yaroslav worked on both defining the rules for the query language and implementing this in an efficient way in the code. We used an iterative process for the language definition, where we tried out various syntaxes until we found one that fit our specific use case best.

The code can be seen on Github and we plan to start integrating it into Cyphesis in the coming weeks.

All of our students worked hard during the summer and produced excellent results. We're very happy to have been a GSoC participating organization and hope to do so again next year.

By Erik Ogenvik, Organization Administrator, Worldforge

Security and privacy are top priorities for Google. We’ve invested a lot in making our products secure, including strong SSL encryption by default for Search, Gmail and Drive. We’re working to further extend encryption across all our services, ensuring that your connection to Google is private.

From Google Glass to Project Loon, Adwords to Docs, our interns have the opportunity to work on some of Google’s most cutting edge and innovative projects. Interns also work across sales and other business functions, bringing a fresh perspective to the work done at Google. To show you just how much of an impact interns make and to highlight their unique experiences, we’re bringing you a special blog series: Google Intern Insights.

Meet Elizabeth—a sophomore majoring in Computer Science at Stanford University. She participated in our Summer Trainee Engineering Program (STEP) in Zurich this past summer on the Google Security Team. Among her many responsibilities as a Google intern, Elizabeth, along with another intern, launched a Google Women in Engineering (GWE) Mentorship program. Read on to learn more about Elizabeth.


Tell us one fun, outlandish fact about you!
I played football when I was four years old. I was a pretty incredible running back, if I say so myself.

What has been your path to your current internship at Google?
I actually just started coding less than a year ago. I took a few classes in college and found that Computer Science was pretty fascinating to me, and programming appealed to my extremely logical yet creative approach to problem solving. I looked into internship opportunities with various tech companies and was pleasantly surprised to receive an offer to work for Google in the Zurich, Switzerland office!

I was extremely excited to have the chance to work for Google and visit Europe for the first time. I’d been very inspired by Google’s incredible commitment to innovation especially when applied to a social cause. They’ve been leaders in the movement towards bringing more diversity into the tech industry and are working on projects that are centered on increasing accessibility for users in developing countries. Google is making an impact in fields I deeply care about which made it such an appealing company to work for. And having the opportunity to work on a diverse team, with people from so many different countries and cultural backgrounds, has been an invaluable experience.

What’s the best part about working with your team?
Objectively speaking, my team is awesome. Everyone is really close, so much so that we’ve all eaten practically every meal together at Google this summer. I’m amazed at how well my teammates work together professionally and how many of them have formed close personal relationships with one another. Our entire team just went together to Mallorca, Spain, which goes to show just how much fun we have together inside and outside of the office.


What’s something you’ve accomplished during your internship (thus far) that you’re most proud of? Or something you’re looking forward to working on?
One of my favorite moments was getting to present my project at the EMEA Tech Intern Summit. I was given the opportunity to share my project with interns from all over EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa). However, I’m extremely proud of the women’s mentorship program that I co-founded and launched this summer.

Can you tell us a little bit more about the Google Women in Engineering (GWE) Mentorship Program you launched?
I, along with Alice Chang, a fellow intern, noticed a need for a program that would connect Nooglers and interns to the women’s network and community within Google Zurich. Working at Google is great in that if you ever have an idea or something you’re passionate about, everyone encourages you to pursue it wholeheartedly and see where you can take it.

We were able to talk to senior-level Googlers involved in diversity initiatives about our project proposal and to discuss how to go about designing such a program. We then did everything we needed to do to get the program off the ground: recruit experienced mentors from diverse professional backgrounds in Google Zurich, create a formal curriculum for the program, organize the dates, and match all of the mentors and mentees to ensure a successful and rewarding relationship. We are just about to complete our first mentorship cycle which we’re incredibly excited about.

Ideally, how would you expand this program?
We’ve contacted ambassadors in two other Google offices and we’re working with them to implement the program in their locations as well. We’re hoping to expand the program to all of the Google offices, and increase the number of Nooglers worldwide who are able to cycle through the program.

What impact has this mentorship program had so far that you’ve noticed?
So far, the program has definitely cultivated a greater community between experienced female Googlers and Nooglers like us! We had an amazing luncheon with all of our participants. It was a lot of fun to discuss the importance of mentorship and to initiate conversations about how to succeed as women in the tech industry.

What does “being Googley” mean to you?
Being Googley means celebrating your own diversity. It means embracing who you are—academically, professionally, culturally, and personally—and contributing your individuality to a diverse team. You are an incredibly unique, weird, and valuable individual. Own it, welcome the uniqueness of everyone around you, and come together to spark innovation.

If you could give one piece of advice to potential student applicants, what would it be?
Candidates shouldn’t be discouraged if they don’t have as much experience as others. Take it from someone who just started out programming, and who has definitely felt that overwhelming feeling when it seems like everyone around you has been coding since they were in diapers. If you work really hard and are willing to take on the pretty steep learning curve, you can be just as successful as a software engineer at a company like Google.

Outside of being a Google intern, what are some fun things you do outside the classroom/office throughout the year?
At school I’m involved in the CS 198 Section Leading program which is an opportunity for undergraduates to help teach introductory computer science courses. I also work with the Black Student Union and Society of Black Scientists and Engineers which promote community, achievement, and support among African American students within Stanford and in the surrounding communities. Otherwise, I love to play beach volleyball, read, and binge-watch TV shows.

Best conversation in a MK/cafe/elevator?
The best conversation I remember having was when I was eating dinner in Milliways Cafe and casually talking to a woman who was sitting across the table with her kids. Later on that night, I realized that I’d had dinner with Susan Wojcicki! Not recognizing her kept me from fangirling so it was probably for the better.

Dream Google office to visit?
So far I’ve been to the Mountain View, New York, Zurich, and London offices. I’d love to see the office in Sydney, Australia though!

Best intern event you’ve attended?
Definitely Noogler Prom. Nothing beats fancy dresses paired with Noogler hats.

Our technical internships for summer 2015 are now open! Apply here: http://goo.gl/7nmfXO

Additionally, follow Google Students on Google+ and use the hashtag #googleinterns to keep up with Intern Insights.

Posted by Maggie Hohlfeld, University Programs Team

The annual Grace Hopper Conference is just one week away! Before the festivities officially kick off, we’re shining the spotlight on several Google Women Engineers (GWEs) who have been nominated by Googlers for the great work that they do and the contributions they have made as women in the tech industry.

Today, we’re featuring Elynn Lee.


Can you share with us your role at Google?
I am a Master’s student in Computer Science at the University of Texas at Austin. I was in the Turing Scholars honors program and did my thesis in Computer Science Education. I have interned twice at Google as a Software Engineering (SWE) intern in the New York office on the Google Forms team. Working as a SWE intern meant that I got to develop cool new features for Google Forms.

What do you enjoy most about being a woman in tech (or at Google specifically)?
As a woman in tech, I have always been encouraged to dream. I’ve thought of the endless opportunities in the tech industry as a chance to create my own path. Though many problems seemed too hard to solve, the support of the awesome tech community motivated me to be persistent and always reach for the stars. I’ve had the privilege of working with incredibly passionate Googlers who are truly changing the world. They taught me to be confident in my ability to make important contributions to the product and to not be afraid to be bold. Even as an intern, I was always a part of the conversation and encouraged to share my vision. At Google, I felt like I was really making a difference.

What are you looking forward to most at the Grace Hopper Conference?
At Grace Hopper, I'm looking forward to being inspired by the tech talks and connecting with other women in tech! It’s exciting to reconnect with friends and meet new people. I love learning about all of the ways that women are changing, improving, and developing the world around us.

To follow the fun at Grace Hopper and the lead-up to the celebration, check out Google Students on Google+ and Twitter using our #GoogleGHC14 hashtag. Stay tuned for more GWE spotlights here on our blog.

Posted by Shawn Dye, University Programs Team