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Tag: Google.org

  • Google Gets Even More Charitable With One Today App

    Google.org is the search giant’s philanthropic arm that helps enforce positive change around the world. Now the company is helping non-profits and charities with a new mobile app.

    Google launched a new Android app – One Today – in beta today. The app features a new charity or non-profit everyday in which people can choose to donate a dollar to. The app is designed to increase the discoverability of lesser known charities by letting them tap into the millions of Android users around the world.

    The charities and non-profits currently featured in One Today include Ahsoka, an organization dedicated to teaching children empathy; Lewa Wildlife Conservancy, an organization dedicated to protecting rhinos; Trees for the Future, an organization dedicated to growing trees in Kenya; and more. Each organization requires a certain amount of money to reach their goal with each dollar donated going towards that goal so Google encourages donators to challenge their friends to donate as well to help the non-profits reach their goals.

    What’s interesting is that Google will be applying an algorithm to all of this. As you give to non-profits and charities, Google will curate a list just for you that includes charities that it thinks you’ll be interested in based upon your past history.

    One Today is a great example of harnessing the spending power of mobile users for good. Heavy mobile users spend at least a dollar every day on games, in-game add-ons and other apps. Tapping into those heavy spenders to give just one dollar a day can make a huge difference.

    This all sounds good, but you can’t just start giving money to charities just yet. One Today is available through a limited pilot in the U.S. for now so interested parties must request an invite to get the app. You can download it from the Play Store if you want, but it will be useless without the invite. The app will be available at a later date on iOS, Windows Phone and BlackBerry so generous minded folks without an Android device will still be able to give in the future.

    [h/t: Droid Life]

  • Google Provides Millions To Orgs For Internet Access In Emerging Markets

    Google announced today that its philanthropic arm, Google.org, is making new investments to improve Internet access in emerging markets.

    For one, it is providing $3.1 million to the Network Startup Resource Center (NSRC) to help get local network engineering expertise to universities and national research & education networks in Sub-Saharan Africa.

    “Through labs and a train-the-trainers program, NSRC will provide hands-on training on campus network planning, deployment, and management for over 600 university and NREN staff,” explains Google.org principal Jennifer Haroon. “Their work will bring the Internet to students and staff at over 50 institutions and increase network engineering know-how in Sub-Saharan Africa.”

    Additionally, Google.org is providing $1.3 million to the Internet Society (ISOC) to improve and create Internet Exchange Points (IXPs) in emerging markets.

    “IXPs play a big role in core Internet infrastructure, allowing Internet Service Providers to peer locally (and cheaply), which can lower end user costs, promote competition, and improve user experience,” says Haroon. “ISOC will create a toolkit for those who want to create and improve IXPs and build an industry portal to share IXP information and data.”

    According to Google, five billion people are currently without access to the Internet.

    Image: NSRC

  • Google Gives $2.65M Grant To Energy Foundation, Pushes For Policy Reform

    Google announced today that Google.org, the company’s philanthropic arm, is giving a $2.65 million grant to the Energy Foundation to support policy reforms that will “lead to more intelligent energy use”.

    Specifically, the grant will focus on electricity rates, access to electricity markets, and open data policies. The aim is for consumers to make more efficient use of their electricity, by shifting their use to times when its cheaper and producing their own on-site energy. They also want to see access for consumers and businesses so they can be compensated for cutting energy use at key times. Finally, with policy reforms, they want to see consumers given access to their own energy data for their own use and sharing with third parties of their choosing.

    “These policy reforms, coupled with the new technologies now being deployed on a large scale, can empower consumers to make smarter energy choices, improve real-time management of the electricity grid, and help facilitate more renewable energy all while lowering overall costs,” said Michael Terrell, Senior Policy Counsel, Engergy & Sustainability on the Google.org blog.

    “We hope this grant will help catalyze change and look forward to seeing progress in the years to come,” he adds.

    Last week, Google announced a $200 million investment into a wind farm in Texas, which the company says generates enough energy to power over 60,000 average U.S. homes.

  • Google Offers Resources, Person Finder For Flood In Philippines

    Flooding from a monsoon has terrorized the Philippines, and Google has set up a crisis response site with related resources. This includes a person finder, emergency contact information, maps showing shelters, donation centers and the flood extent, and news and updates related to the flooding.

    Google Maps .

    Google Maps .8 minutes ago

    New Google Crisis Response site for the Philippines features Google Person Finder, emergency contact information, a map of shelter locations and more. 

    View the site here:
    http://www.google.org/crisisresponse/2012-08-philippines-flood.html 

    #phalerts   #philippines  #phfloods 

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    Though Google is often accused of being “evil,” by those who question certain business practices related to its search engine (mostly because of the company’s famous “do no evil” mantra), I don’t think many would disagree that this is a decidedly un-evil action from the company’s philanthropic arm, Google.org.

    In fact, Google has offered similar resources for a number of natural disasters.

  • Mississippi Flood Photos from Google Maps Satellite Imagery

    Google has put together a whole bunch of data and imagery from the Mississippi floods on Google Maps.

    On Google’s Lat Long Blog, Pete Giencke of the Google Crisis Response Team writes:

    Emerging as one of the worst flooding events along the U.S. waterway in the past century, the Mississippi River floods of April and May 2011 have caused widespread destruction along the 2,300 mile river system. Historically high water levels from heavy rains and springtime snowmelt have provided no shortage of dramatic scenes — levees breached, downtown areas completely submerged, spillways opened, and more.

    The Google Crisis Response team has assembled a collection of flood data including satellite imagery for impacted cities along the river from GeoEye, flood extent and crest data forecasts from the US Army Corps of Engineers (kml) and NOAA’s National Weather Service (kml), and shelter locations from the American Red Cross (kml).

    The image at the top is Morganza, Louisiana on May 15. The following image is from Cairo, Illinois on May 8.

    Mississippi flood imagery

    Google Crisis Response is a project of Google.org, the company’s philanthropic arm. Its stated goal is to make critical info more accessible around natural disasters and humanitarian crises. Just this year it has provided data and resources for the earthquake/tsunami in Japan, the Christchurch earthquake, the Brazil floods and landslides, and Australian floods.

    Last year, it provided resources for the Pakistan floods, gulf oil spill, Qinghai earthquake, Chile earthquake, and Haiti earthquake. In 2009 it provided resources for Typhoon Morakot, the Lockheed Wildfire in Santa Cruz, the L’Aquila Earthquake, and Red River Floods.

    To see all available data for the Mississippi floods, simply search for “Mississippi flooding” on Google Maps. The data is also accessible in Google Earth via the “places” layer.

  • Google Partners With Biggest Energy Monitor Manufacturer

    The Google PowerMeter energy monitoring tool may be ready to go from interesting experiment to omnipresent product.  Google announced today that it’s entered a partnership with Current Cost, the largest global supplier of real-time displays that monitor energy usage.

    Neither organization is wasting time on paperwork or small-scale tests.  A post on the Official Google.org Blog explained, "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."

    The post then continued, "Devices that integrate with Google PowerMeter will first be available in North America, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand."  Plus, "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.’"

    These developments should put Google’s name in front of a lot more people on a regular basis, acting as free advertising.  They constitute fantastic PR, too, considering that Google PowerMeter promises to help folks both go green and save money.

    It’ll be very interesting to see what sort of adoption rate the PowerMeter/Current Cost technology achieves in the weeks and months ahead.