Plug-ins converge on Washington

6/16/2008 02:56:00 PM

Posted by Michael Terrell, Program Manager, Google.org


Last week Google.org and the Brookings Institution hosted a two-day conference in Washington to showcase plug-in electric vehicles and examine how the government can support their widespread adoption. An impressive lineup of Members of Congress, auto and utility executives, and technology experts spoke to a packed house about the potential of plug-ins to reduce oil dependence, lower the cost of driving, and fight global warming. Between panels, participants were treated to a display of the latest plug-in cars, including one of Google.org's RechargeIT cars, an electric sportscar, and Detroit's answer to high gas prices.

There appeared to be overwhelming agreement that government leadership is necessary to make this industry transformation a reality. (A recent poll commissioned by Google.org shows that voters agree.) A second theme was the need to modernize and green the power grid as the country moves toward electrifying transportation. But with gas prices at record highs and enthusiasm for the promise of electric cars growing, the feeling in Washington last week was that plug-ins' time has come.

Google.org announces investment in BrightSource Energy

5/14/2008 10:14:00 AM

Posted by Chris Busselle, Investments Manager and Kevin Chen, Green Energy Strategy


Today we are pleased to announce our participation in BrightSource Energy's $115 million venture financing with a $10 million equity investment as part of Google's RE<C initiative.

Solar thermal energy generation is one of the key emerging industries addressing the changing global climate and we are excited about both of our current investments in solar thermal technology -- BrightSource Energy and eSolar.

In addition to making investments in renewable energy startups, we plan to make grants to support the research and development of enabling technologies to help the solar thermal industry achieve larger scale and lower costs. We believe that by supporting researchers and entrepreneurs taking different, ambitious approaches and risks to generate clean energy, we can help to accelerate progress and increase the collective economic value of these new clean energy industries.

We are also looking for a Head of Renewable Energy to run our internal R&D effort, which is focused initially on solar thermal power, advanced wind technologies, and enhanced geothermal systems.

Team Aquaduct wins Innovate or Die competition

1/16/2008 05:57:00 PM

Posted by Dan Reicher, Google.org team

The contest said to "Innovate or Die" – and Team Aquaduct lives! In fact, the San Bruno, California team – consisting of John Lai, Adam Mack, Brian Mason, Eleanor Morgan, Paul Silberschatz – is living in grand (prize) style today after winning the first Innovate or Die Pedal-Powered Machine contest.

Team Aquaduct was declared the winner out of 102 entries by building a unique and functional solution to provide rural communities with access to clean water. The quintet will share the $5,000 grand prize, and each will receive a Specialized Globe bicycle – as will all five of the finalist runners-up (read more about all the winners).

The contest encouraged people to evaluate environmental issues and develop ingenious solutions surrounding climate change. Many original and inspiring ideas emerged; make sure to visit the YouTube Innovate or Die page to view all of the entries.

And here's the video for Team Aquaduct's winning pedal-powered water transportation and filtration vehicle:

Update on international climate negotiations

12/17/2007 09:05:00 AM

Posted by Karen Wickre, Google Blog Team

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change reached agreement in Bali on Saturday on a roadmap to reach a new international climate change agreement. Several Google.org team members attended and have shared their thoughts on some of the themes of the conference: putting the Bali roadmap in context, climate change and economic development, local government actions, and an introduction to the negotiations. We hope you find these writeups informative.

Voices without borders

12/07/2007 10:03:00 AM

Posted by Stephen Cho, Director, Product Management

Our lives are a fabric of overlapping stories: stories that are entirely unique, stories that are richly specific, stories that define who we are, where we have come from, what we believe in. And while each story is ultimately personal, we find across them the common themes of love and loss, adversity and triumph. Listening to others’ stories, we can better appreciate our shared humanity, and recognize that the stories and lives of everyone, everywhere matter.

In the U.S., the StoryCorps effort seeks to capture, preserve, and share the stories of ordinary people. These can be heard on Friday mornings on National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition.” Earlier this year, a number of interested Googlers met with Dave Isay, founder of StoryCorps, and also with leaders of One Laptop per Child (OLPC) and UNICEF. We realized that collectively, we had a unique and very real opportunity to leverage our respective strengths to take this idea global and to build together an ability to preserve and share online millions of personal stories from around the world.

With the good efforts of many people from each of the partners, we brought this inspiration to fruition over the last six months, and are excited to launch the Our Stories project and the www.ourstories.org site today. From the Google side, this grows out of our passion and commitment to make the experience and wisdom of these personal stories universally accessible to users around the world.

One Laptop per Child (www.laptop.org) is a heroic effort to help bring laptops to children in developing countries around the globe. (Google is a founding supporter of OLPC.) The distribution of OLPC laptops provides us with a platform to help preserve and extend the histories and identities of these traditional cultures. Children receive training on the Our Stories activity on the laptops, and record in their native languages the stories of their elders, their family members, and friends. These stories are then uploaded and shared through the website, where they can be found on a Google Map.

For this project, UNICEF’s in-country communications teams are working with the schools using OLPC laptops, and also with children using other recording devices, computers, and mobile phones to preserve and share stories online. An enthusiastic team of Google volunteers, including me, developed the laptop application, the interview guides based on the work of StoryCorps, and the website.

In the coming years, we hope to capture and share millions of stories, which we believe will help to preserve a truly global, multi-lingual history of humanity in the 21^st century. We also hope that, in some small measure, the ability to listen to the voices of others, to hear first hand about their hopes and challenges, contributes to a better understanding of our shared humanity across the many lines which often divide us.

Pour on the pedal power

9/24/2007 08:36:00 AM

Posted by Dan Reicher, Google.org

You may already know that we're working to reduce our impact on the environment in a number of ways. We opt for locally-grown food whenever possible in all of our cafes. We've covered our roofs with solar panels. We offer a rebate on our employees' fuel-efficient car purchases. When it comes to getting people to the office, we offer round-trip shuttle service to our Bay Area Googlers, as well as incentives for creative commuting, from walking to biking and even to kayaking (depending, of course, on where the office is).

Over at Google.org, the RechargeIT project is collecting data on plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) in an effort to accelerate commercial adoption of the cars as well as vehicle to grid technology. To the same end, we just issued a $10 million request for investment proposals to encourage companies and individuals to develop sustainable transportation solutions.

And now, we encourage all of you to get your wheels spinning to offset climate change. Google has teamed up with Specialized and Goodby Silverstein & Partners on the Innovate or Die Pedal-Powered Machine Challenge, to give you problem-solvers a chance to show us with a YouTube video how you harness pedal power in innovative ways. In January, you could win $5,000 in cash and Specialized Globe bikes to keep up your commitment. We're doing our bit to support new solutions. Are you feeling inspired?

A new Google.org RFP

9/12/2007 08:54:00 AM

Posted by Kirsten Olsen, Project Manager, Google.org

Today, Google.org has issued a request for proposals to the tune of $10 million in order to advance sustainable transportation solutions. We're inviting entrepreneurs and companies to show us their best ideas on how they can contribute to this important cause. We need catalytic investments to support technologies, products and services that are critical to accelerating plug-in vehicle commercialization.

There's more about this on the Google.org blog.

TechnoServe in Tanzania

6/11/2007 09:49:00 PM

Posted by Alex Mkindi, Tanzania Deputy Country Director, TechnoServe

Google.org supports efforts to promote economic development in developing countries. From time to time we invite guest bloggers from grantee organizations to tell us about their work.

Today in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, TechnoServe and Google.org launched a national business plan competition called "Believe, Begin, Become". The program is designed to help Tanzanian entrepreneurs develop skills, obtain seed or expansion capital and establish the networks that help transform their business ideas into successful enterprises that create jobs and other income sources that transform the lives of all Tanzanians.

We know, from our experience in Latin America and other African countries, what this kind of program can provide to entrepreneurs, who gain not only immediate benefits but a crucial business network that carries on long after the competition ends.

Our Organizing Committee colleague David Bulengo puts it this way: “The network of professionals and business leaders involved with Believe Begin Become will allow a new generation of young entrepreneurs the chance to learn from their experience and to create wonderful business opportunities.”

If you would like to get involved, please get in touch.

New team members for Google.org

4/06/2007 06:57:00 PM

Posted by Larry Brilliant, Executive Director,Google.org

It has been almost exactly one year since I began my work at Google.org. We've been in a bit of a quiet period during that time, meeting with foundation leaders, activists, NGOs, and scientists -- and Googlers -- from all over the world. My major task has been to build a world-class team, comprised of experienced Google managers paired with content experts from the fields of climate change, global public health and economic development to spearhead strategic initiatives for our philanthropic efforts.

There were four of us one year ago; today we are 25 people, and it gives me great pleasure to introduce a few of the newer members of our team. Dan Reicher, former Assistant Secretary of Energy for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, joins Aimee Christensen, Kirsten Olsen and Googler Ki Mun to work on our clean energy and climate change initiatives, policy and advocacy.

Mark Smolinski and Corrie Conrad join Googlers Katie Wurtz, Matt Waddell and Emily Delmont on our global public health team. Mark is an MD MPH and CDC-trained epidemiologist who worked at the Institute of Medicine and was formerly a Vice President at the Nuclear Threat Initiative, where he worked on a regional disease surveillance system. Corrie joins as a researcher focusing on preventable diseases afflicting the poor, coming from the Clinton Foundation, where she was working on its HIV/AIDS program in Rwanda.

Blaise Judja-Sato, Sonal Shah and Juliette Gimon join Googlers Rachel Payne, Meryl Stone, and Kim Thompson to guide our global economic development efforts. Born in Cameroon, Blaise was most recently President of the Nelson Mandela Foundation USA and the founder of VillageReach, a nonprofit that brings sustainable health care and essential services to more than 3.5 million people in Mozambique. Sonal is the co-founder of Indicorps, a non-profit offering one-year fellowships for people of Indian origin to work on development projects in India, and was previously a Vice President at Goldman, Sachs & Co. developing the firm's corporate citizenship and environmental strategies. Juliette is the chair of the Global Fund for Children and a trustee of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. She also serves on the board of the Synergos Institute and the advisory committees of Youth Philanthropy Worldwide and the Global Philanthropy Forum. And I'm particularly pleased that Sheryl Sandberg, VP of Online Sales and Operations and Google.org board member, has agreed to spend a significant amount of her time leading this effort.

Working across our content domains are Linda Segre, Gregory Miller, Jacquelline Fuller, Gillian Peoples, and Chris Busselle along with Googlers Brad Presner, Alan Louie and Tara Canobbio. Linda has responsibility for managing Google.org's project initiatives and operations within Google and is the person to talk to for any operational question about what we call "dotorg". Greg has responsibility for Google.org's investing and grant practices, legal affairs and strategic partnerships as well as the affairs of the Google Foundation. Before moving to California, Jacquelline served as Deputy Director of the Global Health program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where she managed Public Affairs and served as speechwriter for U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Dr. Louis Sullivan. Jacquelline, who also reports to Elliot Schrage, our VP of Global Communications and Public Affairs, in order to keep our PR efforts coordinated, will lead Google.org's advocacy and communications agenda, including efforts to influence public policy and media.

Also with us on sabbatical is Dr. Larry Simon. He comes to us on leave from Brandeis University's Heller School, where he is Professor and Director of the Sustainable International Development Graduate Programs and Associate Dean for Academic Programs. A specialist on poverty and vulnerability, Larry led Oxfam America's work in Central America and the Caribbean.

We are still looking for a few "good people," and welcome you to visit our updated list of open positions.

So where are we going now? Google.org is looking to better understand the inextricable linkages among climate change, global public health and economic development, and the impact of global warming on the poor. We want to fund projects that are making a difference and that are effective on a large scale.

We live in very complicated times. Global health, poverty, and climate are inextricably interrelated, and it is the poor of the world who bear the heaviest burden. Google.org is focused on learning initiatives that simultaneously fund good organizations working in these areas and provide insights into "big ideas" that could be scalable from these pilot projects.

During this year we anticipate making more significant grants and investments in support of our major initiatives. We hope to innovate both in what we do, and how we do it. We will report back to you via our site and on this blog regarding on these grants, investments and initiatives. Please look for additional updates as our work progresses.

Update: Awaiting approval from one of our consultants on his participation.

TechnoServe announces entrepreneur development program winners in Ghana

9/21/2006 05:15:00 PM

Posted by Nick Railston-Brown, Ghana Country Director, TechnoServe

Google.org and the Google Foundation support select organizations whose work addresses the challenges of global poverty in ways that are effective, sustainable and scalable. We invited TechnoServe, a 2006 Google Foundation grant recipient, to tell us more about the winners of its business plan competition and entrepreneurship development program in Ghana. The Google Foundation joins TechnoServe in sending heartfelt congratulations to all of the winners, finalists and participants in Believe Begin Become.

With financial support from the Google Foundation, TechnoServe (an economic development organization that applies business solutions to rural poverty) launched Believe Begin Become in Ghana in March. It's a program that identifies entrepreneurs whose businesses can create jobs and increase incomes. Ghana’s competition marks the beginning of TechnoServe’s multi-country rollout of these business plan competitions across Africa.

More than 300 of Ghana’s most promising entrepreneurs applied to the program, and 60 participated in the rigorous training and business plan development for this year’s competition. With strong support from over 70 local partners and 23 business development service providers, participants receive individual support from technical consultants and access to a business network that included more than 15 financial institutions.

The 20 finalists came from seven of Ghana's 10 regions and represent a diverse cross-section of the Ghanaian population. One-third of the finalists are women, and more than a third are from rural areas. They range in age from 20 to 55, and their business concepts are varied, from a web-based tour company to a high-tech environmentally friendly carwash. Each of the 20 finalists receive between $10,000 and $15,000 of individualized local business services. Each of the top 10 winners received $15,000 in seed capital to start or expand their businesses.

To the delight of Ghanaians, the top winners were announced at today’s awards ceremony in Accra. They include: Nicholas Vordzogbe, Isaac Bohulu, Maxwell Hammond, Paul Tetteh, Daniel Tamatey and Prince Yakubu. There are also three winners who presented the best business plans in three sectors: light manufacturing, services and agriculture. These sector winners, all women, are: Agnes Frimpong (Mixline Ventures – disposable baby diaper packaging and retailing), Joyce Opon (Adekyee Lodging and Conferencing – hospitality business) and Rita Asamoah (Kasdar Company Ltd – dried fruit processing). The top winner of the overall business plan competition went to the impressive Joseph Tackie, who is revolutionizing the meat processing business in Accra by introducing the highest standards of quality and new sales and distribution models.

Google.org provided support by sending Google employees to Ghana to serve as judges, guest lecturers and supporters of the participating entrepreneurs. Here are three reflections on their experience:

• "When I originally agreed to volunteer, I wasn't sure what contribution I was going to be able to make, trying to teach finance in a place where having access to electricity is as big a concern as running out of capital. But during my lecture, I could see how introducing some of the lessons we've learned at Google to these budding entrepreneurs in Ghana was really making a difference. It was definitely the best week of work I've ever had." – Albert Ching

• “It was refreshing to see the impact of TechnoServe’s results-driven approach to development. This approach seems more successful for generating skilled and unskilled jobs, income for the community, and in the long run, sustainable economic growth for developing nations. It can instill a sense of pride and achievement in people that can have tremendous effects - successful entrepreneurs can contribute to their communities and inspire others to achieve more.” – Jackie Bona

• “The highlight of my trip was the event celebrating the graduation from the core training of the business plan competition: the best 20 business plans that would receive some level of funding. I realized that the aim of supporting sustainable businesses and creating a local ecosystem to spur innovation and entrepreneurship was really happening.” – Marco Marinucci

Acumen Fund’s 2006 Fellows

6/02/2006 06:09:00 AM

Posted by Jacqueline Novogratz, CEO, Acumen Fund

Recently I wrote about the new Acumen Fund Fellows Program, with a call for applicants. We were overwhelmed by the response: Some 600 candidates from 52 countries applied for the opportunity to spend a year with Acumen Fund, first for training at our New York office and then working to support an investment in the field. The applicant pool demonstrates the powerful desire among the next generation of leaders to merge financial and analytical skills and business experience with the social, political and environmental needs of our world.

After an intense three-month selection process, we are extremely pleased to announce our eight 2006 Fellows, who hail from Africa, Asia, Europe and North America.

• Jocelyn Wyatt (U.S.) Previously India Country Director for Scojo Foundation
• Nadaa Taiyab (Sri Lanka) Former World Bank Consultant in Indonesia
• Keely Stevenson (U.S.) Created first online community for social entrepreneurs, Social Edge for the Skoll Foundation
• Fabrice Ndjodo (Cameroon) Former investment analyst with International Finance Corporation
• David Lehr (U.S.) Reuters Digital Vision Fellow, Stanford University
• Adrien Couton (France) Senior Associate at McKinsey & Company
• Eric Berkowitz (U.S.) Founder of management consulting firm ESB Partners
• Ayeleen Ajanee (Pakistan) Previously with Unilever, Pakistan

Our goal in creating the Fellows Program was to build an “entrepreneurial bench” of talented individuals for the social enterprise sector. Key to our ability in attracting and selecting these Fellows was the strong involvement of the Acumen Fund community. The support we’ve received from Google.org has been invaluable in launching the Fellows program, as well as in building our management capacity worldwide and in fueling new investments.

Again, we are delighted to be announcing this cohort of extraordinary individuals, who will be starting with us in September. Over the next few weeks, we will be posting more information on each Fellow on the Acumen Fund blog, as well as updates from each with observations and insights as they begin their work this fall. We hope to see the Fellows program serve as a model for developing leaders with the skills and moral imagination to build solutions from the perspective of the poor.

TechnoServe update: New program in Ghana

3/30/2006 02:11:00 PM

Posted by Nick Railston-Brown, Ghana Country Director, TechnoServe

The Google Foundation supports select organizations whose work addresses the challenge of global poverty in ways that are effective, sustainable, and scalable. From time to time we invite guest bloggers from grantee organizations to tell us about their work.

We’re pleased to report that TechnoServe and the Google Foundation are launching a national business plan competition this week in Ghana, called “Believe Begin Become.” It’s designed to help Ghanaian entrepreneurs develop skills, obtain seed or expansion capital and establish the networks that help transform their business ideas into successful enterprises. (Watch the video about the program.)

More and more, entrepreneurs are recognizing the value of gaining skills, tools and a strong business network, and we know from our experience in Latin America what this kind of competition can mean to entrepreneurs. The program helps establish a crucial business network that will carry on long after the competition ends.

Our Organizing Committee colleague Ishmael Yamson puts it this way: “There are many entrepreneurs out there with good ideas — but they need encouragement to translate those ideas into concrete activities. Believe Begin Become can help them to do that.”

Get in touch if you’d like to get involved.

Update: added link to Google Video at end of paragraph 1.

Google.org's new director

2/22/2006 08:43:00 AM

Posted by Sheryl Sandberg, VP, Global Online Sales & Operations

We are excited to announce the appointment of Larry Brilliant as executive director of Google.org. Google is extremely fortunate to have found in Dr. Brilliant the combination of experience in building and scaling successful programs and ventures in the fields of medicine, philanthropy and technology. His passion for making an impact by tackling some of the most difficult international health issues facing humanity is exactly what we hope he will bring to bear as he helps shape Google’s philanthropic mission and strategic goals.

Looking for a few good (Acumen Fund) Fellows

2/01/2006 08:04:00 AM

Posted by Jacqueline Novogratz, CEO, Acumen Fund

The Google Foundation supports select organizations whose work addresses the challenge of global poverty in ways that are effective, sustainable, and scalable. From time to time we invite guest bloggers from grantee organizations to tell their story. This is the second in a series of posts from Acumen Fund.

One of the lessons from Acumen Fund’s work is that people are as great a need as financial capital in building market-driven solutions to poverty. The world needs an "entrepreneurial bench” -- top talent with both the skills and the moral imagination to effect significant change. Which is why we're excited to announce the launch of the Acumen Fund Fellows Program. Our goal is to build a corps of leaders around the world with the imagination, skills and drive to add value to best-in-class organizations in both the social and private sectors.

The one-year, experience-based program begins first in New York, where fellows will build business skills, meet extraordinary leaders and grow their leadership abilities. Each Fellow will then spend nine months with a specific investment in the field, with a concrete set of deliverables. The program will finish with a final month in New York to share experiences and focus on potential job opportunities.

We are seeking extraordinary young professionals to make up our first cohort of Fellows. Applicants must apply by February 17. Fellows will be selected by mid-April, with the program beginning in September 2006.

We're extremely excited by the opportunity to lift a new generation of leaders, and will keep you posted on our progress.

TechnoServe comes to Google

1/30/2006 08:41:00 PM

Posted by Posted by Bruce McNamer, President and CEO, TechnoServe.org

The Google Foundation supports select organizations whose work addresses the challenge of global poverty in ways that are effective, sustainable, and scalable. From time to time we invite guest bloggers from grantee organizations to tell their story.

TechnoServe helps entrepreneurs in developing countries build successful small and medium enterprises (SMEs) that benefit the world’s poor. (Watch our video here.) We provide a hand up, rather than a handout.

Recently, I spent several hours with Googlers who wanted to know more about what TechnoServe is doing in West Africa. I couldn’t help but notice the great, positive energy among Google employees -- a sense that motivated, imaginative, smart people can change the world.

TechnoServe’s engagement with Google involves using business to improve the lives of the world’s poor. SMEs are a major driver of sustained economic growth, creating a ripple effect that creates jobs, boosts incomes and leads to improved social services. But even though they can help reduce poverty, SMEs are precisely what the developing world lacks. These countries are home to many visionary entrepreneurs who are capable of launching and growing successful businesses. But they need help – to make sure their business ideas make sense, to plan and manage their enterprises, to find markets and financing, and to overcome technical challenges.

That’s where TechnoServe comes in. Since its founding, we have helped to create or improve more than 1,200 businesses, benefiting millions of people in 23 countries. We identify entrepreneurial men and women and then guide them in planning, marketing, operating and expanding businesses that are likely to succeed and help the poor. We then leverage these lead entrepreneurs to replicate and/or scale up their businesses and grow competitive, self-sustaining industries. Where necessary, we also tackle constraints in the industries’ enabling environments.

To complement all of this, we also run programs that promote a culture of entrepreneurship. One activity is business plan competitions, which help entrepreneurs turn good ideas into solid businesses. We have run these in Latin America and are now launching them in Africa. And that’s where the Google Foundation comes in: it’s helping us run a business plan competition in Ghana this year. All qualified entrants will come away with valuable business training. The winners will also receive vouchers for aftercare services to help them launch or expand their businesses, and 10 winners will also receive cash.

We’re looking forward to having Googlers actively engaged in this project. Our two entrepreneurially-focused organizations have joined forces, which we believe will lead to sustainable solutions for poverty alleviation.

Same-Language Subtitling

12/12/2005 03:24:00 PM

The Google Foundation supports selected organizations whose work addresses the challenge of global poverty in ways that are effective, sustainable, and scalable. From time to time we will invite guest bloggers from grantee organizations to tell their story.

Recently, the Google Foundation awarded PlanetRead a grant to increase the number of SLS programs available, and Google is also supporting PlanetRead with free advertising through the Google Grants program and content hosting on Google Video.

When a billion people are illiterate (two-thirds of them women), and nearly half of the world lives on less than $2 a day, we believe it is important to examine the link between literacy and poverty. We are excited by the prospect of helping not hundreds, but millions, of people gain access to regular reading practice and improve literacy where it is needed most by supporting organizations like PlanetRead. - Google.org team

Posted by Dr. Brij Kothari, President, PlanetRead

My organization, PlanetRead, works in Mumbai and Pondicherry, India. We have developed a “Same-Language Subtitling” (SLS) methodology, which provides automatic reading practice to individuals who are excluded from the traditional educational system, or whose literacy needs are otherwise not being met. This is an educational program rooted in mass media that demonstrates how a specific literacy intervention can yield outstanding, measurable results, while complementing other formal and non-formal learning initiatives of the government, private sector, and civil society. We are fortunate to have just been selected as a Google Foundation grantee.

More than 500 million people in India have access to TV and 40 percent of these viewers have low literacy skills and are poor. Through PlanetRead’s approach, over 200 million early-literates in India are getting weekly reading practice from Same Language Subtitling (SLS) using TV. The cost of SLS? Every U.S. dollar covers regular reading for 10,000 people – for a year.

I hit upon this idea in 1996 through a most ordinary personal experience. While taking a break from dissertation writing at Cornell University, I was watching a Spanish film with friends to improve my Spanish. The Spanish movie had English subtitles, and I remember commenting that I wished it came with Spanish subtitles, if only to help us grasp the Spanish dialogue better. I then thought, ‘And if they just put Hindi subtitles on Bollywood songs in Hindi, India would become literate.’ That idea became an obsession. It was so simple, intuitively obvious, and scalable in its potential to help hundreds of millions of people read -- not just in India, but globally. So you can see how it works, we’ve uploaded some folk songs using SLS into Google Video. And we've uploaded other examples there as well.

The Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad and its Center for Educational Innovation helped me pursue research on SLS. In the beginning we showed Bollywood songs with and without SLS to people in villages, slums and railway stations and video-recorded their reactions. We then piloted SLS in schools and on TV in Gujarat state while measuring reading improvement. This early work convinced us that we not only had an idea that would provide automatic reading practice, it was hugely popular (later, the ratings demonstrated this). After five challenging years of developing and strengthening the program, SLS went on national TV throughout India. On the PlanetRead website, there are some video clips of SLS featured in a Bollywood film. Click on the “Video” link on the upper right to see the reaction of Indian villagers to the SLS experience.

There’s more on the effectiveness of this approach in an article in the MIT journal Information Technologies and International Development (it's a PDF file).

The idea of SLS tends to divide people into two camps – those who think it’s too simple to achieve anything, and those who understand that its simplicity and ability to integrate into popular culture can fundamentally alter the approach to the massive problem of low literacy. Now, a decade later, it is clear that the challenge of implementing SLS is changing minds used to resource-hungry approaches to literacy.

Fortunately, in India, several senior policy-makers in broadcasting and education are championing SLS. We feel it could be a breakthrough in how we approach literacy: SLS is inclusive, accessible, and builds upon popular songs and Bollywood films to create an enjoyable and effective learning experience. With support from Google, we have the opportunity to reshape the literacy landscape in India, home to a third of the world’s non-literates and early-literates. If this experiment succeeds in India, SLS could even go global!

About Google.org

10/11/2005 09:02:00 PM

Posted by Sheryl Sandberg, VP, Global Online Sales & Operations

When we told prospective shareholders about Google and how we wanted to do business, we said that we hoped our philanthropic efforts could some day have a greater impact than Google itself. We committed one percent of our profits and equity toward that vision. We’ve looked closely at how those resources can have the greatest impact and found that there are many creative and effective ways to make a difference. So we’ve taken time to investigate, learn and imagine. And while we are still actively engaged in the learning process, we’ve made enough progress that we thought it was a good time to give an update on our plans.

As our founders said in our 2004 annual report, we’re taking a broad approach. We’re calling the umbrella under which we’re putting all of these efforts Google.org. It will include the work of the Google Foundation, some of Google’s own projects, as well as partnerships and contributions to for-profit and non-profit entities. Here are some things we're already working on:

We established the Google Foundation, funded it with $90 million and have made a few initial commitments. We've contributed $5 million to support Acumen Fund, a non-profit venture fund that invests in market-based solutions to global poverty. Acumen Fund supports entrepreneurial approaches to delivering affordable goods and services for the 4 billion people in the world who live on less than $4 a day.

We’re also working with TechnoServe to build small businesses that create jobs and promote economic growth in the developing world. With TechnoServe, we are funding an entrepreneurship development program in Ghana that includes a business plan competition and seed capital for the winners to build their businesses.

In addition, we are working with Alix Zwane and Edward Miguel of UC Berkeley and Michael Kremer of Harvard University to support research in western Kenya to identify ways to prevent child deaths caused by poor water quality.

Google.org also includes projects we manage on our own, using Google talent, technology and other resources. An example is the Google Grants program, which gives free advertising to selected nonprofits. To date, Google Grants has donated $33 million in advertising to more than 850 nonprofit organizations in 10 countries.

Current Google Grants participants include:
Make-a-Wish Foundation - grants the wishes of children with life-threatening medical conditions. More than 25 percent of their online donations are made as a result of their Google ads.

Doctors Without Borders - delivers emergency medical aid to people affected by armed conflict, epidemics, disasters, and exclusion from health care in nearly 70 countries. Google Grants has assisted them with recruiting experienced doctors and nurses for their field programs, which has helped them increase applications by 30 percent this year.

Grameen Foundation USA - uses microfinance and innovative technology to help the world's poorest people escape poverty. Google Grants has helped them attract donors and broaden their newsletter subscriber base.

With Google.org, we’ll also support entities with strong social missions which use market-based solutions for sustainable economic development. One example is our recent donation of $2 million to the One Laptop Per Child program.

While the results we get are more important than the amount of money we give, we want to be clear about how we’re going to keep our “one percent” commitments. There are two parts: equity and profit. For the one percent of equity, we have committed one percent of the outstanding shares that resulted from our initial public offering – 3 million shares. We’re going to donate and invest this amount over a period of as much as 20 years. Because it is based on stock, the dollar value of this commitment will rise and fall with our stock price

We’ll follow through on the other commitment – one percent of profit – by taking one percent of each year’s profits and donating and investing that too. Our first step in meeting these commitments includes a $90 million cash donation to the Google Foundation and a commitment of up to $175 million over three years across our other Google.org efforts. We don’t expect to make further donations to the Foundation for the foreseeable future.

As Larry and Sergey said in their Founders’ Letter, “We hope someday this institution may eclipse Google itself in terms of overall world impact by ambitiously applying innovation and significant resources to the world's problems."

We feel fortunate to have the opportunity to contribute our resources, talent, energy, and passion helping to solve some of the world’s most pressing problems. We will provide you with updates as our work progresses.