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Focusing on diversity
June 30, 2016
It’s been two years since we first shared our workforce demographics and helped spark a conversation about the need to improve
diversity at Google
and across the tech industry. Today we’re updating
google.com/diversity
with our 2015 demographics, and sharing some areas where we’ve seen progress in building a more diverse and inclusive Google.
More women in technical and leadership roles
Women now comprise 31 percent of all Googlers, and we’ve seen strong growth of women in technical and leadership roles. Similar to last year, one in five of our technical hires in 2015 were women, helping bring the total number of women in technical roles from 18 to 19 percent. Additionally, women now hold 24 percent of leadership roles across Google—up from 22 percent.
Overall hiring progress
For the first time this year, we’re sharing the percentage of our hires who are Black and Hispanic. In 2015, our hiring for Black, Hispanic, and female Googlers grew faster than our current demographic representation for each of these groups. And our Hispanic Googlers in technical roles increased from 2 to 3 percent.
This data reflects the gender composition of Google’s global technical workforce and the race & ethnicity composition of Google’s U.S. workforce as of January 1, 2016. For more stats, visit google.com/diversity.
Building an Inclusive Culture
Hiring is important, but it’s equally important to make workplaces inclusive, fair and supportive for all employees. We’re continuing to build a culture where Googlers can grow, thrive and want to stay. We want to build a place where everyone feels comfortable sharing ideas and opinions—and empowered to grow their careers.
We check and recheck processes like promotion and performance reviews to make sure they’re producing equitable outcomes, and address any gaps we find. For example, Googlers in engineering or product management roles are able to nominate themselves for promotion, and in 2010 we discovered that women in technical roles were less likely than men to self-nominate. We found that with a
small nudge
—emailing these findings to all technical Googlers—the rate of women self-nominating went up and now the gap between men and women has closed.
Compensation is another example. We’ve long had
gender pay equity in our workforce
, and we recently shared
our approach to compensation
with the hope that other companies will adopt similar fair pay practices.
We also continue
to invest in our unconscious bias trainings
. Over 65 percent of Googlers have participated in our unbiasing workshops, and all new Googlers take the workshop as part of their orientation. We’ve shared these materials and research on our platform
re:Work with Google
so anyone from any industry can create unbiasing trainings for their team.
We saw encouraging signs of progress in 2015, but we’re still far from where we need to be. To learn more about our diversity and inclusion efforts, hear from leaders across Google:
Posted by Nancy Lee, Vice President, People Operations
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQZiCaZ_ZGaJTNo2SCvjwdS0Zzv__NgSgv-i7GPA4C8KVjiYdAhL5EH_y8mylhCWY0pk5PYfaBE1Ez1bT33WMeRGTHhC0x7hLIr-DSSpczy5-ocC8c46IZglRs1CYaGjrQR7Rs/s320/Diversity.jpg
Supporting Bay Area nonprofits focused on homelessness
June 29, 2016
“How many homeless people are in San Francisco?” “How do people become homeless?” “How can I help homeless people?”
These are just some of the questions people ask Google about homelessness in San Francisco, according to
Google Trends
. Many of these questions don’t have simple answers, and
decades of efforts
have not significantly moved the needle. There are more than 6,600 homeless people in the city, many of whom are children. People who experience homelessness often struggle from chronic stress, trauma, and frequent moves, and are unable to take advantage of many educational or economic opportunities.
We want to do our part in tackling this complex issue. Since 2014, Google.org has invested more than $5 million in Bay Area nonprofits who are working to combat homelessness, and today we’re committing an additional $1.2 million for these efforts. The Google News Lab is also
joining the San Francisco Chronicle and 70+ news outlets
across the country to help raise awareness as part of the Beyond Homelessness initiative, launching today.
The organizations we’re supporting are tackling the issue of homelessness in new ways and from multiple angles, and include
Hamilton Family Center
,
Larkin Street Youth Services
,
HandUp
,
First Place for Youth
,
Lava Mae
,
LifeMoves
,
Abode Services
-
Project Welcome Home
,
GLIDE
,
Downtown Streets Team
and
Destination: Home
.
In San Francisco and across the Bay area, these 10 organizations provide a range of services and programs focused on rapid re-housing and prevention, basic services, job training and more. Our newest grantee,
Destination: Home
, plans to use their $1 million grant to build a rapid re-housing system for homeless families in Mountain View and Sunnyvale in the form of security deposits, motel stays, time-limited rental assistance, move-in assistance, and a support system to make sure individuals and families find stable housing.
HandUp
has helped both homeless and low-income individuals and families overcome poverty via a giving platform that connects donors directly with neighbors who are struggling to meet basic needs.
The Downtown Streets Team
provides a work experience program for homeless men and women through beautification projects in San Francisco’s Civic Center/Mid-Market neighborhoods. And
Lava Mae
is expanding their mobile showers for the homeless to Los Angeles with an additional $200K in Google.org grant funding.
The Downtown Streets Team helps people like Norman “Will” Williams gain work experience. Learn more
on their website.
One in 25 kids in San Francisco Unified School District are homeless, and many families face at least a nine-month wait list for temporary shelter. In 2015, we supported the
Hamilton Family Center
(HFC) with a $1 million grant aimed to reduce the homeless family wait list for shelter by creating direct lines of communication with SFUSD teachers and staff to report and respond to new and potential cases of homelessness. HFC has already seen a 25 percent reduction in the family wait list, and hopes to continue that momentum.
Homelessness in our cities is a challenge decades in the making—and will require continued innovation and dedication to solve. We’re committed to helping, through financial support, volunteering and raising awareness. Find out more about this issue on
our Google Trends site
and join us in finding solutions by visiting
Beyond Homelessness
or contributing to any of our grantee organizations.
Posted by Justin Steele, Bay Area Giving Lead, Google.org
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB81fwjvsyAnHB1C1eB0XwTWilLmzzgRw21mHZV27EIjceGmT22Q2eukieYRaKsiCVsFlyXrS66SmBlrY6Lx6NlfOrmiUIDU2mS7Ut3XIch_1ZMvFn4e9ejM6UAL3h-6QJgVSE/s200/10-1.jpg
Technology to help teachers do what they do best
June 27, 2016
This week our
Google for Education
team will be joining thousands of educators at the annual
ISTE conference
. Follow along on their
blog
and
Twitter
for the latest news and updates. -Ed.
Great teachers inspire us, listen to us and learn from us; they bring the most mundane subjects to life. Technology can help great teachers do what they do best—stimulating minds and fostering skills in the next generation—and make learning even more rewarding for students. So we’re excited by the
updates and improvements to our tools for the classroom
we’re announcing this week at the
ISTE conference
, one of the largest education technology gatherings in the world.
Expeditions for all
Since we launched the Expeditions Pioneer Program last September, more than a
million students
from 11 countries have taken one of our 200+ virtual reality trips—from the Great Barrier Reef, to the ancient ruins of Machu Picchu. Today, we’re making Expeditions available to everyone. To get started, all teachers need to do is download the
Expeditions app
onto a set of devices and choose where in the world they want to take their class. The app is
available today for Android
and will be available for iPhones and iPads soon.
While Expeditions can be used with many of the devices schools or students already have,
Best Buy Education
will also be making Expeditions kits available for schools to purchase. These kits will contain everything teachers need to bring their classes on amazing Expeditions: a tablet, virtual reality viewers and a router to connect them all.
Google Cast for Education
Sharing information on the classroom’s big screen helps students learn from one another. But today, students have to physically connect their computers to the projector to share their screens with the class. To open classroom collaboration and bring projecting into the 21st century, we’re announcing
Google Cast for Education
, a free Chrome app that lets students and teachers share their screens wirelessly from everywhere in the classroom, no new hardware required. Cast for Education carries video and audio across complex school networks, has built-in controls for teachers, and is integrated with
Google Classroom
.
Quizzes in Google Forms
Getting feedback helps students learn and teachers teach. But grading tests and quizzes is time-consuming; teachers often have to take time away from other tasks to do it, and if it’s not done promptly, everyone misses out on the opportunity to learn from the things students got wrong. Starting today,
Quizzes in Google Forms
will grade multiple choice and checkbox questions automatically—so teachers can spend less time grading work and more time teaching.
Teachers can set correct answers in Forms and even add review materials in the form of explanations, supplemental websites, or review videos—so students can get quick, informative feedback on how to improve. Plus, teachers can get an instant snapshot on what their students understand, so they know which lessons need more explanation or what to teach next.
Creative apps on Chromebooks
Teachers tell us educational apps on Chromebooks help them improve skills like problem-solving, teamwork, communication and creativity. In collaboration with teachers at EdTechTeacher, we’re announcing a collection of creative apps on Chromebooks that schools can now purchase at a discount:
Explain Everything
,
Soundtrap
, and
WeVideo
. These apps let students demonstrate their understanding of curriculum in their own way by creating unique animations, music, and videos.
Students use creative apps at Muller Road Middle School in South Carolina
As technology becomes an integral component of our classrooms, we also want it to be so easy to use that it fades into background, allowing teachers to spend their time doing what they love: engaging and inspiring students.
Posted by Bram Bout, Director, Google for Education
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCfUBQ-fzrGUxY-N8WbWVNioZUv8SxvG7XavytSkhE76maR5utJCp_6_RfDYIPwmQLqg5M9yCdJyXQThDdS1gEXYTHA6q0VGrwTL5ELYeCxlcwcQ9mPBCeEr1ITM8gg60_Bxsn/s1600/Expedition.jpg
Picture this: you woke up today with a headache. It’s been getting worse all day, and you aren’t sure if you should be worried or not. So you open
the Google app
and start searching for your symptoms. After 20 minutes digging through health forums, chances are you're overwhelmed by all the complicated medical terms and breaking out in a sweat—whether that’s related to the headache or the overdose of info is unclear!
You’re not alone. Roughly 1 percent of searches on Google (think:
millions!
) are symptom-related. But health content on the web can be difficult to navigate, and tends to lead people from mild symptoms to scary and unlikely conditions, which can cause unnecessary anxiety and stress.
So starting in the coming days, when you ask Google about symptoms like “
headache on one side
,” we’ll show you a list of related conditions (“headache,” “migraine,” “tension headache,” “cluster headache,” “sinusitis,” and “common cold”). For individual symptoms like “
headache
,” we’ll also give you an overview description along with information on self-treatment options and what might warrant a doctor’s visit. By doing this, our goal is to help you to navigate and explore health conditions related to your symptoms, and quickly get to the point where you can do more in-depth research on the web or talk to a health professional.
We create the list of symptoms by looking for health conditions mentioned in web results, and then checking them against high-quality medical information we’ve collected from doctors for our
Knowledge Graph
. We worked with a team of medical doctors to carefully review the individual symptom information, and experts at Harvard Medical School and Mayo Clinic evaluated related conditions for a representative sample of searches to help improve the lists we show.
That said, symptom search (like all medical information on Google) is intended for informational purposes only, and you should always consult a doctor for medical advice. We rely on search results, and we reflect what’s on the web. Because of this, your feedback is especially important to us; we’ll use it to keep improving the results we show. You’ll notice in the weeks following launch that when we show symptom search we’ll automatically ask you if the results are helpful.
We’re rolling this update out on mobile over the next few days, in English in the U.S. to start. Over time, we hope to cover more symptoms, and we also want to extend this to other languages and internationally. So the next time you’re worried about your “
child with knee pain
” (even though it’s probably just growing pains), or have some symptoms you’re too embarrassed to run by your roommate, a Google search will be a helpful place to start.
Posted by Veronica Pinchin, Product Manager
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY_bp5PM5KDLp7fnX21NMlbcSwvm3U2t0jLSH6bRq_sXk9WhsFj1frDnqfnA03Oh2n_9nlC7p6OMnAu43UBi-fj1kyvi8FbGZEgipSY7Lomjpc9HQHg0ipRF_jRlwz_Zc2-mul/s1600/Symptoms.jpg
Showing support on World Refugee Day
June 20, 2016
When Walaa posted a picture on social media that spoke out against violence in his hometown of Jairoud, Syria, it earned him three months of violent detention. He fled the country with his family through Turkey and into Greece, where they now live in a refugee camp near the Macedonian border.
Though the Internet played a role in his flight from Syria, connectivity has played a crucial role in helping him rebuild his life in Greece. While living in Greek refugee camps, Walaa used YouTube to learn English, and his language skills are now so good that he’s served as a community advocate and translator. He says he’s far from done: next, he hopes to learn Greek.
As refugees across Europe adapt to new contexts, access to information and education are crucial to help them develop the skills they need. Last fall we encouraged you to donate to a public matching campaign to help refugees access not only basic humanitarian aid, but also resources to create a bridge to their new communities. Since then we’ve helped the
International Rescue Committee
build an
online information hub
for refugees,
Mercy Corps
develop
Translation Cards
to allow field workers to communicate across languages more easily, partner with
NetHope
to install low-cost WiFi in refugee camps, and support refugee education through
Kiron
, a nonprofit providing refugee-tailored university courses available both online and offline.
In addition to Walaa, we’ve heard from other refugees who are finding ways to adjust thanks to Internet and education access. For example, Ahmed is an Iraqi computer scientist now living in Berlin. While waiting for his residence permit, he began teaching coding classes at refugee welcome centers as part of
Project Reconnect
, an initiative we launched with NetHope to equip NGOs with Chromebooks. Kashif, who traveled through seven countries from a small Pakistani town to Berlin, is studying online with Kiron and dreams of working as an engineer at NASA.
Ahmed giving CODE.org classes to young refugees through the Chromebooks in a refugee center in Berlin
On World Refugee Day, we hope you’ll take time
to hear stories
of more refugees who are working so hard to rebuild their lives.
We also want to thank everyone across the globe who
donated
last year, and encourage you to continue to support our partners in their critical work. Though the impact of this refugee crisis will be felt for many years to come, we’ll continue to look for ways to contribute.
Posted by Jacquelline Fuller, Director of Google.org
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihNy5IS6yFXQq4Lx5smu95lU1_IfYqEv0fEuomlvhPPnf8oq3xd-5JX7vnixNcWEhK5luUrxe4fiKFBphCAl_B3vTyuGK8fmJuve7Cl78x9XS5pSd92ilR-7lutxZ4ysuKAsYs/s1600/Reconnect_hero.jpg
Digital Love Letters for fathers who are incarcerated
June 17, 2016
This past Mother's Day, we shared
#LoveLetters
, a partnership among nonprofits to give the children of incarcerated parents a chance to have their voices heard. Today, in celebration of Father’s Day, you can watch Love Letters for incarcerated fathers. This work is part of our continued commitment to
raising awareness about racial injustice
, and to
bearing witness
to the human costs of mass incarceration.
The costs of mass incarceration have disproportionately affected the lives of Black men. From 1980 to 2007, about
one in three
of the 25.4 million adults arrested for drugs was African-American. And if that current trend continues, one in three Black boys born today can expect to spend time in prison during his lifetime. All in all, we’re now at a point where there are
more African-American men incarcerated
in the U.S. than the total prison populations of India, Argentina, Canada, Lebanon, Germany, Finland, Israel and England combined.
Children share digital “Love Letters” for their fathers who are incarcerated
Many of these men are also fathers—and their children have suffered greatly. The loss of a father to incarceration
adversely
affects children’s educational, social and emotional well-being, even decades later.
Children with an incarcerated parent
are three times more likely to have behavioral problems or depression, and at least twice as likely to suffer from learning disabilities, ADD/ADHD, and anxiety.
This is what Love Letters conveys: the hurt of the children left behind—and the enduring bond between a child and a parent despite the barrier of prison walls. So for Father's Day, we worked with the NGOs
Pops the Club
and
Place4Grace
to encourage children and youth in California to share their love letters to their fathers behind bars. We're also working with the California Department of Corrections to share the video with fathers behind bars throughout the state.
To learn about criminal justice reform legislation now going through Congress, visit
sentencingproject.org
,
vera.org
, or
brennancenter.org
. As David Drummond, Alphabet’s vice president of corporate development, said at an event this week: “We like disruption, and if there’s a system worth disrupting, it’s the criminal justice system.” We hope that by raising awareness about the impact of mass incarceration on children and families, we can help to change it. Please join us in this effort—watch the video and share with #LoveLetters on social media.
Posted by Malika Saada Saar, Public Policy and Government Relations Senior Counsel – Civil and Human Rights
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqQSwPssPVgTYC4DyB884X8DN3ipsnRFxPfl5nWNip8fgp8rYweeX5BOXoJf1dcp9WMsDUQvF-r1Q8XdJtsuhExOkxygcjxJ19BCNb2cd-uopT4MGxsw2GuMN_IEiUQ1QVDu8x/s1600/LoveLetters.jpg
Tango: See more with a new kind of phone
June 9, 2016
Your phone can help you navigate from one side of the country to the other, help you share memories with friends, or even identify the song that's playing right now. But it can’t answer basic (and important) questions like, “Where’s the nearest building exit?” or “Will this couch actually fit in my apartment?” That’s because while your phone may know where you are in the world, it doesn’t know where you are in the room.
But, for the past three years, the Project Tango team has been working to help devices understand physical space and motion more like people do. Today we’re taking the next step with the first Tango-enabled phone (Lenovo’s
PHAB2 Pro
). We’re also graduating the effort from Project Tango to, simply, Tango.
Tango helps you answer a new set of questions about your world through specialized hardware and apps. Some of the coolest apps that work with Tango are the ones that overlay digital objects on top of your surroundings. For example if you’re shopping for a new bed, Tango lets you view your bedroom through your phone and visualize different options—even walk around the virtual furniture like it’s actually there.
With a Tango-enabled phone, you also have a toy box, a solar system, and a pet shop in your pocket. You can play with a huge set of dominoes, explore the planets, defend yourself from invading aliens, or feed your virtual dog—all through your phone. The best part is that you don’t have to clean up afterwards.
In the future, we hope Tango can help you navigate a mall, museum or place you’ve never been. Tango can overlay directions to your destination, then provide more info once you arrive. We've already started to work on this—we previewed it in February with the
National Art Museum of Catalunya
, and we plan to bring select locations online later this year.
Whether you’re shopping, playing, or just finding your way around, Tango helps you explore the world in a new way. There are already lots of
great apps
exploring these new capabilities, and as Tango finds its way into more devices, there will be more to come. If you’d like to learn more, visit the
Tango website
, or tune in to
Nat and Lo
for a behind-the-scenes look at Tango.
Posted by Johnny Lee, Director of Engineering
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtn_I0csrbRVAfY4TsQ08Qkz2Buc_Cl3FfB4CJegTbpf93_UIc1ADvsyloVQzvV8piJfnesh6RvzOqfxs5TzpwInJvyps2HFPLP0Y_keD8xyLxPYpwovIDy2pHSQO94ZIX8MKl/s1600/dinogif.gif
Celebrating My Account's first birthday with improvements and new controls
June 1, 2016
A year ago today
, we launched
My Account
, a hub that gives you quick access to controls for safeguarding your data and protecting your privacy on Google. My Account puts privacy and security tools in one place, including long-standing features like Ads Settings and newer ones like the
Privacy
and
Security
Checkups. Collectively, these tools make it easy for you to control your privacy and security from any device.
In the past year, more than one billion people around the world have used My Account. Now, on the first anniversary of its launch, we're excited to introduce three new features to easily access your controls and protect your data.
A helping hand when you lose your phone
We entrust our phones with some of our most personal data: texts from loved ones, family photos, work emails, bank account information, and more. In the wrong hands, that data could cause trouble. Unfortunately,
millions of phones
are stolen every year in the U.S. alone, and countless more are lost in taxis, cafes, and couch cushions around the world. But when your phone goes missing, it’s not always easy to figure out where to start, who to call, or how to keep your information safe.
Find your phone
is a new feature that will help you if your phone is ever lost or stolen. In a few simple steps, you can not only locate your phone, but also lock and call it, secure your account, leave a callback number on the screen, and more. The feature can be used to find lost Android and iOS devices, and soon, you’ll also be able to access it by searching Google for “I lost my phone.”
New ways to access My Account
People are increasingly using their voices to navigate apps and services—for example, mobile voice searches on Google have tripled in the past two years. So, we’re making it easier to get to My Account just by using your voice. In the latest Google app you can simply say, “Ok Google, show me my Google account,” and we’ll take you right there. This is available today in English, with other languages coming soon.
We’re also making it easier than ever to find My Account by searching Google. Coming soon, you’ll be able to simply search for your own name, and if you’re signed in, you’ll see a shortcut to My Account.
When you entrust your data to Google, you should expect powerful security and privacy controls. These features are just the latest in our ongoing efforts to protect you and your personal information. We'll continue to make updates based on your feedback.
Posted by Guemmy Kim, Product Manager, Account Controls and Settings
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinvyKzFk_hGspuvP3Sgp59-C6VnBsh3-QbC4QPX9xMMHyOofIuMhfGweT2GehQIhL0Fo6QtpcmV6bPeKYECAn8MRLy_V0XHVQOuRvEIfjKAE1GYrRJ9KVt1ZgM05WhupB3zf4M/s1600/Security.jpg
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