Google Contest: Is There Something Here For You?

[Bruce I. Kodish]

Google to reward those who do good

If you have an idea to make the world a better place, Google wants to hear about it, and - if it's deemed worthy - provide the money to
bring it to reality.

The $10 million project, introduced Wednesday, is a competition that will end with the Internet giant picking five winners. "These ideas can be big or small, technology-driven or brilliantly simple - but they need to have impact," Google said in a statement.

The criteria for picking the winners will be:
-- Reach: How many people would this idea affect?
-- Depth: How deeply are people impacted? How urgent is the need?
-- Attainability: Can this idea be implemented within a year or two?
-- Efficiency: How simple and cost-effective is your idea?
-- Longevity: How long will the idea's impact last?

The deadline for submitting ideas is Oct. 20. A team of Google employees will review the proposals and select 100 for public
consideration.

The top 100 ideas will be announced Jan. 27, at which time Google will invite the public to vote on their favorites to narrow the list to 20 semi-finalists. An advisory board will then choose up to five ideas for funding and implementation. Winners will be announced in early February.

To get prospective contestants thinking, Google provided an example of a project that it likes: A team that designed 24-gallon water jugs that people without access to running water can wheel home instead of carrying smaller jugs on their heads.

Google has become one of the go-to sources of funding for innovative ideas, including backing a challenge involving space exploration and promising to fund companies working on energy efficiency. The new challenge, called Project 10^100 (pronounced Project 10 to the 100th), is a reference to Google's name, which is itself a takeoff on the word googol, which means 1 followed by 100 zeros. Google said the project is part of its 10th anniversary celebration.

This article appeared on page C - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

[Bruce I. Kodish]

Nora, I hope you submit that.

[Nora]

Hi Loel. The Share link allows you to share Bruce's post with others. Here's a link to the Google contest:

http://www.project10tothe100.com/index.html

I ran across this the other too, and got to thinking about what I might propose. The space to make the proposal is brutally tight--150-200 words in most of the questions.

I imagined the development of a low-key inter-cultural symposia to be held in pairs of countries around the world. By pairs I mean, a given set of two countries would exchange attendees, so each person got to experience the culture of the other. The symposia would of course cover language use, as well as some of the more fundamental and difficult nonverbal aspects of the culture. With 10 million, one could sponsor a heck of a lot of exchanges. I would expect ongoing continued interactions and expanding effects as young attendees carry what they learned into their careers.

Of course the proposal needs to be more finely drawn and explicit, and the project more focused and specific. I'm still thinking....

[Loel Shuler]

Hi Bruce:

How interesting. Is the "Share" link the route to the Google contest?

Loel