Ottobre, 2022

Every year, humanity consumes far more than what the planet can naturally replenish.[a18947]To create a circular economy that can be safer, sustainable, and more equitable for everyone, we need to rebuild our relationship with physical resources and how we make, process, use, and recycle them.[ab42fb]

While this linear economic model has led to a great deal of progress for humanity in a short time, it has also created environmental harm, injustice, and disparities — particularly for lower-income and under-resourced communities that are located near industrial areas where pollution is more prevalent.[a7ed1d]To create a circular economy that can be safer, sustainable, and more equitable for everyone, we need to rebuild our relationship with physical resources and how we make, process, use, and recycle them.

At Google, we want to support efforts to create a circular economy and build a sustainable future without waste. Building on the success of our Accelerator: Climate Change, we’re pleased to announce our first Google for Startups Accelerator: Circular Economy for startups and non-profit organizations in Asia-Pacific and North America that focus on using technology to solve circularity challenges — including reuse, refill, recycling, composting, fashion, food, safe and circular materials and the built environment.

The accelerator offers ten weeks of virtual programming, which includes mentoring and technical support from Google engineers and external experts through a mix of 1-to-1 and 1-to-many learning sessions. Participants will also be assigned a dedicated Success Manager for even more support that is specific to their organization.

Applications are open from October 3, 2022 to November 14, 2022 and the program will commence in February 2023. For more information and details on how to apply visit our website.

Editor’s note:Google’s Computer Science Education Research (CS-ER) awardsprovide one year of funding for scientific research and pilot-stage ideas focused on improving CS learning and teaching. Today’s post is authored by Dr. Ain Grooms and Dr. Stefanie Marshall, whose research in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education received a 2022 CS-ER award. Learn more about our other 2022 CS-ER award recipients.

On a cloudy day, we checked our inboxes to find a special invitation from Dr. Tamara Pearson, the director of Spelman College’s Center of Excellence for Minority Women in STEM.

Her note said she was partnering with Google to sponsor a three-day “Care and Create” retreat in Napa, California, for 10 Black women CS researchers. We eagerly packed our bags, excited to share space with other academics who were passionate about improving CS teaching and learning. The moment we arrived in Napa, we knew this retreat was special.

The Care and Create retreat did just as its name promised: It created a trusting, supportive and caring environment for Black women researchers. There was time for reflection — as a group and individually — about the space we take up and the space we give up as Black women in academia who study educational equity. And there was time for self-care, which sparked further conversations about how little quality time we routinely take for ourselves. In society and in our professional and personal lives, Black women are often positioned as caretakers or “othermothers.” But for three days in Napa, we finally had a small, intimate space to be seen and cared for as whole beings. The retreat allowed us to embrace, first, our value as Black women, while also honoring the value we bring to the research field.

We are thrilled that our research proposal, which was born out of this retreat, is the recipient of Google’s 2022-23 Computer Science Education Research (CS-ER) award. Our study will explore how states have created policy infrastructures to support equity-focused CS education. We hope our research findings will help create more access to CS learning opportunities, specifically for underserved youth across the U.S. We will conduct this research study over the next year alongside other CS-ER award recipients. As the first all-women CS-ER cohort, we are grateful to be in community with these researchers. Learn more about our work and our stories.

The work of Google’s security teams mostly happens behind closed doors — whether that be intercepting government backed cyber attacks, or taking on the job of hacking Google to strengthen our defenses. But today, we’re taking you behind the scenes with HACKING GOOGLE, a new six-part docuseries featuring the elite security teams that keep you safe everyday.

The story begins in 2010, when we announced to the world that Google had witnessed a sophisticated nation-state attack against our corporate infrastructure that resulted in the theft of intellectual property and affected at least 20 other companies. The attack was a watershed moment in the history of cybersecurity. Dubbed Operation Aurora, it was the first time that a company like Google had publicly acknowledged an attack of this magnitude. And it was the turning point for how we secure Google’s infrastructure.

In the aftermath of Aurora, we began a complete overhaul of our security team, strategy and technical capabilities. Billions of dollars of new investment, thousands of the world’s top security experts, new paradigms, new hardware and new highly specialized teams were gathered, all with one purpose: to ensure that users stay safe in the face of any and all future attacks. Thirteen years later, we’re proud to say that Google keeps more people safe online than anyone else in the world.

HACKING GOOGLE profiles some of the many teams that do this work. The series is now public following our H4CK1NG G00GL3 Challenge, which saw thousands of hackers, hobbyists, and students from more than a hundred countries work together over the weekend to solve security puzzles and unlock each of the episodes:

• Episode 000: Operation Aurora. What happens when a nation-state attacks a company? Google found out and cybersecurity was never the same again.
• Episode 001: Threat Analysis Group. Watchguards. Lookouts. Sentries. When faced with threats there have always been those who look out to protect the rest. But who looks out for the threats lurking online?
• Episode 002: Detection & Response. Meet the internet’s fire department, the elite team that answers the call when chaos ignites online.
• Episode 003: Red Team. They have one job: hack Google from the inside.
• Episode 004: Bug Hunters. They’re high schoolers, lawyers, IT professionals, and hobbyists. And they’ve made millions hacking Google in their free time.
• Episode 005: Project Zero. Zero days. They can be the world’s most dangerous exploits. And the race is on to find them before the attackers do.
• And finally, Hacking Google to Defend Enterprise. Go behind the scenes with Chief Information Security Officer of Google Cloud, Phil Venables, to meet the people keeping every organization on Google Cloud safe from threats.

Every day, billions of people use Google to find reliable information, get to their destination, connect with loved ones, and more. When people use our products and services, it’s our responsibility to keep their personal information private, safe and secure.

For the never-before-told stories of the experts who do this work, check out HACKING GOOGLE, now streaming on YouTube.