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As the pandemic has unfolded in India, it’s been humbling and inspiring to see individuals, communities, institutions, and governments work together to manage the impact of a crisis on a scale we haven’t experienced before. Technology has played a critical role, and our focus at Google has been on making sure people have the information and tools they need to stay informed, connected, and safe.  

We have worked to surface timely and reliable health information, amplify public health campaigns, and help nonprofits get urgent support to Indians in need. In April, through our philanthropic arm Google.org, we announced grants totaling $18 million (135 Crore INR) to expand the reach of public health information campaigns and support emergency relief work. 

Today, as India slowly emerges from the crisis of the past few months, we are turning our focus to helping strengthen India’s healthcare infrastructure and workforce — especially in rural areas.

Building on our overall COVID-19 response, we are announcing new commitments to GiveIndia, PATH, Apollo Medskills and ARMMAN, focused on setting up oxygen generation plants and expanding the health workforce by strengthening COVID-19 management skills among frontline workers. 

Google.org will support procurement and installation of approximately 80 oxygen generation plants in healthcare facilities in high-need and rural locations with new grants totalling approximately $15 million (109 Crore INR) to GiveIndia and PATH. The two organizations will work together to oversee the oxygen program, providing project management support. PATH will identify the target locations and provide technical assistance, working with state governments and other authorities, and complete the installation of the plants. 

As part of our new commitment, Google is also investing in the efforts of Apollo Medskills to help upskill 20,000 frontline health workers through specialized training in COVID-19 management. This will complement and strengthen the stressed rural health workforce and rural health systems. 

To further bolster these efforts, Google.org will provide a $500,000 (3.6 Crore INR) grant to nonprofit ARMMAN. ARMMAN will run skilling programs for 180,000 Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs) and 40,000 Auxiliary Nurse Midwives (ANMs) in 15 Indian states. It will also set up a call center to provide additional help and advice for ASHAs and ANMs where required.

Google is proud to be supporting these organizations as they build a bigger, better-equipped healthcare workforce, help India steady itself after the pandemic’s second wave and lay the foundations for a sustainable healthcare system over the longer term.

Individual voices play an important role in the news and information we consume. With so many complex, important stories unfolding daily, people not only rely on specific publishers for the latest news, but also increasingly turn to trusted individual journalists, authors and experts.  

We’re committed to helping people access timely, authoritative news and information from a variety of different sources, as well as investing to help sustain a quality news ecosystem. Earlier this year, we launched Full Coverage in Search to make it easier to explore all aspects of a story from different perspectives. We also launched the fact-checking Open Fund to help journalists around the world correct misconceptions that circulate online and offline. Today, we’re rolling out a beta feature in Search to help people learn more about an individual journalist or author by more prominently highlighting their recent work. 

Currently when you search for a certain journalist or author, you might see an information box (also known as a knowledge panel) at the top of your results that provides a quick snapshot of information about that person. Starting today for a small subset of these journalists, we’ll begin including a carousel of their published articles on the search results page. This carousel will help you quickly understand what subjects that person has recently covered and make it easy for you to find some of their latest work.

On June 17, our first-ever physical retail store opens its doors for business in New York City. This new space will be a natural extension of our commitment to NYC and provide customers with hands-on interaction with our lineup of devices and services — from Pixel phones and Nest products to Fitbit wearables and Pixelbooks. To mark the occasion, here’s a look inside the Google Store in Chelsea  — from our commitments to sustainability to new product experiences throughout the space.

A peek into our process

As we began the process to create our first retail store, the number of details to consider was daunting, but the opportunity at hand was amazing. We wanted our first store to reflect the same approach we take to designing our products: making sure they’re always helpful to people. The result is a space we believe is warm and inviting, while providing new ways to celebrate and experience Google through our phones, displays, speakers, wearables and more.

We began with group brainstorms in Mountain View across all our teams which were led by our designer, NYC based architect Reddymade. A concept for this physical space began to take shape — one that we felt lived up to our brand and mission.

Our excitement grew as we built a full-scale mockup of the space at our retail hangar in Mountain View, where we could test every element and make sure each one felt just right: the space, the layout, the technology and the overall experience each guest might have. We considered every immersive way people could learn about all the features of our Pixel phones and Nest products, and see how the best of Google’s software and services come to life when using them: products like Google Search, Google Assistant, Google Maps, YouTube, Stadia and many more.

Our commitment to sustainability

Sustainability is a core tenet of how Google does business. In addition to our Google-wide sustainability commitments, when it comes to building hardware we’ve made specific commitments to integrate sustainability into our products.

It was equally as important that our first store continue this work, and our commitment to sustainable design began on day one. Every element of the Google Store — the materials, building processes, mechanical systems and more — was painstakingly considered and selected. For example, the veneer on the walls is a soft gray responsibly sourced hickory, each lighting fixture is energy efficient and our custom cork and wood furniture was created with a local craftsman from Greenpoint, Brooklyn. We even attached our carpeting (which was manufactured with recycled materials) in a sustainable way.

We’re honored to have worked with the U.S. Green Building Council in this process, and we now can share that the Google Store Chelsea is one of fewer than 215 retail spaces in the world to have achieved a LEED Platinum rating — the highest certification possible within the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design green building rating system.

Take a look inside

As you approach our new store, the first thing we hope you’ll notice are beautiful physical and digital product displays lining the store’s windows, which offer a peek into our products and their features. And as you enter the store, you will find a light-filled space that’s centered around experiencing the helpfulness of our products. 

Near the main entrance, you’ll find a 17-foot-tall circular glass structure (designed and engineered with local New York partners) that we’re calling the Google Imagination Space. With custom interactive screens that feature rotating exhibits for visitors to experience the best of our products and technologies, we’re beginning with an experience built around Google Translate and our machine learning capabilities. As you speak to the exhibit, you’ll experience real-time translation of your speech into 24 languages simultaneously, and then learn how this all happens on the back end using several Google technologies. These same capabilities are also available across many of our devices — right in the palm of your hand.

For those who want to get up close and personal, every part of the store invites hands-on interaction with our products and services. Not quite sure where to start or want to learn more about specific features? An expert store team is on hand to answer questions, offer repairs and troubleshoot issues on the spot. 

Exploring the rest of the store, you’ll find new ways to experience the best of Google’s hardware and services:

We’re so incredibly proud of the work our teams have accomplished together since we first began this project almost four years ago, and we look forward to introducing Google’s first store to the world. We can’t wait for you to experience it firsthand, starting June 17 at 10 a.m. Eastern, and see all the great things we’ve been working on.

We’ve heard from parents, educators and experts on ways to make technology safer for kids, and we continue to incorporate that feedback into our products. Whether it’s helping them find quality content, working to protect them from online harm or teaching them how to be good digital citizens, we’re committed to building family-friendly tools to help kids safely and confidently explore the online world. 

Launching our new evidence-based Be Internet Awesome curriculum

Four years ago, we launched Be Internet Awesome as a program to help educators and parents teach kids the fundamentals of digital safety and citizenship. Since then, it’s expanded to more than 30 countries in 16 languages and has helped millions of kids around the world make safer, more informed decisions online. It’s important to teach kids how to use the internet effectively, as family technology use in and outside of the classroom continues to grow — and we’re constantly looking for ways to make Be Internet Awesome even better.  

To ensure Be Internet Awesome helps students comprehend online safety and digital citizenship concepts, we commissioned the University of New Hampshire’s Crimes Against Children Research Center to do a rigorous independent evaluation of our program. The researchers learned that students who went through the Be Internet Awesome program improved their comprehension in areas such as being civil online, understanding which websites are safe and responding more confidently to cyberbullying. The research also recommended opportunities where kids could benefit from more guidance, which we’ve used to update our curriculum.

In partnership with online safety experts like Committee for Children and The Net Safety Collaborative, we’ve significantly expanded the Be Internet Awesome program, including 11 new lessons and more educator and family resources. We’ve developed content tailored to specific age groups and grade levels, included more guidance around online gaming, search engines and video consumption and added social-emotional learning lessons to help students address cyberbullying and online harassment. The program also provides an array of resources for families to help discuss online safety at home. We hope the updated curriculum gives educators and parents an even more helpful tool to teach kids about these important topics.

Navigating the world of online video

Building on our digital safety and citizenship work, we’ve also created more tools and resources to help kids explore the world of online video. For example, on YouTube, we introduced supervised experiences to give parents more choice over content settings and features, including special options for tweens and teens. We’ve also developed a comprehensive family guide and PSA videos as useful starting points for kids and families to learn how to browse and watch video content responsibly. 

To help kids stay informed about what they’re seeing on YouTube, including content with commercial elements, we recently launched a new disclosure feature for all content that a creator has notified us contains paid promotions, when that content is “made for kids” or being viewed on a supervised account. This disclosure appears in easy-to-understand text on the left hand corner of the screen and links to a new family-friendly video and help center article to provide additional information. 

Tools and resources for families

We’ve also created more resources to help families determine how to approach kids’ technology use. Earlier this year, we launched families.google, a one-stop technology hub that includes tips and tools about how to manage tech for your family. In addition, we introduced updates to the Family Link app that lets you set digital ground rules as kids learn, play and explore online. You can now enable your kids to spend time with apps you approve of by designating them as “always allowed,” and see added details via daily, weekly and monthly activity reports. All of this work is designed to equip parents and their kids with the resources they need to foster a healthy relationship with technology in the digital age. 

We want parents and kids to have the tools they need to explore the internet confidently. We are committed to helping protect children online and will continue to share information about our ongoing work in this area. 

_{Note: The University of New Hampshire’s study used a rigorous cluster randomized controlled trial (CRCT) evaluation methodology. Fourteen elementary schools across the U.S. were randomly assigned to either an intervention condition (Be Internet Awesome implementation) or a control condition (no or delayed Be Internet Awesome implementation). The full paper is currently under peer review.}

If you want to start monetizing your online content with Google AdSense but either got an initial rejection or you’re simply not sure where to start, this series will be a useful resource for you. Throughout the episodes you’ll build on your policy knowledge to get your content ready for approval with AdSense. 

In 2016, I met an inspiring entrepreneur named Jasmine Crowe who was looking for ways to expand her startup, Goodr, which helps eliminate food waste and food insecurity. Through my business relationships with the city, I helped her secure a contract with the Atlanta International Airport, a deal that was huge for her business’s growth and a big win for Georgia’s startup ecosystem. Since then, I’ve met with over 2,500 underrepresented entrepreneurs around the country and made it my life’s mission and the mission of my nonprofit, Goodie Nation, to help them succeed. 

As part of a series of racial equity commitments Google made last year, Goodie Nation was tapped to provide community support for the 76 recipients of their inaugural $5 million Google for Startups Black Founders Fund. The Black Founders Fund was created to spur economic opportunity for Black entrepreneurs who are consistently locked out of access to capital. The results have exceeded my expectations. Within six months of distributing these awards, Google has seen the Black Founders Fund help Black led startups create more jobs, raise more capital and increase revenues. Here are some of our findings along with what the fund’s recipients had to say about the impact of these awards on their startups: 

• 82% of recipients have used the awards to hire new employees

• 81% of recipients reported that these awards have directly helped their ability to accelerate conversations with investors. 

• Founders have reported that they have gone on to raise $38M+ post-award.

• 78% of recipients report the fund has immediately helped grow their revenues

Now, Goodie Nation is teaming up with Google again to support the launch of the second $5 million Google for Startups Black Founders Fund in the U.S., providing $100,000 in non-dilutive funding to startups from Google for Startups U.S. programs and partner communities or through nominations from past Black Founders Fund recipients. In addition to the unrestricted funding, selected founders will receive up to $120,000 in Google Ads credits and as much as $100,000 in Google Cloud credits. Google for Startups will also continue to connect recipients to tools and teams across Google, providing technical and business mentorship.   

As we’ve done over the past six months with the 2020 Black Founders Fund recipients, Goodie Nation will offer 2021 recipients ongoing support through weekly small group check-ins. Our advisors will be there  to discuss business pain points with the  founders, offer introductions to customers and investors and provide regular therapy sessions and forums to support recipients emotionally and professionally. I asked our first class of founders to share how the award impacted them and their businesses:

I’ve always felt that if we could fill the relationship and financial gaps that exist for entrepreneurs of color, we could not only bring about great businesses, but also catalyze job creation and wealth generation for entire communities. The work doesn’t stop here. Google will continue to invest in the Black Founders Fund abroad in Brazil, Europe and more locations soon to be announced.