My father, Bob Marley, is one of the most known people in the world. I mean, some people feel as if they know him personally, that's how much history is out there, yet there is so much that is unknown. Bob Marley still holds mystery. We all are still learning new things about him, and some people may just be discovering him.
In this mission we are happy to be partners with Google Arts & Culture to compile and exhibit in oneonline location the most extensive collection of Bob Marley artifacts. On this great journey we see him, hear his music, we listen to his words, we look at his life and we learn something about him as well as ourselves.
Who is Bob Marley? A fist raised to the air in defiance, a smile that makes you want to smile back, the puff of a spliff amid deep contemplation warning us about the system, inspiring us to stand up for our rights, asking us to help him sing these songs of freedom.
My father has transcended from being just a musician, an artist, an activist, even a legend. Bob Marley is a symbol for love, justice, equality, freedom and unity to people from all walks of life around the world and with the help from the community of countless fans who have uncovered, preserved and shared endless amount of content, always finding something new. Bob Marley’s legacy continues to live and grow. We have worked to find ways of sifting through the massiveness of it all creating curated experiences that help connect the dots of his legacy while providing new angles of discovery.
It is a living project that will continue to grow in the coming months and years. Enjoy the journey.
If you know what life is worth, you would look for yours on Earth. And now you see the light...Bob Marley
Bob Marley performing on stage in front of an audience
Bob Marley live at the Lyceum Ballroom, 1975, Adrian Boot
Bob Marley and three other men holding instrument cases walking down a street
Bob Marley, Neville Garrick, Micheal Campbell and Tyrone Downie entering the Birmingham Odeon, England, 1975, Ian Dickson
Bob Marley and his young son playing soccer
Bob Marley and Ziggy Marley playing soccer at 56 Hope Road, 1978, Peter Murphy
Learn more about life and legacy of the king of reggae, and explore “Bob Marley: Legend” on the Google Arts & Culture app on iOS or Android or online on Google Arts & Culture.
We’re adding new features to Google apps on iPhones and iPads to help you get more done — whether you’re at work, at school or on the go.
New widgets will give you easier access to your favorite Google apps, while updated Chat and Gmail notifications can help you stay on top of important pings. Read on for more.
Translate over 100 languages from your Home Screen
The new Google Translate widget puts the app’s most popular features within easy reach — like taking a photo to translate text, using conversation mode to chat in two languages and translating copied text with a single tap. Plus, with the widget on your Home Screen, you can easily brush up on your language skills.
Get more work done on your iPad
If you’re using an iPad to get things done, the new XL widget for Google Drive will give you easier access to your important files.
Designed specifically for the iPad and rolling out next week, the XL widget will show more files right on the Home Screen. It will also have more shortcuts to help you quickly get to your Priority files and Shared drives — so that big presentation for work or final paper for school is right where you need it.
And XL isn’t the only option. With different Drive widget sizes available, you can easily personalize your iPad Home Screen — adding more or less Drive features depending on what’s most useful to you.
Never miss an important ping
Later this month, we’re updating the Gmail and Chat apps so that a sender’s profile photo will appear in your chat notification — making it easier to see who’s messaged you.
This update will also give you more control over which Chat and Gmail chat notifications break through Focus on your iPhone or iPad. This can be handy if you’re trying to cut down on screen time but don’t want to miss an important message.
Simply choose the contacts you want notifications from when Focus is on, and Gmail or Chat will do the rest — notifying you about those specific chat messages, even when other notifications are silenced.
Welcome to the latest edition of “My Path to Google,” where we talk to Googlers, interns and alumni about how they got to Google, what they do in their roles and how they prepared for their interviews.
Today, Ricardo Prada shares how his passion for helping users has led to a career building technology to positively impact the world.
What do you do at Google?
I lead the AI User Experience (AIUX) team in Google Research. Working alongside top research scientists, I study changes in society and science to create and bring product concepts to life. Outside of my core role, I also help out with our company-wide efforts to support the Latino community.
Can you tell us a bit more about your background?
I was born in Colombia and moved to California with my family when I was five. My dad was an engineer, my mom was a math teacher and I was a nerdy kid who loved science fiction and technology. I graduated from high school early and went straight to a community college, where I discovered my passion for applying psychology to technology and engineering.
How did you ultimately end up at Google?
I was a UX Design intern at Google while studying for my PhD at George Mason University in Virginia. After graduation, I worked for the aerospace company Boeing — and while I was there, I reconnected with my former team at Google. During one of our conversations, we started chatting about Gmail and I shared how I’d design Gmail labels based on my experiences in UX. We stayed in touch, and I eventually decided to return to Google.
What were you up to before your current role?
I’ve always been intentional about my career path and had a passion for working on technology that will have a positive impact on the world. I worked at X for almost eight years, where I led design for Project Chauffeur — Google’s self-driving car program, now known as Waymo — and was the first UX tester for many of X’s early-stage projects. I’m proud to have helped dozens of rockstar scientists and designers create principled and unexpected solutions to the world's biggest problems, from self-driving cars to medical devices.
What gets you most excited about your role?
In UX, my job is to understand our users — how are we going to make their lives better? For me, talking to people, listening to their problems and figuring out how to solve them has been super rewarding. I’m also part of the Latinx Leadership Council at Google, which has given me the opportunity to create even more impact. I’m proud to represent Colombia and help Google empower the Latino community, such as increasing representation in our use cases and workforce.
What inspires you to log on every day?
It’s really important to me to stay useful and not get bored. I'm coming close to 15 years at Google. Whenever I start thinking about my next move, someone tells me, "Go to this building and open this door." I'll go and think, "Whoa, I didn't know we were doing this!" Google is an incredible place to get really broad experiences, and that's what keeps me going.
What advice would you share with your past self?
Tell people what drives your decisions. At Google, we always say to focus on the user and all else will follow. I learned this early on and molded my work around it. Once you establish your values, everything will fall into place. You’ll attract people and projects that are aligned with those values.
At Google we recognize our responsibility to promote diversity, equity and inclusion in every part of our company. From our efforts and investments around economic recovery and skilling led by the Grow with Google team to the workforce development initiatives funded by Google.org, we’ve designed programs to help bring greater opportunities to underserved communities; a few weeks ago, we announced a new initiative that aims to improve the earning potential of 20,000 Americans by $1 billion.
We want to help build an inclusive economy that works for everyone. This extends within our company, and accounts for the economic impact that we can have when we buy goods and services. That’s why we’re providing access, development and investment in diverse-owned companies through our supplier diversity program.
While our supplier diversity efforts began nearly a decade ago, in the summer of 2020 we committed to do more. We ended 2021 surpassing our first milestone to spend $1 billion with diverse-owned suppliers by spending nearly $1.5 billion.
This year, we’re setting a new goal: In 2022, we aim to grow our spending with diverse suppliers to $2.5 billion while expanding our program beyond the U.S. to include suppliers from historically underrepresented groups around the world.
Building a pipeline for the industry
Maximizing our spend is just one piece of our supplier diversity program. We’re also making additional investments in mentorship and training to help diverse leaders at small and medium-sized companies grow their businesses. Through our Google Tuck Digital Excellence Program, we’re providing resources that help develop digital skills and build an online presence. By the end of this year, we will have graduated more than 425 diverse-owned business leaders and awarded $750,000 in scholarships as part of this program.
The impact of our work
Across Google, our teams have been working to bring our supplier diversity investments and commitments to life.
Speedy access to cash and capital is often critical for many of our diverse suppliers. Through our Accelerated Payments Program, we’re ensuring eligible suppliers are paid within 15 days. This provides companies like Chime Solutions, located in Morrow, Georgia, Philadelphia-based Ladipo Group and Miami-based Republica Havas with more working capital to keep their businesses running.
In our work with San Ramon, California-based R Mo Diversity Solutions, we’ve established a Certification Access program that provides financial support and removes the administrative burden many suppliers face when pursuing diversity certification. As a result, we’ve seen businesses like C-Suite coach in New York — who we contract with for our Grow with Google Digital Coaches program — to secure NMSDC, WBENC and NGLCC certification.
We’re continuing to find innovative ways to remove barriers, this includes encouraging existing suppliers to partner and create alliances with diverse-owned businesses. We’re excited to see companies like CD Moody, Black-owned construction company based in Atlanta, in partnership with Holder Construction become a major supplier for data center projects in Virginia and Ohio. As a supplier partner for our data center retrofit program, CD Moody now has access to a wide range of data center construction opportunities with other companies beyond Google.
More work to be done in 2022
True progress means historically underrepresented businesses have increased access to equitable opportunities that grow their businesses. We will continue our work to drive positive social and business impact.
We are proud of exceeding our first spend goal and the programs we have created to elevate diverse suppliers. Yet we know we have more to do and look forward to continuing that work and increasing our impact through our mentoring, development and partnership programs, especially as we expand our program globally. We’re excited about the opportunities and innovation that we can bring to this space as we continue this journey alongside our suppliers.
Messaging is how we stay in touch with friends, keep up with family, and get things done. But it’s not always as easy as it should be. Conversations with friends on other platforms can be unnecessarily challenging. Important messages slip through the cracks because of cluttered inboxes. And sometimes we forget entirely to reach out on special occasions.
Our latest updates to Messages by Google help ease some of these pain points so that you’re free to connect with the people you care about — no matter what device they use.
Less out of the loop, more in the group
When people with Android phones and iPhones message each other, not everything works the way it should. That’s because these conversations rely on SMS, an outdated messaging standard, instead of RCS, a modern, more secure industry standard Android uses that enables high-quality videos, emoji reactions, end-to-end encryption and more.
While our latest updates can’t fix everything about Android and iPhone conversations, here are a few ways we're addressing some of the biggest issues we've heard from you.
Better reactions 😍
Feel the love (and laughter, confusion or excitement) from your iPhone friends, too. Reactions from iPhone users are now displayed on your Android phone as emojis, just like when you’re messaging with someone who’s using an Android device. Starting on devices set to English, with additional languages to follow.
Share sharper videos
Today, the RCS standard lets people with Android devices share beautiful, high-quality photos and videos with one another. But unfortunately, without RCS, they look blurry when you share them with your iPhone friends. Now everyone can watch your videos in the same resolution that you do since we’re bringing Google Photos into Messages. You can send your videos as Google Photos links right inside the conversation, preserving their clarity. Coming soon, you’ll be able to send your photos this way, too.
But these new updates can only do so much. We encourage Apple to join the rest of the mobile industry and adopt RCS so that we can make messaging better and more secure, no matter what device you choose.
Less clutter, more conversation
We receive so many messages each day, it can be difficult to separate the important ones from everything else, and easy to miss some altogether. These new tools help you break through the clutter and stay on top of the conversations that matter the most.
Keep your messages organized
Organized inbox automatically sorts your messages into Personal and Business tabs so you can easily find what you need at any given moment — similarly to how most of our email inboxes work. Plus, you can set one-time password messages to be automatically deleted after 24 hours to help reduce the clutter even more. Originally launched in India, this is now expanding to the U.S.
Get relationship superpowers
Did you leave someone hanging recently? Now gentle nudges can remind you to reply to messages you may have missed or need to follow-up on so that nothing important slips through the cracks. This will roll out first to English users around the globe.
Less belated, more elated
It’s way too easy to forget important dates. Here are a few new ways Messages can help you send the right thing at the right moment to your favorite people.
Remember to celebrate 🎉
It’s now easier than ever to remember to wish your friends a happy birthday. If you save someone’s birthday in your device’s contacts app, you’ll get a gentle reminder about your friend’s special day when you open Messages or jump into a conversation with them. (Candles not included.)
Create the perfect emoji
If you have Gboard set as your keyboard in Messages, you don’t need to settle for one emoji to tell your story. Emoji Kitchen is bigger than ever with over 2,000 new emoji mashups available as stickers. Replace heart eyes with pretzels, make it rain disco balls or add some love to your favorite foods in an endless array of emoji possibilities.
Hopefully these updates, which roll out over the coming weeks, make it easier to connect to everyone and everything you care about. Open or download Messages by Google to try them.
Read more about other great features coming to Android.
Last month we announced new opportunities for student journalists to develop their reporting skills, and new resources for news organizations to grow their digital business. World events reminded us of the importance of a free press, and in many areas of the world, we expanded on efforts to combat misinformation ahead of elections. Read on for February updates below.
Combating misinformation ahead of elections in Asia and Europe In collaboration with Meedan and Rappler, we launched #FactsFirstPH, a coalition of more than 100 groups — news, civil society, business, religious groups, academia and legal communities — to create a whole-society approach to attack disinformation ahead of the Philippines election this May. The event will be headlined by Nobel Peace Prize laureate and journalist Maria Ressa.
The Google News Initiative India Training Network, in partnership with DataLEADS, ran PollCheck 2022, a digital training series designed to support journalists reporting the upcoming state polls in India. Topics included data verification, fact-checking, mobile journalism, data visualization and digital safety.
Fact-check members at the Trusted Media Summit 2018
Expanding support for Indonesian fact-checking coalition The Google News Initiative was a founding supporter of CekFakta, a fact-checking coalition based in Indonesia, when it launched in 2018. We announced an additional 11 billion IDR ($815,000 USD) to bring more local news organizations into the network, expanding reach around the country.
Introducing the Google News Initiative Student Fellowship 2022
In partnership with the European Journalism Centre, the Google News Initiative has made 30 fellowships available across 14 European countries with a focus on diversity, equity and inclusion. The 30 successful applicants will receive a full time, paid, eight-week internship in a leading newsroom. For more information and to apply see journalismfellowships.eu
Giving European publishers tools to grow their reader revenue
This month we announced the return of the GNI Subscriptions Academy for Europe, in collaboration with INMA and FT Strategies. The eight-month program is designed to help European publishers strengthen digital subscriptions capabilities and grow reader revenue. Applications are open until March 14.
Helping news organizations to grow their digital business
The Google News Initiative Digital Growth Program has helped more than 5,000 news organizations around the world to grow their business through free business trainings and digital resources. Last month, we developed a free workshop series on how news organizations can collect, analyze and use data to increase their audience size and earn more revenue. The workshops are available in English, Spanish and Portuguese.
In North America, we kicked off the 2022 Ad Transformation Lab, a four-month program to help 15 Black- and Latino- owned publications in the U.S. and Canada advance their advertising strategies and grow digital revenue.
We sponsored the News and Information division of the inauguralNext Challenge, which is run by the Glen Nelson Center at American Public Media Group. Three of the finalists are former graduates of the GNI Startups Boot Camp:Shasta Scout ('20),Queerency ('21) andAZ Luminaria ('21).
Growing the next generation of journalists
As part of our ongoing efforts to humanize news for younger consumers, we partnered with Baruch College on a program promoting journalism education, school newspapers and news literacy in underserved New York high schools. The program aims to help launch at least 25 school newspapers by the end of 2023.
We announced a new fellowship piloted by Institute for Nonprofit News (INN) to deepen audience engagement and increase staff diversity in the nonprofit newsrooms. The six-month fellowship will connect INN member news organizations with recent college graduates to focus on community engagement, digital marketing, digital communications or audience growth projects.
Engaging audiences in Latin America with web stories
We launched a Storytelling Innovation Program for Latin America featuring more than 70 digital publishers across Argentina, Colombia and Brazil. These publishers partnered with Google and Fundación Gabo, to receive training, and technical guidance to experiment with Web Stories. More than 1,000 stories have been published with impressive preliminary results: some publishers saw traffic increase by 30%.
Promoting diversity, equity and inclusion in Latin American newsrooms
To promote more diverse, inclusive and equitable reporting, and also to support the creation of more inclusive workplaces for journalists, we launched the course "How to promote diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in Latin American journalism" in partnership with the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas. The course covers topics such as gender, race, human rights and diversity and is led by four prominent Latin American journalists.
Adapting, growing and challenging subscription products
The Android team has been busy working on a suite of updates that add new dimensions to the apps you already love. From huge updates to messaging (including more connection with your iPhone friends) to powerful photo editing tools and even smarter ways to pay for parking, these upgrades bring more helpful technology to messaging, entertainment and more.
Share more with your iPhone friends, and stay on top of your inbox with Messages
Their reactions are now displayed as emoji on text messages.
Feel the ❤️. Or the 😂. Or whichever emoji your friends are feeling in the moment. Reactions from iPhone users will now appear as emoji on text messages — just like when you’re messaging with someone using an Android device. And now everyone can enjoy your videos in the same resolution you do when you send them as Google Photos links right inside the conversation. Soon, you’ll be able to send your photos this way, too.
New birthday reminders in Messages means you'll never miss their special day.
That’s not all that’s coming to Messages. There are also updates that help you break through the clutter to focus on the conversations that matter most:
Automatically sort your messages into Personal and Business tabs with an organized inbox, so you can find what you need faster.
Reduce the clutter of one-time password messages by having them automatically deleted after 24 hours.
Get gentle nudges to reply to messages you may have missed or need to follow up on.
Never forget to wish your friends a happy birthday, with reminders to reach out to your friends on their special day.
Read more about the new messaging updates in our blog post, and explore them on your device as they roll out over the coming weeks.
Type what you really want to say with grammar correction
Grammar correction on Gboard helps you type the way you want to be heard.
More than just a spell check, the new grammar correction feature on Gboard works entirely on your device to detect grammatical errors and offer suggestions to help you bring your thoughts to life.
When words aren’t enough to tell your story, Emoji Kitchen now has more than 2,000 new emoji mashups available as stickers via Gboard. You can make it rain 🍔, share your love for 🥨 or make your favorite emoji sparkle 💫 in an endless array of messaging possibilities. And for Pixel users, Gboard will convert your words into colorful stickers built with your exact text when typing in messaging apps in English (U.S.).
Accessible conversations, even when you’re offline, with Live Transcribe
Live Transcribe now works wherever you go, even if you don't have Wi-Fi or data.
Developed in collaboration with the premier university for people who are deaf or hard-of-hearing, Gallaudet University, Live Transcribe provides real-time speech-to-text captions to enable everyday in-person conversations between people who are deaf, hard of hearing, and hearing. Preinstalled on Pixel and Samsung devices and available as a free download to all, the app now offers an offline mode for when Wi-Fi and data aren’t available, like on an airplane, in the subway, or in other areas without consistent internet access.
Turn more photos into portraits with Portrait Blur
Portrait Blur now can be used on photos of more subjects, like pets, food and plants, too. Even if the picture was taken years ago.
If you’re a Google One member or a Pixel user, you can already use Portrait Blur in Google Photos, a powerful photo editing tool that can intelligently blur the background on photos of people, post-snap. Coming soon to the Photos app on Android, these users will be able to use this effect on photos of more subjects, like pets, food and plants, too. Even if the picture was taken years ago. Even if portrait mode wasn’t on at the time. Whether it’s photos of your four-legged friends on vacation, an artistic shot of your prized houseplant or just what you had for lunch today, the only thing left to focus on is how you’re going to share them.
All the latest on all your favorites with Highlights on Google TV
Learn more about your current and soon-to-be favorite shows with Highlights on Google TV mobile.
The new Highlights tab on Google TV offers a personalized feed of entertainment news, reviews and more based on movies and shows you’re interested in. Catch up on articles about the entertainment you love, or track the next big sensation, all in one place.
Learn more about your current and soon-to-be favorite shows with Highlights on Google TV mobile.
And if you discover something new that you’re interested in, one tap will take you straight to the movie, TV series or video the article is based on, so you can play, rate or Watchlist it for later.
Pay for parking with Google Assistant
Pay for parking using just your voice, with a little help from Google Assistant.
Google Assistant and Google Pay can now help you pay for parking, check your parking status, and extend your parking using just your voice. Just say, “Hey Google, pay for parking” once you’ve parked, and follow Assistant prompts to pay from your phone. No more coins, no more confusion. And when you need to check your parking status or pay for more parking, just say “Hey Google, parking status” and “Hey Google, extend parking.” Available in ParkMobile street parking zones in over 400 cities in the US.
Fine-tune your digital habits with the screen time widget
Customize your Home screen and fine-tune your digital habits with the screen time widget.
Staying on top of your screen time is all about balance. A new screen time widget helps get the ball rolling by offering a glimpse of the three apps you use the most each day. Tap the widget to open Digital Wellbeing, where you’ll find some helpful ways to fine-tune your digital habits, including:
Daily timers for your apps
Focus mode, which pauses distracting apps at set times
Bedtime mode, which silences your device and changes the screen to black and white at bedtime
Share with more people with Nearby Share
Use Nearby Share to share files with more people around you.
Nearby Share already lets you easily share photos, videos, documents, links, audio files or entire folders between nearby devices. A new update makes it easy to share with multiple people rather than just one person at a time. Simply tap to add more recipients during a transfer. It’s rolling out now on all Android 6+ devices.
These new features make it easier than ever to share new ideas, enjoy your favorite entertainment, and explore the world around you — just another set of features as your Android device becomes more helpful all the time.
During the pandemic, startups have proven to be key in driving the economic recovery of many countries. Entrepreneurs have taken on many challenges using one of their primary qualities: adapting to change.
Because of COVID-19, our Google for Startups Campus in Madrid closed its doors. But our team found new and creative ways to keep close to founders. With a focus on the sectors most affected by the pandemic, and also those that were on the rise and generating economic recovery, we launched Google for Startups Growth Academies to support almost 20 projects related to e-commerce, tourism, well-being and digital transformation.
Two years later, Google for Startups Campus in Madrid is reopening, with the objective of fostering entrepreneurial talent, and focusing on diversity and inclusion.
More resources for growing startups
Campus Madrid returns with a new look, where the Google for Startups community and its partners will be center stage. The spaces that were wide open to the general public before the pandemic are now available exclusively to alumni startups that have completed one of our in-depth training programs. The rapid growth of the entrepreneurial community in Madrid, with almost 100 startups in its network, has created the need to prioritize space for them so that they can continue their growth with greater access to the resources and space they need to get to the next level.
Campus Madrid will have more Googlers on-site, with some of our product experts moving their offices there to work closer to the entrepreneurs and offer personalized mentoring and training. There will also be ongoing training events and access to customized mentoring on Google products such as Google Cloud or Google Ads; these Startup School sessions, facilitated by PUE, will be open to a wider community beyond the resident startups.
Supporting women's leadership
The first program that Google for Startups will launch in person at Campus Madrid aims to promote female leadership: Women Founders Academy, a three-month program in which selected women will receive support to boost their leadership through mentoring, networking and targeted training. 11 women founders have been already selected for this program, that will kick off on March 21st.
Support for social entrepreneurship
Thanks to support from Google.org, Google’s philanthropic arm, and its Social Innovation Fund, which supports social enterprises and entrepreneurs across Europe, €2.5 million will go towards organisations working to strengthen the social innovation community in Spain. As part of this fund, Google.org will provide a grant to Ashoka to make social entrepreneurship more inclusive, diverse and accessible in Spain. The project will support the creation of three social innovation labs to tackle territorial, socio-economic, gender and generational gaps in the social entrepreneurship world. In addition, Google.org is supporting INCO, an international nonprofit to offer access to capital, incubation and mentorship support to social entrepreneurs from disadvantaged communities in Spain.
Google for Startups Campus in Madrid is coming back stronger than ever. We hope these new initiatives will bring about much-needed change and support the efforts of a network of talented, committed and diverse people who are fostering economic recovery in Spain.
Timbuktu is a city fabled to exist at the edge of the world, where the southern stretches of the Sahara desert end and a world of rich scholarly tradition, architectural wonder and abundant artistic creativity begins. In reality, it’s located in the West African country of Mali, a place filled to the brim with the kind of unmatched cultural richness that comes from traditions and influences from across the Sahara and Sahel melding together in harmony for centuries – all of which “Mali Magic” on Google Arts & Culture will share with you today.
Though popularly known as the historic home of Mansa Musa (the richest man in the world), the true magic of Mali doesn’t stem from these fractured fables so much as from the pillars that define its culture — its manuscripts, music, monuments and modern art — and their unbelievable resilience to human and environmental threats, thanks to the people’s quest to preserve their heritage.
M is for Mali
Mali’s story has often been told with attention to the violence and political unrest the nation has experienced, namely the 2012 coup and subsequent ten-month Jihadist occupation, which resulted in the destruction of many mausoleums, mosques and monuments, the burning of ancient manuscripts, and the breaking of instruments and cancelling of festivals to silence the music traditions that defined its culture. But the Malian people did not let their culture become a victim of destruction. From saving the ancient manuscripts that families protected for years from total destruction, to the contemporary artistic movements that are rising from times of turmoil, the resilience of Mali’s people and culture has been proven. Read more about their effort to preserve and digitize their libraries here.
Mali Magic on Google Arts & Culture shines a light on these heroic stories of resilience and presents Mali’s monuments, manuscripts, music and modern arts in a digital collection of sound and story like no other.
The cover of Fatoumata Diawara’s latest album, Maliba.
On an exclusive album produced in and telling the story of Mali, Grammy-award nominee Fatoumata Diawara sings about her country’s legacy and hopes for the future.
Animated graphic of a Malian musician from the artists at home music video.
Watch the music video bringing together contemporary Malian musicians from all over Mali, covering a song by the iconic Malian singer Ali Farka Touré.
Open manuscript bearing calligraphic text and decoration.
Delicate and decorative folio containing important teachings both religious and secular, are amongst the collections that families preserved in their homes for centuries before the evacuation from Timbuktu.
A 3D model of the Grand Mosque of Djenne with a person standing below for scale.
A 3D model of the largest adobe structure in the world. The Grand Mosque of Djenne, that goes as high as 20 meters, and can hold up to a 1000 people.
Portrait of Abdoulaye Konaté in front of one of his art works, a multicolored wall tapestry.
One of the most influential artists on Africa’s contemporary art scene, Abdoulaye Konaté renders vibrant wall tapestries in Malian cotton, inspired by African tradition and culture while raising awareness for pressing political, social and environmental issues within and beyond Mali.
M is for Manuscripts
Long before the European Renaissance, the Malian city of Timbuktu — which at one point was home to a community of scholars that made up a quarter of its whole population — gave birth to an abundance of learning in the fields of morality, politics, astronomy, literature and more surprising topics like black magic and sex advice. This work was captured in thousands of precious manuscripts. These pages have redefined our understanding of African history; Dr. Abdel Kader Haidara, the ‘badass librarian’ known for smuggling the manuscripts out of Timbuktu when their safety was at risk, has said that "they have said that in Africa there is no written history. It’s been said that all the history of Africa is oral. We have more than 400,000 manuscripts here written uniquely by the hands of the hands of Africans. They will see this and say the opposite. It’s a true Renaissance."
Finally, the manuscripts have made their way from family libraries to the world stage: a spectacular collection of 40,000 decorated folios and beautifully scripted Timbuktu manuscripts have been brought to Google Arts & Culture for the world to explore online, and is at the heart of discussions and celebrations to be held in Bamako on March 12th and at the Brooklyn Public Library on March 17th.
A colorful, gold-gilded manuscript page bearing both calligraphic text and decoration.
Timbuktu’s manuscripts were renowned for their physical beauty as well as their wisdom. Calligraphy styles from the broad slashes of the West African Hausa tradition to the whorls and sweeps of curvaceous North African lettering. There are beautiful, centuries-old Korans with gilding and calligraphy within.
A graphic of a librarian in Timbuktu holding a manuscript volume.
Some of the world’s most important astronomical and astrological developments were made by Islamic scholars, long before Galileo and his telescope; some mapped in the Timbuktu Manuscripts.
Old page of a Timbuktu manuscript displaying an astrological diagram.
Many surprising things can be found in the Timbuktu Manuscripts, from human rights and mathematics to sex tips, black magic or the question if smoking should be banned.
A stack of books containing ancient manuscripts.
The manuscripts have been preserved over the centuries not by a museum or institution, but by individual families who passed their libraries on through the generations. Because of them, Timbuktu’s written legacy remains for us to marvel at today.
A damaged manuscript lies amidst debris resulting from the damage caused by the extremist occupation of Mali.
The fragile manuscripts, inked on Italian paper, goat, sheep and even fish skins, were swiftly rescued thanks to individuals who smuggled the pages out of the city by car and boat from under the noses of the Islamist intruders.
M is for Music
From tribal song and dance accompanied by unique traditional instruments, captured on video by Instruments4Africa, to the Festival in the Desert that has hosted the likes of U2 and Mali’s own Fatoumata Diawara, Mali is a place infused with rhythm courtesy of a widespread passion for music. It’s even said that rock ‘n roll and the American blues are deeply rooted in Malian musical and myth-telling traditions.
Today, Mali’s music scene remains strong — musicians from all over Mali have united to cover the iconic Malian artist Ali Farka Touré’s beloved song Houwkuna, Grammy-award nominee Fatoumata Diawara ushers Mali to the front of the world music scene with her brand new EP, Maliba (‘The Great Mali’), and festivals and live concerts are held by the Timbuktu Renaissance and Instruments4Africa to keep soulful sounds and social cohesion alive.
A Malian dancer performs at a ceremony wearing a colorful costume and mask.
Mali’s musical traditions like the instruments, dances and costumes of the Funeral Ceremony for the Dogon Elders are at risk as the country moves away from a traditional way of life and the inroads of global culture dilute the rich traditions at the nation’s core.
A group of Malian musicians sit with traditional instruments.
Performing live music is a crucial part of Mali’s musical tradition — streaming just won’t do at traditional ceremonies and events
The Entrance to the Festival au Désert Camp.
Famous on the world music scene is Mali’s Festival in the Desert, where the country’s top talent as well as world-class guests such as U2 and Led Zeppelin have played over the years. When the jihadist occupation forced the cancellation of the event, it was instead held ‘in exile’ as Malian musical champions refused to submit to the extremists.
Ali Touré Farka album cover.
Mali’s long history of musical tradition peaked in the 1960s and 70s, a golden era of sorts in which both the state and private individuals significantly invested in music and culture. The result was a generation of musical bonafides, such as the famous Ali Farka Touré, and a large number of records produced during this period which would define Malian musical history.
The ‘nightingale of Timbuktu’ Khaira Dharby performing.
During the extremist occupation, the traditions that strengthened Malian communities and identities were targeted - music was banned and instruments were destroyed,, in an attempt to silence the people’s voice and spirit. But Mali’s musicians continued to share their heritage and talent with the world whenever and however they could, so that Mali's musical tradition could live on.
M is for Monuments
A third layer of Mali’s unique cultural landscape is made up of its mosques, mausoleums and monuments. These structures are not just iterations of historic mud architectural styles and commemorations of past events; they are kept alive by the communities who have maintained them for centuries and the efforts to restore them after their recent destruction by those attempting to shake the foundations of Malian culture and identity.
From political unrest and the end of tourism to globalization and pollution, several factors threaten Mali’s monuments and its culture at large. Exploring the Great Mosque of Djenne in 3D, or the first ever Street View of Mali’s mosques and monuments, it’s clear that this built heritage is worth protecting and preserving for generations to come.
The mudbrick facade of the Djinguereber Mosque.
In the first ever Street View of Mali’s endangered mosques and mausoleums, users can tour and learn the secrets of the Djinguereber Mosque: above the main door, there’s said to be a barely-legible inscription of the name Mansa Moussa, the richest man in history.
Local community members climb the Great Mosque of Djenne to replaster its facade in a festival.
The incredible festival to replaster the Great Mosque of Djenne takes place every year by the local community, who use the opportunity to work together to preserve and celebrate their heritage. Despite racing to finish the neighborhood’s portion of work to win first prize, it is said that there has never been an injury during the festival.
A Malian mason in front of a reconstructed ancestral tomb site.
Following the destruction of mausoleums and sites of ancestral heritage that were targeted during conflict, UNESCO collaborated with local masons to restore and reconstruct these built heritage sites.
M is for Modern Art
Carrying out Mali’s lasting legacy of creativity and vibrant culture are the country’s incoming generation of contemporary artists. Painters, sculptors, and mixed-media creators reflect the color and chaos that they see in the world around them, entwining Mali’s expressive culture with their own unique perspectives, ambitions and explorations.
Addressing the difficulties and destruction that Mali has endured throughout both recent and colonial history, the country’s art scene might represent a space in which Mali’s past can be processed and, through culture and creativity, a future can be rebuilt.
“The day we admit that we lost everything for the profit of others; that day we can truly begin to rediscover ourselves,” says Malian contemporary artist Amadou Sanogo.
Opa Bathily in front of his multicolored, multimedia paintings.
From the early days of his career, Amadou Opa Bathily has engaged in ‘art recovery’, working with recycled metal to make sculpture. Bathily's paintings continue to be identified by these hard materials which he sculpts to his canvas. His works and materials are both flexible and enduring.
One of Souleymane Guindo’s semi-sculptural works on canvas.
Drawing inspiration from the mountainous areas, stones, and boulders of the rocky escarpments of Dogon country, Souleymane Guindo’s works connect him to the culturally rich area in central Mali where he has his familial and ethnic roots.
Ange Dakou in front of one of his woven gris gris pieces of art.
Artist Ange Dakouo’s current work is inspired by protective amulets known as gris gris that are attached to a child’s wrist or neck at birth or sewn into the outfits of traditional hunters in West Africa. He creates his own woven gris gris, which traditionally are thought to ward off evil djinn, bad luck, and even ammunition rounds of enemy fire.
Dramane Toloba’s artworks, using paper maché, fabric, and discarded materials.
The works of Dramane Toloba are eco-responsible and based on the recovery of trash disposed by people into nature. His creations are inspired by the wastefulness of consumer society, contrasted with the natural world of traditional rural society, gratitude, and the constant battle of scarcity.
Discover more on g.co/MaliMagic online or through the Google Arts & Culture mobile app on iOS and Android.
The ancient manuscripts of Timbuktu — some 400,000 pages of text detailing everything from the Koran to mathematics to astronomy and astrology — are more than important historical documents. Central to the heritage of the West African nation of Mali, they represent the long legacy of written knowledge and academic excellence in Africa, and hold potential to inspire global learning from the actions of the past in confronting modern day issues.
Today, thanks to the initiative of the families who have protected the manuscripts from harm for generations and the capabilities of technology, more than 40,000 of those pages are digitally available for the first time for the world to explore on Google Arts & Culture. With this comes the hope that this legacy can be preserved and its potential harnessed to promote peace and cultural understanding.
The heroes who kept the manuscripts safe
The history of the manuscripts is known worldwide, in part thanks to their heroic preservation story. The collection, which was not held by a museum or institution but by individual families willing to safeguard their cultural heritage, was in danger when extremists seized Mali in 2012, destroying heritage sites and burning the manuscripts they came across in their wake. But the people of Timbuktu did not let their written heritage be crushed underfoot. By jeep, car and canoe, they smuggled as many manuscripts as they could out of the occupied city to safety, though sadly not all of the pages were able to be rescued.
An ancient manuscript lying amongst debris.
When extremists targeting sites of cultural heritage seized the country of Mali in 2012, many manuscripts were destroyed and the rest of the collection significantly endangered.
A trunk of ancient manuscripts.
In the face of danger, the people of Mali banded together to smuggle the manuscripts out of Timbuktu to safety, doing the country and world a great service by bravely preserving the priceless collection for generations to come.
Scanning a page from an ancient manuscript.
After scanning the manuscripts page by page, the collection on Google Arts & Culture now contains 40,000 digitized pages in high resolution, for scholars and the public alike to explore.
Cataloging the manuscripts.
Conserving, cataloging, boxing and continuing to study these pages are all part of the preservation efforts taken on by SAVAMA-DCI, the organization now holding and promoting the collection.
Dr. Haidara in the stacks at the library containing the preserved manuscripts
Preserving these collections physically and digitally will ensure that these pages and their teachings are passed onto forthcoming generations as both historical artifacts and documents with meanings still relevant to today to be studied and better understood.
Technology that creates new access
Now held at the headquarters of cultural preservation organization SAVAMA-DCI, their legacy can live on through continued study of the texts and maintenance of the delicate ancient pages. The digitized collection and experiment, visualizing a large manuscript archive available on Google Arts & Culture, opens a completely new door to understanding the past and the cultural significance of the archives. The documents that represent a Renaissance in African history – previously thought to be spoken but never written – are now accessible to the public and modern scholars around the world.
Though the manuscript collection became better known on the world stage after it was rescued during Mali’s 2012 extremist occupation, the texts’ legacy stretches far beyond the twenty-first century, containing a wealth of knowledge which filtered down through the scholars of Timbuktu, a key seat of Islamic-world studies, across nine centuries. While the manuscripts’ production reflects a keen skill for inscribing beautiful calligraphy styles on a range of materials — from Italian paper to fish skins — their content ranges from surprisingly contemporary topics, such as sex tips, the question of whether smoking should be banned and insight into practises of black magic, to ever-relevant teachings about peacekeeping, human rights and good governance.
An introduction to the manuscripts digital archive and stories.
Enter a virtual experience introducing the manuscripts, their journey through history, and presenting the 40K+ digitized manuscripts.
A book viewer to flip and read through the manuscripts.
Dive deep into an engaging 3D view of the compiled books to flip through the various manuscripts and study up close.
View of the digitized manuscript collection in its entirety.
Immerse yourself in a Universe of Verse, the floating manuscript collection, and select pages to explore in more detail.
A page of an ancient copy of the Quran.
Delicate and decorative folio like this page from an ancient copy of the Quran, containing important teachings both religious and secular, are amongst the collections that families preserved in their homes for centuries before the evacuation from Timbuktu.
A manuscript with a rare drawing of a musical instrument.
As well as containing writings rich with ancient teachings on a wide range of subjects, many manuscripts are embellished with drawings and diagrams that shed light on life in medieval Timbuktu, such as this page displaying a traditional musical instrument.
A manuscript with astronomical and astrological diagrams.
The Timbuktu manuscripts bear witness to the Islamic world’s understanding of astronomy, some emerging hundreds of years before the time of Galileo.
In narrating stories of conflict resolution in African history between the empires and kingdoms of centuries ago, the manuscripts offer relevant points of comparison and wisdom that can be applied to periods of conflict and instability that ensue in our modern world. In this context, so too can the manuscripts play a key role in shaping African identity.
In these pages we can identify ourselves and our ancestors as the authors of histories of peace and wisdom — and so connect to our heritage through a certain recognition of ourselves within it.
Immerse yourself in the Timbuktu Manuscripts on g.co/TimbuktuManuscripts online or through the Google Arts & Culture mobile app on iOS and Android.
People want the freedom to be able to use different online services without worrying about losing their photos, contacts, emails and other data if they close an account or switch to a new company.
For over a decade, Google has offered its users data portability – the ability to take your Google data with you, even if you are no longer using a Google service. In 2007, we created a team of engineers dedicated to giving people an easy way to export a copy of their data from our products. Since then, we’ve expanded our data portability offering with Google Takeout, which makes it easy to download data from over 70 Google products. Our teams continue to build cutting-edge technologies that help make this process simpler and keep personal data safe and secure as people transfer it between different platforms.
Today, we are announcing new investments and continued collaboration with industry partners and experts to make data portability easier and more secure for every internet user.
Advancing data portability
Data portability can be challenging for people who don’t have high-speed internet, unlimited mobile data plans, or who don’t have a personal device with extra storage. In 2018, we launchedData Transfer Project (DTP), an open source collaboration with Google, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Twitter and SmugMug to simplify data portability for people around the world.
Unlike traditional methods of moving your files from one service to another, which require reliable broadband or drawing on mobile data plans, with DTP people can simply authorize a copy of the data to safely move to a new service without having to download it to a personal device first. This makes it easier for people to try new services without the burden of needing additional storage. And any company or organization can use DTP’s open source code, meaning even smaller companies that don't have the engineering resources to build custom data portability solutions can take advantage of DTP’s tools and give people an easy way to bring their data to a new service.
Today, we’re pledging to provide $3 million over the next five years, as well as hundreds of hours of our engineers’ time, to help expand the open source libraries that facilitate more types of data transfer and allow more companies and organizations to participate in DTP.
We will also continue to improve our own tools, like Google Takeout, including adding new ways to move your files to different services with DTP technology. On average we see 8.2 million exports per month with Google Takeout, and in 2021, more than 400 billion files were exported, which has doubled since 2019.
Finally, we will continue to support organizations and researchers working on portability and interoperability, and collaborate with them to develop industry-wide standards and guidance on this important issue.
Policy principles for portability
Regulators around the world recognize that data portability is fundamental to promoting consumer choice and data protection. We agree – data portability is a secure way to foster innovation and competition among digital service providers. When people can easily switch to a new product or service, without the fear of losing access to their data, companies are encouraged to provide the best possible services to win over new users.
We believe data portability rules should follow three key principles:
Put people first. Data portability supports competition by empowering consumers. Supporting standards for the most common data types will accelerate innovation in products that have a high value for consumers — including services for photos, playlists and contacts.
Require exportability. Platforms that allow people to import their data should also allow them to export it. This encourages people to try new services without the risk that they will lose their data. Consumers will be more likely to try something new if they know they can change their mind.
Prioritize privacy and security. Portability regulation must include safeguards against unauthorized access, diversion of data, and other types of fraud. This should include account authorization, encryption and delayed delivery.
These are the same principles we relied on to build Google Takeout and launch the DTP – and while we will continue to support regulatory efforts to create responsible data portability, we aren’t waiting for legal mandates. We will continue to advance state-of-the-art data portability through our tools and our support for DTP.
Have you ever wanted to learn something from a video, but couldn’t because it was in another language? If your answer is yes, you’re not alone.
That’s why we are introducing Aloud, a new product from Area 120, Google’s in-house incubator for experimental projects. Using Aloud, creators can quickly and easily dub their videos into multiple languages, unlocking knowledge that might be trapped in a single language today. We support dubbing into Spanish and Portuguese, with Hindi, Bahasa-Indonesian and other languages coming soon. We hope this makes dubbing more accessible to creators who previously considered it too difficult or too costly. And you can request early access starting today.
The language barrier
We grew up in Sri Lanka at a time before computing was mainstream, but had the opportunity to learn English at a young age. The ability to read and learn about new technologies in books only available in English opened our world and helped us develop a passion for technology. But English proficiency wasn't commonplace, and many of our friends had a much harder time. The language barrier was real for them, and the playing field was not level.
The methods of learning have changed since then, and research shows that 46% of global viewers use video to learn something new. But much of today’s video content is still being produced in English, and more than 80% of the world does not speak the language. For them, English videos are not accessible, and the playing field is still not level.
Subtitles can help bridge the language gap, but they’re not always ideal on mobile devices due to the small form factor, the necessity of constant attention to the screen, and accessibility challenges for those with visual or reading impairments. Dubbing, the process of adding a translated voice track, overcomes those limitations, but is time-consuming and cost-prohibitive for most creators.
With Aloud, dubbing can be as easy as typing in the language you speak
A preview of our text editor based (video editing-less) dubbing experience.
Dubbing used to take weeks worth of effort and a large budget. But with Aloud, you only need a few minutes. We use advances in audio separation, machine translation and speech synthesis to reduce time-consuming and costly steps like translation, video editing and audio production. You do not even need to know any language other than the ones you already speak, and all of this is available at no cost to the creator.
To dub with Aloud, all you need to do is provide the video and subtitles in the original language. If subtitles are not available, you can also quickly review the text transcript that we generate. With those inputs, Aloud can produce informative dubs like the one below:
Access a global audience, while staying in control
With dubbing, you can now reach previously unreachable portions of the world’s population. In our experiments, we have seen double-digit growth in views just by dubbing into one additional language.
We know you as a creator take pride in the content that you create, so we want to ensure that you remain in control. You decide which videos to dub, how to publish them, how much effort to put in and bring in language experts if you so choose. Aloud doesn’t create new content — it only uses the original speech and translates it into a different language of your choice. We're also working with YouTube to let creators add multiple audio tracks to their videos, a new feature that they started testing with a small group of
Viewers have transparency
Our goal is to open up previously inaccessible information to the world. At the same time, we’re vigilant about how the technology is used, and we want to make sure that synthetically dubbed content is never confused with the original, or with content that is dubbed by voice actors. So to ensure transparency, we require from our creators that all dubs produced by Aloud state clearly (in the video description, as a pinned comment or in the post credits screen) that they are synthetic dubs with a reference to the original.
Request early access today
We are starting this process with a focus on informational content, as we think it will help the most people. As we learn and improve on our tech, we plan to expand to other types of content as well.
Let's overcome the language barrier together – request early access at aloud.area120.google.com.
Nearly a third of the founders scaling and shaping U.S. businesses and nonprofits are women. In Loudoun County, Virginia – the data center capital of the world – two intrepid female executives are working hard to set an example for other aspiring women while also changing lives in their communities.
In honor of International Women’s Day this week, we’re highlighting these two special leaders and their accomplishments, providing a glimpse into the lives they’ve touched with their vision and tenacity.
Enid Machayo is a Ugandan immigrant whose own experiences with sexism and bigotry inspired her to launch Global Inheritance, a nonprofit dedicated to exposing young women to educational and career opportunities in STEM.
“It’s hard for a girl to become what they’ve never seen,” says Machayo, whose Leading Ladies program has placed interns at dozens of top-tier companies, including Google.
Donna Fortier is a champion for the under-resourced, who are not always visible in Loudoun County, a wealthy and well-educated suburb of Washington, D.C.. Through Mobile Hope, Fortier and her team have served more than 200,000 families in need since the start of the COVID pandemic and recently launched their Google-sponsored trade school.
Watch Enid and Donna in action in this inspiring new video as they serve their communities and create new opportunities in Northern Virginia. Google is proud to partner with organizations like Global Inheritance and Mobile Hope in data center communities worldwide – from Nebraska to The Netherlands – that are committed to the life-changing work that makes us all better.
This March marks the arrival of International Women’s Day around the world and Women’s History Month in the U.S. It’s a time to celebrate trailblazing women throughout history. From the suffragettes to the #MeToo movement, women continue to fight against gender bias, discrimination and stereotypes. To mark this occasion, we’re welcoming feminist advocate and musical icon Christina Aguilera to Waze.
Christina has a long history of advocating for women and underrepresented voices, using her platform to put them center stage in iconic songs and music videos — from “Beautiful” to “Let There Be Love” to “Can’t Hold Us Down.”
“International Women’s Day is a significant reminder that we are still fighting against gender bias and stereotypes,” Christina says. “Partnering with Waze has allowed me to unify my voice with a community of people who care about helping one another.”
Now, her messages of empowerment and self-love — and her Grammy-award winning voice — are on Waze to inspire the next generation of advocates.
Jump in the car with Christina
Christina takes fans on a journey through her life and work, from her “Genie in a Bottle” beginnings to her breakout as a fierce and liberated woman in “Stripped,” to her current hits like “Pa Mis Muchachas,” that draw from her Latin roots. Plus, she’ll share some advice she’s learned along the way — in both English and Spanish.
To get the full Xtina experience, choose from one of four Moods — Magical, Feisty, Sweet, or Strong — and drive in style in the Dirrty Bike or Pinkup Truck. You’ll be ready to take on whatever obstacles come your way, from potholes to traffic jams.
Sing your heart out to Christina’s favorites
In honor of International Women’s Day, Christina has also curated a Spotify playlist that you can stream through the Waze Audio Player (the caris one of Christina’s favorite places to sing). The playlist is full of powerhouse women, including up-and-coming artists who are inspiring Christina today, and selections from her own library of belt-it-out hits.
The experience on Waze launched March 1 and is available for a limited time with voice navigation in English and Spanish. Visit Waze or tap “My Waze” in your app and find the “Drive with Christina Aguilera” banner. And don’t forget to start streaming the Spotify playlist.
At Google Health, we’re always thinking about how we can make our tools most useful for clinicians. This includes Care Studio, our clinical software that harmonizes healthcare data from different sources to give clinicians a comprehensive view of a patient’s records.
Today, at the ViVE Conference in Miami Beach, we previewed Conditions, a new Care Studio feature that helps clinicians make even better sense of patient records.
Instant insights for clinicians
Getting a holistic summary of a patient's medical history can be challenging as key clinical insights are often buried in unstructured notes and data silos. With Conditions, we use our deep understanding of data to provide a quick and concise summary of a patient’s medical conditions along with critical context from clinical notes. Conditions are organized by acuity, so a clinician can quickly determine if a patient’s condition is acute or chronic.
We also provide easy access to information related to a condition — including labs, medications, reports, specialist notes and more — to help clinicians manage and treat a condition. So if a clinician clicks on a condition, like diabetes, they may see blood sugar levels, insulin administrations, endocrinology consult notes and retinopathy screening studies. And if critical information is missing, we will highlight its absence from the chart. For example, we’d flag if standard labs for a patient with diabetes are missing, like hemoglobin A1c results. With these resources, a clinician can quickly understand a new patient’s medical history or easily review an existing patient’s insulin regimen before their appointment.
Bringing natural language processing to medical data
Healthcare data is structured in numerous ways, making it difficult to organize. Clinical notes may be written differently and stored across different systems. Clinician notes also differ based on if content is meant for clinical decision making, billing or regulatory uses. Further, when it comes to writing notes, clinicians use different abbreviations or acronyms depending on their personal preference, what health system they’re a part of, their region and other factors. All of this has made it difficult to synthesize clinical data — until now.
The Conditions feature works by algorithmically understanding medical concepts from notes that may be written in incomplete sentences, shorthand or with misspelled words. We use Google’s advances in AI in an area called natural language processing (NLP) to understand the actual context in which a condition is mentioned and map these concepts to a vocabulary of tens of thousands of medical conditions. For example: One clinician might write “multiple sclerosis exacerbation” while another might document the same problem as “MS flare”. Care Studio is able to recognize that these different terms are linked to the same condition, and supported by the same evidence.
Similarly, Care Studio understands that the statement “Patient has a history of dm”, means that diabetes mellitus (dm) is present. And for the statement “Pneumonia is not likely at this time”, pneumonia is absent.
Care Studio then ranks each condition to determine its importance using various factors — such as the condition itself, its frequency, recency and more — to elevate the most important conditions to the top. Finally, based on input from medical specialists and clinicians on the Google team, Care Studio organizes conditions to support clinical thinking and decision making. For instance, acute conditions are highlighted, and related conditions are presented next to each other.
Healthcare data is complex, and clinicians often have to manually sift through information to make sense of a patient’s conditions. We’re excited to bring this feature to clinicians in the coming months so they can instantly access the information they need all in one place to provide better care.
Google Marketing Live is a highlight for me every year because it’s a time when we get to meet with businesses around the world to exchange ideas. Your perspectives have shaped our roadmap in so many ways. Products like Performance Planner, pickup today in local inventory ads and conversion goals were all developed directly from conversations with marketers who attended this event. Together, we are building products to shape the future of advertising.
Please join us on Tuesday, May 24, 2022 at 9:00 a.m. PT for the opening keynote of our annual Google Marketing Live event. The keynote will be livestreamed globally along with a whole suite of on-demand, virtual breakout sessions built to help you achieve your business goals. We hope to bring the industry back together with some in-person programming to complement our global livestream. We’ll confirm official plans closer to the event.
From more ways to keep up with changing consumer trends to better tools to measure marketing performance in a privacy-safe way, we can’t wait to share our newest innovations with you. Save the date and stay plugged in to the ongoing conversation at #GML2022.
Women around the world have had to change their lives in unpredictable ways. Despite the challenges of the pandemic, political restrictions and global conflict, their resilience has been remarkable. Women have continued to show up for themselves, their families and their communities — and it’s why on this International Women’s Day, and every day, Google is showing up to support them.
When I reflect upon the women who inspired me, I go back to my undergraduate education at Spelman College, a historically Black college for women in Atlanta. It was there I joined a sisterhood of women who looked like me and pushed me to strive for excellence. Today, as a physician and a director within Google Health, I cherish this support system more than ever. Throughout the pandemic, and thanks to technology, we’ve been there for each other through life's events, big and small — birthdays, loss of parents, encouragement on that Peloton ride, the list goes on. My connection with these women who are now lawyers, engineers, academic professors, executives at Fortune 100 companies, has been a lifeline because we are also mothers, daughters, sisters, aunts, life partners and friends. Google artist Thoka Maer, expresses this idea beautifully in our global, animated slideshow Doodle. Her Doodle illustrates the many roles we as women play, how we inspire those around us and how we continue to support each other when life forces us to suddenly adapt.
Supporting others means first supporting oneself, much like airlines tell you to put on your oxygen mask first before helping others. At Google, we’re working to help women prioritize their needs by putting a premium on safety and health, creating equitable opportunities and celebrating their accomplishments. This spirit of inclusivity and support extends to all who identify as women, recognizing the intersections of other identities, backgrounds and personal experiences. Join us as we bring people together from around the world for Google’s International Women's Day event series, starting today with our virtual Global Summit, followed by regionally focused events throughout the month of March. And read on to learn about all the ways we’re supporting women globally, not just today, but every day.
Helping women lead safer and healthier lives
Today, we’re announcing the open sourcing of code for a new tool that will address online violence targeted at women. Harassment Manager is an open-source tool built by Jigsaw, in collaboration with Twitter, the Thomson Reuters Foundation and human rights organizations. It is designed to help women, public figures such as journalists, activists, politicians and other groups at risk of experiencing online violence manage toxic language directed at them. We hope Harassment Manager, along with other tools like our recent domestic violence hotline feature on Search, will help women engage more safely online, and encourage others in the tech industry to connect women around the world to resources to improve their safety.
We’re also using research to help women better protect their health. Google Health is exploring how to improve breast cancer detection using artificial intelligence and enhance the patient experience for an otherwise nerve wracking mammogram process. And we’ll be revealing new research on maternal health at our second annual health event, The Check Up on March 24. Plus, YouTube’s new Body of Knowledge series is now sharing open and honest conversations about health so women can feel better supported and understood along their personal wellness journeys.
We take the health and wellbeing of the women in our workplace to heart, too. Earlier this year, we expanded our parental leave to at least 18 weeks for all parents and at least 24 weeks for all parents who give birth, and our carer’s leave for seriously ill loved ones doubled to eight weeks. We also offer berevement leave (which covers still birth and miscarriages) and two weeks of ramp back time so when employees return to work after parental leave, they’re able to work half of their normal weekly hours, while still being paid 100% of their salary.
Acrylic painting of Dr. Jane Wright, a pioneering African American cancer researcher and surgeon, by Ernest Crichlow (1980).
Closing the gender gap for women to build careers and businesses
Focused on building a world where all women can thrive, we’re creating more equitable opportunities in education and tech. For instance, we just announced a Women of Color in Tech scholarship for Black, Latina or Native women pursuing degrees in computer science. In Southeast Asia, our Women Developer Academy is teaching women the professional skills they need to jumpstart their own careers and our Women Techmakers are hosting hundreds of events around the world to bring people together for connection, learning and inspiration. And over the past several years,Google.org has given over $80 million to organizations creating opportunities for women across the world, including $25 million just last year for ourImpact Challenge for Women and Girls.
The need to improve equity for women extends well beyond tech. As recently as 2020, startups led by all-women teams received only 2.3% of funding raised around the world. Google for Startups wants to reduce that gender gap through programs like the first-ever Founders Academy, which taught women-focused health startups across the U.K., Switzerland, Germany and Israel how to build strategies for their work tackling issues like fertility, gynecological cancers and sexual wellness. Google is also providing resources for women who own small businesses to improve their digital skills through Grow with Google’s free on-demand workshops. These resources, along with Google’s online tools, have helped women entrepreneurs like Ashley Rouse, Owner and CEO of Trade Street Jam and Sashee Chandran, Founder and CEO of Tea Drops, reach more customers online to sell more products and grow their businesses.
Finally, our Google Media Understanding for Social Exploration team has been partnering with the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media to analyze media content with machine learning to identify gender gaps on screen. Their findings will continue to improve Google’s own work, while also helping marketers and the film industry improve representation and portrayals of women.
Celebrating the success of women globally
Part of showing up to support women everywhere is showcasing the progress we’ve made over time. Whether it’s celebrating the success of small-business owners around the world or using AI to uncover the roles and achievements of women in science throughout history, we want to show how the perseverance, passion and strength of women has made society much, much brighter. Our CEO of YouTube, Susan Wojcicki, is doing just that by spotlighting Pakistani Canadian creator Kanwal Ahmed on YouTube’s blog, and talking to her about her powerful and inspirational videos that create a safe space for women to connect. Also, check out our Google Arts & Culture Women in Culture hub for inspiring stories of female game changers from various fields and across the globe all year long or tune in all month to Google TV for movie, TV and music recommendations featuring collections, like brave women in unforgettable roles and women who've made Oscar history.
International Women’s Day gives us a chance to reflect on the progress that’s been made and we recognize there is still work to be done. Today, we’re hosting a global, virtual summit, open to all our employees, focused on community-building, professional development and celebrating the unique, intersectional aspects of our identities. As women have shown us time and again, they are changemakers, and we’ll continue to support them and show up for them in our workplace and in society.
Like many women working in tech in the Caribbean, Women Techmakers ambassador and Google Developers Group co-organizer for Trinidad and Tobago Maria Divina O’Brien has a full-time day job in addition to two several side projects she spends the rest of her time working on. Her business, Design Change, is a design firm focused on social impact projects to improve Caribbean women’s lives. "I'm using what I've learned as an activist to find ways technology can help women and how we can create a community to work on these solutions,” Maria says.
Maria is also the chairwoman of MindWise, a mental health nonprofit focused on digital content creation and curation that Maria co-founded in 2019. MindWise developed FindCareTT.com, a digital directory of mental health services. Maria, a cancer patient, is also working on “Views from the Waiting Room,” a collaborative art project aimed at bringing more attention to women’s health.
When she isn’t working on Design Change, MindWise, or art projects, Maria works for the Corporate Communications Department of the Office of the Parliament of Trinidad and Tobago, where she produces digital design and visual assets and consults on broadcasting design projects. “I get to produce content and solutions that directly impact the democracy of the country,” she says. “For example, I worked on a team that problem-solved how to make democratic functions virtual during COVID.”
Maria connected with the Port-of-Spain Google Developers Group in 2019 and became a co-organizer, and went on to become a Women Techmakers (WTM) ambassador. “Last year, we pulled together 12 major diversity communities for the first International Women’s Day Caribbean Tech Summit,” she says. “Women in Tech Caribbean, Caribbean Girls Hack and four WTM chapters from other Caribbean countries participated, and this year, we’re hoping to get someone from each Caribbean country to represent each country’s current challenges.”
Maria hosts a virtual International Women’s Day event with Jerrod Best-Mitchell.
In September 2021, Maria launched the Building Sustainable Minds Volunteer Program, a collaboration among MindWise, the Trinidad and Tobago WTM chapter and the University of the West Indies. Maria created a virtual studio where students can create content for a mental health news platform called Open Minds that shares stories about mental health news and the experiences and unique challenges of people in different Caribbean cultures. Maria and her colleagues are training students to do virtual interviews, create design templates and edit their work. All 55 student volunteers plan to continue their work for the rest of the school year.
Maria supporting and documenting fellow local Women Techmakers at the pioneer LAIKA Stop Motion training programme at the TTAP Factory of UTT, with Camille Selvon, Jessica Yawching and Mindy Bailey.
Today, Maria is working on recruiting more Caribbean WTM ambassadors. “We have four chapters in the English-speaking Caribbean, and my goal is to have 15 by the end of this year,” she says. “There is a really exciting generation of influencers and creators building the next Caribbean, and most of them are women. Let’s take a chance on changing the culture.”
It matters who reports the news — it’s why the Google News Initiative is so dedicated to diversifying who’s a part of this industry. In honor of International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month, we spoke with a handful of the incredible female news entrepreneurs we partner with in our various GNI Startups Labs around the world.
Here are five female founders in news you should know about:
Kara Meyberg Guzman - CEO/Co-founder, Santa Cruz Local
In 2019, Kara Meyberg Guzman helped launch Santa Cruz Local's newsroom to help fill a need for deep, accurate news about local government. Prior, Kara Meyberg Guzman was the Santa Cruz Sentinel’s managing editor — the first woman and first person of color to hold the position. A notable move she oversaw was helping to produce 2020 local election guides in English and Spanish to better serve the people in her community. “I'm driven by two questions that I think are related: How do we make local newsrooms sustainable? How do we serve communities that are not normally heard by local media?” Kara says. About 700 Santa Cruz County residents now support Santa Cruz Local with a paid membership. “I feel very lucky to serve the community I love. I have the opportunity and privilege to build a newsroom on our values and principles.”
Santa Cruz Local staffers Natalya Dreszer, Kara Meyberg Guzman and Stephen Baxter record an episode of the Santa Cruz Local podcast. (Photo via Jacob Meyberg Guzman — Santa Cruz Local)
Micaela Arbio Grattone, Argentina – Co-director of Feminacida
Micaela Arbio Grattone - Co-founder of Feminacida
Micaela is a photographer and journalist who co-directs Feminacida, a website focused on news tailored to women she and co-founder Agustina Lanza launched in 2018. “The most challenging thing about being Feminacida's founder is having created this media from scratch. We didn’t know how to do it, we were only two people,” Micaela says. “Feminacida was born in the corridors of a university and today it reaches people all over the country.”
Members of Feminacida doing a press coverage during the parliamentary debates to pass the abortion bill in 2020.
“We do this work with the strong conviction that we are fighting for equality and to improve people’s lives. The most exciting thing is to see how Feminacida directly impacts people’s notions of current issues.”
Carolina, along with co-founders Helena Bertho and Thais Folego, are focused on fighting gender inequality via AzMina, a news site and support network. “In Brazil, women have always been entrepreneurs out of necessity. But they have done it without the network that men do — having to work from home, without access to finance and with more chances of seeing their ventures die for lack of income,” she says.
The women of AzMina at work.
What drives Carolina is seeing the difference AzMina makes on the daily lives of Brazilian women. “We started with volunteer work and now we employ 20 women full time, have multiple sources of revenue and a solid and innovative business model. All this is really a source of pride. We need women to see this can work and feel inspired to create their own formats.”
Photo of Bhanupriya Rao – founder of BehanBox, based in India
Bhanupriya has been an independent researcher and journalist writing on gender, government and social justice in India. “I have long believed that news excludes women and gender diverse persons, both in the content and the production of it,” she says. Bhanupriya founded BehanBox in 2020 to center the voices and issues of women and gender diverse persons and make them equal participants in India's democracy. “Our critical in-depth, data-driven and evidence-based reportage, from local to the national level, is shining the spotlight on various forms of inequity and inequality, which is forcing mainstream media and policy-makers to take notice.” The biggest challenge? “Convincing naysayers that reporting on gender issues is newsworthy and needs sustained investment,” she says.
Masuma Ahuja, United Kingdom – founder of Girlhood
Photo of Masuma Ahuja – founder of Girlhood, based in the United Kingdom
In 2021, Masuma, who’d previously worked for CNN and the Washington Post, wrote a book documenting the lives of teenage girls around the world. This became the launching pad for Girlhood, a community-powered site by girls that tells their stories. “This kind of space didn't exist when I was growing up, and I hope more girls can see themselves reflected in the stories we publish on Girlhood,” Masuma says. “ I think a lot about the power of narratives, and of stories — the stories we tell ourselves, the stories that shape our cultures and communities, the stories that are codified in our textbooks. There is so much space, so much potential and so much need for girls' voices to be included in all of these spaces!”
The hardest part of her job is that she doesn’t see a lot of models out there. “As a woman of color, as an immigrant who's building something that's inherently international and centers girls and as a startup founder in general, I don’t necessarily have a well-trodden path to follow.”
Three years ago, Generation and Google.org joined forces to help jobseekers launch meaningful careers and change their lives. Enabled by $7.5M in grant funding from Google.org, and technical support from a team of Google.org Fellows, Generation has now helped to train and place more than 3,000 people in France, Italy, and Spain into entry-level technology sector professions, including digital customer care, full stack and java development, digital marketing, and robotic process automation.
Opening up access to today’s digital economy
At both Google and Generation, we believe that everyone should have the opportunity to participate in today's increasingly digital economy. Yet groups that are already underserved are still often underrepresented in jobs that require digital skills. Like Google’s Grow with Google initiatives, Generation’s programs seek to open access to education for those who have faced systemic barriers to accessing employment — 54% of learners at Generation are female, and most describe themselves as financially unstable before joining Generation, with 80% of learners unemployed.
Graduates from the Generation programs supported by Google.org have seen life-transforming outcomes, even in the midst of a pandemic labor market. Within six months of program completion, 75% of graduates were already placed in jobs. A year later, the majority of those remained employed.
Seeing the impact of Generation’s work and hearing the stories of Generation graduates is deeply inspiring. Stories like that of David André, who started working after high school without a university degree. He had a series of low wage restaurant and retail jobs, and then spent a period of time unemployed, facing financial and family difficulties.
Around that time, he received an email from the French employment agency, Pôle Emploi, about the Generation Customer Care program. David André decided to apply, and was accepted. He invested himself fully in the program. At the end of the course, Generation connected him with a French startup, Doctolib — an online platform that facilitates virtual medical appointments. Within a few months, he was hired permanently. With his newfound work stability, he has moved into his own place, and has stepped into a sales support role as he continues to advance in his career.
Spotlighting skills on the Employer Portal
To help further accelerate Generation’s mission, Google recently provided additional support in the form of a Google.org Fellowship, where a team of Google data scientists and product managers worked full-time, pro bono alongside Generation for six months, to address the challenge of matching job seekers with employers. When employers are accustomed to focusing on resumes, not candidate skills, it can be difficult for jobseekers from underrepresented communities to get seen. To make it easier for recruiters to find the talent they need from its pool of graduates, Google.org Fellows helped Generation to develop and build a new Employer Portal, now being trialed in both Spain and France.
What differentiates the Portal from other job-matching platforms out there is that employers can search for talent based on the skill-set of the job seekers, which Generation helps validate beforehand. Focusing on the skills that candidates bring to the table, rather than data points like age, gender, and education, help to minimize hiring biases and unlock new talent pools for employers — breaking down barriers to employment for underrepresented populations. We’re looking forward to seeing what the Employer Portal can do to help more jobseekers find employment, and like David André, change their lives.
10:25
10:25
10:25
10:25