Monday, 29 September 2008

Google Celebrates 10th Anniversary with a Twist

Google is marking its 10th anniversary by offering USD 10 million in a competition that is aimed at transforming the world's best ideas into useful products.

Through online submissions, people can send one or more ideas and projects of their own. The only criteria announced so far by Google executives is that all the ideas must be socially-oriented and provide solutions to such issues as access to education and alternative energy sources.

The form asks users to describe their ideas briefly and in depth, discuss who would benefit from it and how, and describe what's holding it back. The ideas are supposed to be slotted into categories that interest Google—Community, Opportunity, Energy, Environment, Health, Education, and Shelter—but, in keeping with the free-form nature of the Project, there's the option of picking Everything Else as a category. Providing a description via a short YouTube video is an option; videos are only supplemental material, though.

"Our company's very name expresses our goal of achieving great results through smart technology that starts small and scales dramatically over time to have a tremendous long-term impact," Google said in a website posting.

The submissions’ deadline is October 20th. From that point on, Google representatives and an advisory board will choose a number of 100 preliminary winners, by January 27th. The public will then have time until February 2nd to vote their favorite ideas. Panel of judges (who so far have not been selected or named) will then look through the 20 most voted ideas and select a maximum number of five ideas.

Winning ideas will get Google funding, while the people that submitted them will get "good karma and the satisfaction of knowing that your idea might truly help a lot of people," wrote Google on its 10th anniversary webpage.