human aims could be good business Posted by Adel Mubarak , Tuesday, February 22, 2011 at 11:40 PM, in Labels: Google

It's been almost two years since Google announced a philosophy shift at Google.org to focus more on attacking "problems in ways that make the most of Google's strengths in technology and information,". One of the first successes from that shift--Google Earth Engine--may not only help developing countries get accurate data about their environments for the first time, but such a massive collection of information and sophisticated analysis could pay financial dividends as well.
Google does a lot of charitable giving, but tucked away in a corner of its sprawling campus is a group drawn from all parts of the company that is dedicated to something a little more Googly that simply giving money away: "Can we use our engineering skills to design our way out (of the world's problems)?" Megan Smith, general manager of Google.org, said in an interview with CNET.
Take Google Earth Engine, conceived and run by Rebecca Moore, a former member of Google's Geo team who now works for Google.org full time. Moore developed quite a reputation in the environmental community after using Google Earth to map out a proposed logging project in the Santa Cruz Mountains that was defeated after the graphical presentation showed the project's scope was larger than advertised. That led to Google Earth Outreach, a project which taught environmental groups and governments how to use Google Earth as a presentation tool.
Environmental scientists were impressed by the tool, but what they really wanted was a tool that could let them analyze and manipulate the data stored in those images in order to make decisions about environmental policy, such as how much to compensate local groups for protecting forests against logging. Moore recognized that what they needed was something "intrinsically parallelizable;" in other words, something perfectly suited to be broken up into thousands of small tasks and run across a distributed network of servers.

Google.org wants to find hard problems that are often too much for poorer countries with limited or nonexistent IT budgets to solve on their own and apply Google's vast resources of computing power and human talent.
Around 100 Google employees are affiliated with Google.org, and while their salaries are paid out of Google.org's estimated 2011 budget of $45 million, they generally maintain a strong connection to the Google.com working group from which they came.
Earth Engine is an example of a "pilot" project started by one or two engineers from the Geo team that grew into a full-blown Google.org project, Smith said. There are five major products at the moment: Google Earth Engine, Google Flu Trends, Google PowerMeter, REAnother Google Earth Engine project allowed the Surui tribe in the Amazon to receive compensation from the Brazilian government for maintaining the forests in their territory, the green area in the middle of the picture with the clear borders. The yellow and pink areas represent deforested land.
Another Google Earth Engine project allowed the Surui tribe in the Amazon to receive compensation from the Brazilian government for maintaining the forests in their territory, the green area in the middle of the picture with the clear borders. The yellow and pink areas represent deforested land.
(Credit: Google)