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Google To Fund Ideas That Will Change the World
Peace Corps Online writes "This week, as part of their tenth birthday celebration, Google announced the launch of project ten to the 100th, a project designed to inspire and fund the development of ideas that will help to change the world. They have called on members of the public to share their ideas for solutions that will help as many people as possible in the global community, offering a $10 million prize pool to back the development of those chosen as winners. 'We know there are countless brilliant ideas that need funding and support to come to fruition,' says Bethany Poole, Project Marketing Manager for Google. 'These ideas can be big or small, technology-driven or brilliantly simple — but they need to have impact.' The project's website asks entrants to classify their ideas into one of eight categories listed as Community, Opportunity, Energy, Environment, Health, Education, Shelter and Everything Else. Members of the public have until October 20th to submit their ideas by completing a simple form and answering a few short questions about their idea."
a gun that shoots cookies. either at 600f/s or just gently enough to hit my mouth.
So who actually profits from this? Does Google sift the data and then start up in-house projects or do they run a program like the MacArthur genius grant, where the money is provided with little to no strings attached?
Given the earlier controversy over their EULAs containing clauses to forfeit all rights to your IP, this isn't just an idle question.
$_ = "wftedskaebjgdpjgidbsmnjgcdwatb"; tr/a-z/oh, turtleneck Phrase Jar!/; print
That's a hell of a lot of extra work to globally disseminate your idea to the world.
You wouldn't let Google have the hassle of doing the footwork if they flipped you a few mil? I think maybe you lack some of the foresight/vision/humanitarianism that the contest seeks to capitalize on.
Just sayin....
Some projects require resources no matter how you look at it: e.g. labs, connections with other intelligent people, test subjects, etc. Unless you are rich or have a project that requires minimal resources, you may have a hard time doing all of the research and commercializing all of the work on your own. Now if you can do such a thing, kudos to you; but, these grants (and that is what they are) are probably meant for grand projects that bring together specialists across many different fields. What I'm curious about is how their process will differ from what the government already does in terms of funding such projects. Will google be equally rigorous in validating the work that comes out of this, or are they just looking for the next gadget to earn them millions? It seems interesting, so I'll just have to wait and see how it pans out.
The prize pool is only ten to the 6th.
I think the goal here is to give some funding to profit-losing ideas that help people. It's not hard to get profit-making ideas funded.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Dude, if you have fusion going, then wtf are you doing applying to google for some share of a 10MM grant?! You could have billions in VC funding.
10 pt or 12 pt arial? Fuck that. I want Times New Roman density.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
How ironic, here was my entry
10. What one sentence best describes your idea? (maximum 150 characters)
Beer Sandwiches.
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11. Describe your idea in more depth. (maximum 300 words)
Ever since that first man drunk a fly infested bucket of rancid water and fermenting honey, alcohol has been a mainstay of society. If we were able to fuse the brilliance of beer with the genius of the sandwich, the possibilities would be endless!
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12. What problem or issue does your idea address? (maximum 150 words)
Beer is an aqueous solution which is prone to spilling. A "sippy cup" would address the problem, but will leave the user humiliated. A beer sandwich is the most logical solution
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13. If your idea were to become a reality, who would benefit the most and how? (maximum 150 words)
Most importantly, people who drink and drive. You see, a beer sandwich is a food, and there are no laws against "eating and driving". It would take stress off of the courts and put less innocent people behind bars.
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14. What are the initial steps required to get this idea off the ground? (maximum 150 words)
Someone needs to cross beer and sandwiches. Is it really that hard? You're freaking google!
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15. Describe the optimal outcome should your idea be selected and successfully implemented. How would you measure it? (maximum 150 words)
Everyone around the world gets to enjoy beer sandwiches!
I think it's hardest to make something that truly makes peoples lives better and not not make a profit. Maybe I'm just too practical though...
Money is the root of all evil?
Google isn't asking for profitable ideas or anything like that.
Sure, some of them could end up being profitable, but that's not the point. They want to invest in nice ideas which could improve the life quality of people. From the video, you can clearly see they're interested in ideas that could, for instance, ease the burden put on poor people in countries like Africa. You can hardly profit from that.
This is called philanthropy. And it's amazing how people from the US find this so absurd.
Sometimes, there really isn't a catch.
Use Google's infrastructure and clout to combat censorship and surveillance of dissidents by oppressive regimes.
From http://www.project10tothe100.com/tos.html
"As between you and Google, you retain ownership of any intellectual and industrial property rights (including moral rights) you have in and to your submission."
It would seem that the creator of the idea *may* profit.
Replying to self, this is bad but I also just found this http://www.project10tothe100.com/faq.html...
"Q: What do I get if my idea is chosen? A: You get good karma and the satisfaction of knowing that your idea might truly help a lot of people."
Doesn't sound like profit is the name of the game here.
So, let's see, that means that you're simply going to dismiss the technology because you assert that the people doing the work aren't capable of doing it correctly. Do you have any proof, or are you just expressing your own anti-nuclear bias. Oh, and before I forget, fusion is a form of nuclear energy as well.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
Assuming the "not not" was a typo:
I think you're only thinking of things that have near-term benefits. This would probably exclude reducing your environmental impact, not having kids to benefit mankind etc. And don't laugh, the reason I chose not to have kids is because I decided that this would probably be the best thing anybody but a genius could do for mankind. I wanted 3 or 4 kids when I was 19 and then read a report about projected global population growth and the terrible environmental impact it would have and decided that truly caring about mankind meant not to add more people into the pool. That was 30 years ago and I feel just as strongly about the correctness of my decision now as I did then.
When 1person suffers from a delusion,it is called insanity.When many people suffer from a delusion,it is called religion
Here's a great idea that would change the world...
Search.
You know, that works really, really well.
I know, it's a crazy idea and I bet no-one at Google has thought of it.
"relinquish control of their intellectual property"
It's assholes like you that prevent the world moving forward. Everything has its price in your world, even blood. Just maybe there are people out there who want better things for less fortunate people - no payment needed thanks !
Didn't you know? Only the smart people read the warnings.
So removing the warnings would only kill smart people; stupid people already kill themselves.
If you really want that effect, you should remove legislation such as helmet and seatbeat laws.
GPL Deconstructed
Solar power is the only form of practical fusion power we have now, it is likely to be the only form of practical fusion power for the next several decades at least, and it scales from small dedicated solar powered devices to multiple megawatt sized solar farms. As for it being 24/7 we don't need that so much, the grid itself doesn't run peak capacity 24/7. We typically get larger demands during the heat (and sunshine) of mid day, when solar really rocks. As an adjunct to what we have now, a few billion panels more out on roofs all over would negate the need to build so many more fossil fuel plants, especially those "peaker" plants, and once you start talking billions of panels, economies of scale cost savings kick in and more R&D will come with it. You as joe sixpack also get to own it, compared to leasing your infrastructure with an open ended contract from the power company. Something else to consider if one wants to build equity instead of renting forever, and to have a supply independent of the vagaries of power politics and the rigged energy market.
Solar PV since its invention has dropped from thousands of dollars per watt to now under 4 bucks. This is not insignificant and is an indication of the direction it has been going. We are *this close* to having it being really cheap.
Diversified energy sources all contributing is the "silver bullet" energy solution, there isn't going to be any single "one" type of energy source in our immediate future that will cover all needs. Solar has a prominent place in the mix and could be more widely used (as some nations are doing right now, the US lags quite a bit in that regard).
In fact, this thread is about google looking for new ideas, solar is a good enough idea for them that they have already dumped some millions into it for their own purposes.
May those who help most win so they say.
I made three entries - the hexayurt, the infrastructure package, and the low cost medical care.
The Hexayurt
The hexayurt is a reasonably well tested next generation disaster relief shelter built on free/open source principles and industrial supply chains. It comes from work done at the Rocky Mountain Institute. The basic idea is to take 12 standard 4âx8â industrial panels, cut six in half diagonally and fasten them into a cone (see the site for pictures) and use six whole panels for the walls, giving a durable shelter of 166 square feet, big enough for 5 people at UN standards. These shelters will survive 80 mph winds easily.
The emphasis on using standard industrial materials is the key. Nobody can afford to carry extensive stocks of emergency housing for disasters in the developing world, which often displace millions of people. Airfreighting tents is expensive and inefficient, and tents are lousy shelter for long term use, which is all-too-frequently how they are deployed. The Hexayurt idea is that industrial cities near regular disaster zones (Bangaladesh, strife-torn areas of Africa, the hurricane belt) take their existing industrial infrastructure and add a few simple new skills so that before or after a disaster they can mass produce a simple, long-life shelter for affected populations. This is a step towards disaster relief self-sufficiency at a regional level, so that these areas begin to be able to cope without being so reliant on patchy and poorly-funded international relief effots.
The Hexayurt concept has been tested by US DOD, and is an integral part of the STAR-TIDES program. American Red Cross and Netherlands Red Cross both think it is a great idea and have supported its development, and AMURT is considering the system. All of this has been done by a persistent self-funded open source development effort.
http://hexayurt.com/
The Hexayurt Infrastructure Package
The hexayurt is a free/open disaster relief shelter which has its own entry. However, a shelter alone is not enough to really help people after a disaster. If you have 100,000 perfectly good shelters in a field, the next problem you face is water and sanitation: without some deployed solution, people will get sick and die.
There are lots of appropriate technology solutions to sanitation, cooking without wasting wood or generating toxic smoke, purifying water to drink. All of them are under-funded, under-tested, and under-adopted. Millions to tens of millions die every year because this âoeappropriate technology infrastructureâ is not being properly funded, and the result is needless loss of life.
The key is to understand that credible candidate technologies exist to provide all the same basic essential services that people enjoy in the developed world on a budget of maybe $200. Furthermore, the services can be provided house-by-house. For example, rainwater is collected on your roof, then purified using a biosand filter to give you safe drinking water, rather than having a water purification factory down the road and pipes. These systems are basic, and some need work, but some combination of SODIS, solar water pasteurization, thermophilic composting toilets, sulabh toilets, solar cookers, rocket stoves, gasification stoves, biosand filters, microsolar, microwind and microhydro will provide all the basic essential services of life in nearly any climate anywhere in the world. What hasnâ(TM)t been done is a global systematic program of testing each of these individual technologies in each region of the world, making local adaptations, cleaning up and publishing the designs, making training videos, running educational courses, and looking for chances to integrated, combine and synthesize systems into whole packages which are proven to provide all essential services in the field. This is our proposal.
Hexayurt - open source refugee shelter,
Term limits for all governmental employees, every single one, plus no pensions. Make all of government be forced to compete and live in the real world eventually and you'll see a lot less bullshit out of government.
Its impossible for the vast majority of women to have 3+ kids and work full time.
So this whole 'promotion' of work/caree by 'communist feminists' is really an indirect
way to reduce populations. If 50% of women work, that means that 50% of families have less
than 2 kids or no kids. So we have negative population growth, hence the government reason
for increased wild immigration to offset the losses.
If taxes were lower and things not so expensive then it would be easier for people to have
single income families and also to have 3 to 4 or more kids, with much less needed immigration.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Two of their five "criteria" do not sit well together:
The rapid implementation requirement kills anything I would want to bring to the table, that is stuff we haven't been able to fix in a generation though the need has been increasingly evident because it requires a more patient approach than markets will tolerate (even while they burn googillions in retirement savings without a thought that we might like some priority to investments which at least try to provide a "better" world we might retire into.)
-- Our systemic servants do not good masters make.
This reminds me of Microsoft's Competition:
http://www.microsoft.com/nz/imaginecup09/about.aspx
In 2009, the Imagine Cup challenges the world's most talented students to "Imagine a world where technology helps solve the toughest problems facing us today."
I find the goal a bit too broad for a challenging competition, there are also a few requirements, some of which I find a bit odd:
Ask me about repetitive DNA
The catch with all of those hidden competition is it let's the creator of the competition, access ideas from tens of thousands of people and keep all the ones it likes and never mention them publicly except to exploit them and only make few ideas public which it will only reward with a percentage of the prize money on offer. All of this while generating millions of dollars worth of free advertising whilst trying to create a false impression of google goodness in the public's eye.
The worship of all things google is, well, just so over. The privacy invasive, censorship loving, mass marketing, spamword advertsing princesses are just yesterdays news, of course that is a way rich but the googlites just have to accept the fact, things have changed and their meme marketing success aren't working any more.
The competition might be fun in it was all done very publicly and openly with every idea submitted published on the web site and the review and grading of those ideas also done in a very public fashion or does google want to keep it's secrets while prying into everybody else's ;).
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Maybe some of us aren't money grabbing assholes like you? Possibly (like Google) we want to give our ideas so that those less fortunate then us can benefit.
You sound like the kind of guy that asks for a pay check when sending a patch to an open source project. GTFO.
Notice this, right at the start:
Google isn't giving this money to the folks with the winning ideas. They're using the money themselves to enact your great idea.
This is clarified by the FAQ -- once the ideas are chosen, they will start an RFP process to choose who will do the implementation (I would assume they will also have Google people involved in the implementation at various levels). You (as the idea submitter) can suggest an organization you think would be a good choice for implementation, but it's up to them to decide.
Either way, a winning idea certainly doesn't mean a chunk of money is headed your way, or that you'll even be involved in the implementation in any way.