Google announces winners of first $23m Global Impact Awards

Google is giving $23 million to seven nonprofit organisations that are "using technology and innovative approaches to tackle some of the toughest human challenges".

The winners of the first Google Global Impact Awards are:

• charity: water
   
• Consortium for the Barcode of Life
   
• DonorsChoose.org
   
• Equal Opportunity Schools
   
• Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media
   
• GiveDirectly
   
• World Wildlife Fund

Each organisation receives a one-time grant to help bring the idea to life.

WWF will use its $5 million Global Impact Award to adapt and implement specialized sensors and wildlife tagging technology. Charity: water will use its $5 million award to install remote sensors at 4,000 water points across Africa by 2015, monitoring and recording actual water flow rate to ensure better maintenance of and access to clean water.

As the recipients were announced, Jacquelline Fuller, Director of Giving at Google, reported that in 2012 the company had given "more than $100 million in grants, $1 billion in technology and 50,000 hours of Googler volunteering".

Applications not solicited

Google says that awards are giving to nonprofit organisations that offer:

• an innovative approach or technology that can deliver transformational impact
   
• a specific project that tests a big game-changing idea
   
• a brilliant team with successful track record and a healthy disregard for the impossible

However, it does not accept unsolicited proposals at this time. "We source ideas proactively through Googlers" is the explanation given.

www.google.com/giving/impact-awards.html