Launching voices of the Mediterranean

The Mediterranean Sea is the cradle of Western civilization - but all too often today is seen as an area of conflict. Together with the Voces Fondation, we are today launching a project designed to promote the development of a Mediterranean as a common place of respect, peace and solidarity.

Our focus is engage young people between the ages of 14 and 22 from Spain in the West to Palestine in the East that are interested in photography and audiovisual arts. Voces Foundation already has created a G+ page (Voices of the Mediterranean) where people can share pictures and videos about what the Mediterranean means, highlighting those aspects that bring us together instead of those aspects that separate the different cultures and countries.

Specific topics that will be discussed include access to water and other natural resources and to access to Internet and new technologie. Other subjects range from education and culture; gastronomy; entrepreneurship with social impact - and above all, peace. Actors and singers including actress Elisa Mouliaá or the musician and composer Rash already are contributing. Participate using the hashtag #Nostrum.

At the end of the project, we will hold a contest to choose the most interesting photos, painting and videos. Please contribute!

P Esperanza Ibáñez Lozano, Public Policy Manager

Encouraging Online Video Content in Israel

Many countries, particularly small ones, face a similar dilemma - how to encourage local production in their own languages. Governments might suggest that the best response is regulation, to artificially require local language video content production. We believe this is neither justified nor effective.

The Internet encourages local content creation. In Israel, the creators of Tu-Ti-Tu, an Israeli animation studio specializing in shows for toddlers, tried to make it on TV for years without much success. Today, Tu-Ti-Tu is among the 100 most viewed channels globally on YouTube, and one of the 10 leading channels for family entertainment.



All told, YouTube captures more than a billion views each day. For content creators in a small country like Israel, the internet connects them to a global audience, overcoming physical barriers.

Here, we’ve partnered with the Israeli Film and TV Producers Association and with the Ministry of Economy to run Made for Web - a celebration of Israeli content online.



It’s a competition for online video content. Winners are rewarded with cash prizes and a trip to the YouTube Space in London. Last year, there were more than 150 innovative, funny and serious submissions, ranging from travel advice by a three year old child, to an action series for gamers. Winners took a visit to the YouTube space in London, which they later described as “heaven for video creators.”



This year, we’re going to be running a workshop on October 29 in Tel Aviv, where Israeli creators can meet international and local speakers and share best practices. Matthew Clarke of Maker Studio and Jake Roper from Vsauce will be there. Most important, Made for Web II is now open for submissions. Apply by October 31st - and create some more great Hebrew language video.

Posted by Noa Elefant Loffler, Policy and Government Relations Senior Manager, Israel

Encouraging schools to teach computer science

We recently told you about CS4HS, our program for high school and middle school computer science teachers. Today, there’s some additional news to share: the winners of our 2014 Europe, the Middle East and Africa CS4HS awards.

Twenty-six computer science education projects, from across 20 countries in Europe, Middle East and Africa, were chosen. All address training of computer science teachers in secondary schools and aim to spread best practice amongst educators.



Among the winners, the University of Stuttgart will host a teacher training workshop introducing computer science topics. Technion – Israel’s leading Institute of Technology — will give teachers access to a collaborative educational site featuring successful lesson plans and classroom idea. Kenya's Maseno University will offer sessions on mobile application development and IT leaders will be invited to discuss the value of a computer science degree and potential career paths.

Visit www.cs4hs.com to find out more and to access teacher resources such as online workshops, tutorials and information on computational thinking. Ongoing, year-round help is available by joining our Google+ Community which hosts Hangouts on Air with CS industry leaders, Googlers, and top educators. Our ultimate goal is ambitious — to “train the trainer,” develop a thriving community of high school Computer Science teachers, and above all, engage pre-university students about the awe and beauty of computing.

Posted by Michelle Finnegan, Program Manager

Boosting innovative government in an innovative country

Israel is known as the ‘start-up nation’. Its private sector is one of the world’s most innovative and Internet-savvy. We’ve recently signed an agreement with the Israeli government to encourage adoption of pro-innovation public policies, from opening up public data sets to curbing unnecessary bureaucratic obstacles. The initiative aims to find ways that the Internet can improve public services and help consumers.

As part of these initiatives, Internet developers and government officials will come together regularly at our Tel Aviv Campus. At the first meeting, the two sides examined how technology can help to reduce the high cost of living in Israel. Government officials explained that they are advancing a new law to open up public data on retail prices and called on developers to create price comparison apps.

Amit Lang, Director General of the Ministry of Economy, talking at “Meet the Gov” event at Campus Tel Aviv

Five local startups presented their services and insights. Feex uses crowdsourcing to reduce management fees on financial products such as pension funds. My Supermarket lets consumers choose the cheapest option to order groceries online. Eloan encourages peer to peer loans. Madlan helps home buyers by showing how much an apartment was sold for, the average cost per meter in each neighborhood. Noknok gives people free calls anywhere with the same number even abroad.

These sessions were inspired by a Google-finance study called E-nnovate Israel. Researchers conducted 100 interviews with leading figures in the public, business, non-profit and academic sectors and concluded that government and private business need to work more closely together in order to promote innovation and economic growth.

Israel’s country manager, Meir Brand and Minister of Finance, Yair Lapid, sign the agreement

We hope that future sessions will be just as informative and useful for both the technology entrepreneurs and for officials. Both sides share the same ultimate goal - to use technology to ease interactions with government and improve lives.

Posted by Avi Bar, Senior Public Policy Analyst, Tel Aviv

Participating in Safer Internet Day

In time for Safer Internet Day this week, we revamped our Family Safety Centre. The new version aims to be a one-stop shop that provides step-by-step instructions for using safety tools built into Google products. We attempt to answer questions about specific topics that are most concerning to parents, such as accessing inappropriate content and meeting strangers online.



Throughout Europe, we promoted Safer Internet Day on Google home pages and our teams got into action. In Spain, for example, we participated in a presentation with local partner Protegeles bringing together kids, parents and teachers. In Israel, the Children’s Rights Committee at the Parliament met with our Web-Rangers, to discuss how teenagers can promote online safety.

Here in Brussels, we hosted for lunch in our office with the winners of the European Award for Best Content for Kids, a European wide contest highlighting content allowing young people online opportunities to learn, play, discover and invent. Winning entries such as the from the UK (see below) touch important topics like the issue of cyberbullying.



European Commissioner Neelie Kroes received the winners later in the day at the Commission’s Berlaymont headquarters and posted its “Let’s Create a Better Internet Together” video on YouTube.



The Internet and social platforms offer tremendous opportunities for youth: self-expression, civil engagement, and collaboration with communities. At the same time, like any tool, the web can be abused. We are proud to build powerful safety tools into our products, ranging from SafeSearch to Safety Mode. In the end, its up to all of us to stand up for for a safe and secure internet, not just on the annual Safer Internet day - but every day!

Posted by Marco Pancini, Senior Policy Manager, Brussels

A Greek boot camp for startups

After suffering an economic catastrophe, seeing a quarter of GDP evaporate over the past five years, Greece needs more than ever to encourage entrepreneurs. In an attempt to do just this, we recently inaugurated "Google Launchpad", a four-day boot camp for early stage start-ups, in Athens.

Greece is a country of highly qualified youth, ranking 10th in the world in availability of scientists and engineers. But it is ravaged by 60% unemployment (highest in the European Union) among youth under the age of 30. Our goal at Launchpad is to marry this potential talent with exciting opportunities.

The project brought together 80 developers and entrepreneurs from around Greece. They formed teams and organized their startups over the course of a week, under the guidance and mentoring from local Greek and visiting Israeli Googlers. Our first Google Launchpad took place in start-up hub Israel, and the Israeli experience provided crucial inspiration.

Some 13 start-ups ended up pitching their plans and prototypes to a panel of VC funders. Three winners were chosen:

· SpeakerZen, an app that presenters can use to get instant feedback from their audience
· SponsorBoat, an event marketplace connecting sponsors with event promoters
· Processus.io, a process management platform for SMB efficiency

Each received a three month package of support with office space, facilities, legal/accounting advice and mentoring, recruiting services as well as the Google Developers Startup Pack including $18,000 towards Google Cloud Platform products.

Congratulations! We hope these exciting ideas soon will be powering some exciting Greek startups.

Posted by Dionisis Kolokotsas, Policy Manager, Athens

Supporting Israeli and Palestinian technology students

In his recent Jerusalem speech, President Obama referenced one of our 2013 RISE award recipients, MEET - Middle East Education through Technology as an example of how innovation is reshaping the Middle East.



Today, on MEET’s 10th anniversary, hundreds of Palestinians and Israelis will come together in Jerusalem to celebrate MEET's impact, showcasing technology and business projects built by students who’ve participated in their program. The event will be livestreamed on YouTube between 4-6pm GMT/6-8pm IDT, to enable MEET’s community all over the world to join the occasion. Watch here.



Working in partnership with Massachusets Institute of Technology, MEET's mission is to educate and empower the next generation of Israelis and Palestinians to bring about positive change in the region. Their groundbreaking program teaches computer science, entrepreneurship and leadership to 160 high school students (age 15-17) over three years. The program comprises three consecutive summers at the Hebrew University with volunteer instructors from MIT, and weekly program sessions in the two intervening years at the MEET hubs in Jerusalem and Nazareth, taught by MEET alumni.

Google’s work with support for MEET goes beyond the RISE award. Googlers from Tel Aviv, Mountain View and London serve as project mentors; and the Venture Lab incubator for social and business initiatives led by MEET alumni is a partner of Google’s Campus Tel Aviv Launchpad program.

MEET has accomplished much in its first decade, and we know they have great plans for the future.

Alison Daniel-Cutler, Pre-University Education Outreach, Europe, Middle East and Africa

Hanging out with innovators

Over the past decade, Slovakia has reformed its taxation, healthcare, pension, and social welfare systems, attracting large inflows of foreign investment into the automobile and electronic sectors, and becoming Central Europe’s first country to adopt the euro in January, 2009. But Europe’s economic woes have slowed growth. The Slovak government believes it must forge ahead finding new and innovative sources of growth - particularly on the Internet.

For this reason, the Ministry of the Foreign and European Affairs of the Slovak Republic recently worked with Slovak Alliance for Internet Economy to stream its first ever live Google Hangout with Israeli venture entrepreneur Jon Medved. Medved has invested in over 100 Israeli startup companies, helping 12 of them to get to valuations in excess of $100 million. His presentation, entitled “Israel - the Power to Astonish,” explained to the online audience that venture capital for web startups was flowing into israel despite the global economic crisis. What is Israel’s “special sauce?,” he asked rhetorically. “A willingness to accept risk and failure,” he answered.



Slovakia’s major economic daily Hospodarske noviny streamed the hangout live on its website and four national startup hubs participated. We are planning to continue these hangouts from Finland and elsewhere, creating a series of “Innovators Connect” policy discussions about innovation and Internet Economy. Tune in and see if Slovakia can become the next hot e-country.

Posted by Ondrej Socuvka, Public Policy Manager, Bratislava

Remembering WEIZAC: the beginning of computing in Israel

Israel is now one of the world’s tech powerhouses, second only to Silicon Valley as a hub for startups, but it wasn’t always this way. Today, in honour of the 84th birthday of Professor Aviezri Fraenkel, we’re delighted to share a short film sharing his story of working on the WEIZAC, Israel’s first computer.



Short film produced with support from Google as part of our ongoing computing heritage series

The impetus to build a computer in Israel came from Professor Chaim Pekeris, an MIT-trained geophysicist and mathematician, who made it a condition of accepting a job at the then-fledgling Weizmann Institute. An illustrious committee was set up to consider Pekeris’s request and initially opinion was divided. In particular, Albert Einstein was skeptical a computer in Israel would receive sufficient use and queried whether the skilled resources to build it were available. It took much convincing by another committee member, mathematician and computing luminary John Von Neumann, before the project got the go-ahead.

Construction of the WEIZAC (“Weizmann Automatic Calculator”) got underway in late 1953 under the leadership of Professor Pekeris and Jerry Estrin. A protege of Von Neumann, Estrin arrived in Israel armed with design drawings based on the computer at the Institute of Advanced Study in Princeton. After advertising for recruits, a small team of engineers and technicians was assembled, among them Aviezri Fraenkel.

It took the team a lot of ingenuity to source the necessary materials. Some were imported, but others were clever adaptations, such as the thin copper strips that came from a small local bicycle-part shop! Despite such hurdles, progress was steady, and the major components were in place by the time Estrin returned to the U.S. 15 months later.

The WEIZAC performed its first calculation in October 1955 and was soon much in demand by Israeli scientists. It remained operational until the end of 1963—50 years ago this year. Nowadays it resides in the Weizmann Institute’s Ziskind Building as a fitting memorial to where computing in Israel began.

I have fond memories of passing by the WEIZAC every day when I studied at the Weizmann Institute, where I also had the privilege to attend a class by Professor Fraenkel. With the release of this short film, I’m delighted to be learning more from him about such an important chapter in Israel’s tech history.

Posted by Yossi Matias, Senior Engineering Director, Head of Israel R&D Centre

Discover Israel on Google Maps

Last April we released panoramic imagery of sites and streets in Jerusalem, Haifa and Tel Aviv-Jaffa via the Street View feature of Google Maps. Since then, people from all over the world have explored historical and cultural sites such as the Western Wall in Jerusalem’s Old City, the Baha’i Gardens in Haifa and the beaches of Tel Aviv-Jaffa.

Today, as part of our ongoing effort to make Google Maps even more comprehensive and accurate, we’re publishing street-level imagery of hundreds more cities, towns, villages, heritage sites and tourist attractions across Israel.

You can now virtually tour the picturesque city of Safed in the North, the coral reef in Eilat in the South, visit the lowest point on earth at the Dead Sea, and wander around the narrow passageways of the old city of Acre.

Visit Tiberias, one of Judaism’s four holy cities; the Sea of Galilee where, according to the Gospels, Jesus walked on water; and stop off at Capernaum, the ancient fishing village believed to be the home of St. Peter, or the ancient battle site of Tel Meggido, better known as Armageddon.

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Capernaum, on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee

The ancient Nabataean cities of Mamshit and Shivta, both of them UNESCO world heritage sites, can also now be seen directly in Google Maps. Tour around the Bet She’an National Park, one of the world’s largest archaeological sites; the Crusader fortress overlooking the excavations at Tzippori; or the sandstone and copper-rich nature reserve at Timna. Enjoy the colorful Druze market town of Daliyat El Carmel, the Bedouin town of Rahat, or take a ride down the ‘Burma Road’, a makeshift bypass road to Jerusalem built in 1948.

View Larger Map

The 'Mushroom' red sandstone rock formation at Timna

Sports fans can even go inside Ramat Gan Stadium or Bloomfield. And museum lovers can take in Haifa’s National Museum of Science, Technology & Space, the Holocaust Museum at Kibbutz Yad Mordechai, the Ghetto Fighters Museum at Kibbutz Lochamei Ha’getaot, the Museum of Bedouin Culture in the Negev desert, or take a tour around the Egged Bus Museum.

We’ve added imagery from cities, towns and villages including Ashdod, Ashkelon, Be’er Sheva, Bnei Brak, Eilat, Isfyia, Kfar Qasem, Kiryat Gat, Nazareth, Netanya, Ofakim, Petah Tikva, Rishon LeTsiyon, Sderot, Tira, and many, many more. And stay tuned - we hope to expand coverage to still more of the region’s sites, streets, cities and towns in the future.

Posted by Ulf Spitzer, Street View Program Manager

Genesis and the 10 Commandments scrolls now online

A little over a year ago, we helped put online five manuscripts of the Dead Sea Scrolls - ancient documents that include the oldest known biblical manuscripts in existence. Written more than 2,000 years ago on pieces of parchment and papyrus, they were preserved by the hot, dry desert climate and the darkness of the caves in which they were hidden. The Scrolls are possibly the most important archaeological discovery of the 20th century.

Today, we’re helping put more of these ancient treasures online. The Israel Antiquities Authority is launching the Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library, an online collection of some 5,000 images of scroll fragments in a quality never seen before. The texts include one of the earliest known copies of the Book of Deuteronomy, which includes the Ten Commandments; part of Chapter 1 of the Book of Genesis, which describes the creation of the world; and hundreds more 2,000-year-old texts, shedding light on the time when Jesus lived and preached, and on the history of Judaism.

The Ten Commandments. Photo credit Shai Halevi, courtesy of Israel Antiquities Authority

Millions of users and scholars can discover and decipher details invisible to the naked eye, at 1215 dpi resolution. The site displays infrared and color images that are equal in quality to the Scrolls themselves. There’s a database containing information for about 900 of the manuscripts, as well as interactive content pages. We’re thrilled to have been able to help this project through hosting on Google Storage and App Engine, and use of Maps, YouTube and Google image technology.

Genesis Chapter 1. Photo credit Shai Halevi, courtesy of Israel Antiquities Authority

This partnership with the Israel Antiquities Authority is part of our ongoing work to bring important cultural and historical materials online, to make them accessible and help preserve them for future generations. Other examples include the Yad Vashem Holocaust photo collection, Google Art Project, World Wonders and the Google Cultural Institute.

We hope you enjoy visiting the Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library, or any of these other projects, and interacting with history.

Posted by Eyal Miller, New Business Development, and Yossi Matias, Head of Israel Research and Development Center

Supporting Israel’s “start-up nation”

Cross-posted with the Official Google Blog

In March, we launched Campus London to help support the vibrant start-up community there and help energize the U.K. Internet economy. Today, we’re launching Campus Tel Aviv—a one-floor event & community space and pre-accelerator program in downtown Tel Aviv, made available to early stage start-ups and developers.

With the Internet economy contributing 6.4 percent of Israel’s GDP and with the world’s second largest center of tech start-ups after Silicon Valley, it’s no wonder that Israel is commonly referred to as “start-up nation.” For some time now, we’ve been supporting Internet and mobile entrepreneurs in Israel with tech talks, events and hackathons. We hope that Campus Tel Aviv will enable us to do more to support local innovation.

The Campus space will be used by start-ups and partners for events, a “device lab” will give developers the chance to try out projects on a range of devices, and entrepreneurs will get access to Google’s teams and other experts. We’re also working with tech incubators, accelerator programs and other partners to bring their start-ups to Campus for a pre-accelerator initiative called “Launch Pad.” It’s a two-week “bootcamp” for more than 100 start-ups each year, aimed at enhancing existing accelerator programs by providing expertise in user experience and design, product strategy, global marketing, business development and more.

At the launch of Campus Tel Aviv—from left to right, Mr. Benjamin Netanyahu (Israeli Prime Minister), Meir Brand (Managing Director, Google Israel, Greece, South & Sub-Saharan Africa), Yossi Matias (Head of Israel R&D Center).

In 1998, when Larry and Sergey founded Google, we were a start-up in a garage. In many ways, we remain a start-up at heart, and we’re committed to helping new entrepreneurs and developers around the world succeed. We hope that Campus Tel Aviv will contribute to future Israeli tech innovation and, in doing so, make the web and the mobile space better. You can find out more about Campus Tel Aviv on our website.

Posted by Amir Shevat, Developer Relations Manager & Eyal Miller, New Business Development - Co-leads, Campus Tel Aviv

Big Tent - from Ireland to Israel

Our second Big Tent of the week took place in Tel Aviv, where we delved into the impact of the Internet on democracy, civil society and education. Large public protests, sparked by online social networks and similar in some ways to the protests sweeping the Arab world, have swept over Israel.



By enabling each of us to express ourselves, and reach a national and global audience, participants agreed that the Internet allows new voices to influence the political process. Israel’s Education Minister Gideon Sa’ar invoked the philosopher John Stuart Mill to describe how the net is providing the means for a move from representative to direct democracy. This bottom-up revolution, he said, poses a challenge for politicians and the media who were previously the gatekeepers of information.

Our Big Tents aim to voice diverse views, and we certainly heard a wide range of opinions in Israel. Representatives from politics, traditional and new media posed powerful questions. Do extreme and violent voices dominate the online debate? Is traditional media more scared than leading in the face of the online challenge? Why did the Arab Spring not deliver a single new democracy?

Journalist Ilana Dayan put those points and more to our Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt, who was making his first visit to Israel following a trip to Afghanistan and Pakistan. While he accepted it’s impossible to predict exactly the impact the internet will have on society, he described villages he had visited which - with the advent of smart mobile devices - have gone from having access to no information to all the world’s information. That, he said, must mean a better future.

The Big Tent rolls on, next stop is a beach on the south of France where we’ll be debating innovation and creativity at the Cannes Lions Festival. You can view all previous debates on our Big Tent YouTube channel.

Posted by Doron Avni, Head of Policy and Government Relations

Mind the Gap: Encouraging women to study engineering

Women make up more than half the global population, but hold fewer than a third of the world’s engineering jobs. In the U.S., female students comprise fewer than 15 percent of all Advanced Placement computer science test takers. Even in high-tech Israel, few girls choose computer science. Not only is this a loss to companies like Google and everyone who benefits from a continually developing web; it's also a lost opportunity for girls.

Beginning in 2008, a group of female engineers at Google in Israel decided to tackle this problem. We established the “Mind the Gap!” program, aimed at encouraging girls to pursue math, science and technology education. In collaboration with the Israeli National Center for Computer Science Teachers, we began organizing monthly school visits for different groups of girls to the Google office and annual tech conferences at local universities and institutes. The girls learn about computer science and technology and get excited about its applications, as well as have a chance to talk with female engineers in an informal setting and see what the working environment is like for them.



Since we started this program over three years ago, we’ve hosted more than 1,100 teenage girls at our office, and an additional 1,400 girls at three annual conferences held in leading universities. These 2,500 students represent 100 schools from all sectors and from all over the country: Tel Aviv, Haifa, Tira, Beer-Sheva, Jerusalem, Nazareth and more; what they have in common is the potential to become great computer scientists.

The results are encouraging. For instance, some 40 percent of the girls who participated in last year’s conference later chose computer science as a high school major.

We encourage people in other countries, at other companies and in other scientific disciplines to see how they could replicate this program. You can read more at the project site. Currently, we are working with the Google in Education group to expand the program to more offices globally and get even more young women excited about computer science. The difference we can make is real: At one of our first visits three years ago, we met a 10th grade student named Keren who enjoyed math but had never considered computer science as a high school major. Last month, Keren informed us that the visit made such an impact on her, she decided to change her major to computer science. “Talking to women in the field helped me change my mind,” she said.

Posted by Michal Segalov, Software Engineer at Google’s R&D Center, Israel

Israeli Web-Rangers promote online safety

Rangers traditionally guard parks and other areas of natural beauty. In Israel, some modern day rangers - call them Web-Rangers - aim instead to keep the Internet safe. Since last July when Google Israel launched its Family Safety Centre, we have encouraged some 200 Israeli teenage Web-Rangers between the age of 15 and 18 to promote online child protection.

The results have been remarkable. More than 80 innovative and creative social campaigns have been launched, ranging from educational videos to tv-style quiz shows. Some Web-Rangers produced creative videos and posted them on a dedicated YouTube channel. Others have cooperated with schools, youth movements, and local municipalities to hold seminars for teenagers about online safety.



Our “Web-Rangers” project is run in partnership with two NGOs working for online safety, the Israel Internet Association and Eran. All the Web-Rangers also have participated in seminars held at Google Israel offices. These included lectures by Google representatives and our partners on digital citizenship, free speech on the net, Google online safety tools and YouTube content policies.

We recently held the graduation for our inaugural Web-Rangers "class." The Israel Ministry of Education’s Head of the Online Child Safety Division participated. She invited the Web-Rangers to take part in the Ministry’s “National Safe Internet Day” and present their projects in schools around the country.

While the Web Rangers started as a Google initiative, the young adults brought the project to life, developed it, and made it their own. The two Web-Rangers who presented the best work, Elad Yam and Yosi Klein, (both from 11th grade) will soon travel to Google’s offices in London to present their work. We look forward to continuing to learn from these creative teenagers about how to create a safe Internet.

Posted by Doron Avni, Policy Manager, Israel

Sizing and seizing the Internet economy

Strange as it might sound, given all the buzz about the digital economy, few concrete numbers exist measuring the Internet’s economic impact. The scarcity of hard data has allowed many to portray the Internet (at worst) as a negative force, destroying jobs, or (at best) as marginal to a country’s economic success.

In the past year Google has worked with a variety of partners to begin filling in this data gap. The Boston Consulting Group researched a series of country-specific reports. The first found that the digital economy accounts for more than seven percent of GDP in the UK. BCG, McKinsey, and Deloitte followed up by analyzing the impact of the Internet on local economies for instance in France, Spain, Italy, Sweden, Netherlands, Czech Republic, Israel, Hong Kong and Australia.

BCG partners David Dean and Paul Zwillenberg recently were in Brussels to present a new study - not commissioned by Google - called Turning Local: From Madrid to Moscow, the Internet is Going Native. It builds on the previous country reports, and adds additional BCG research, to describes the Internet's impact on 50 economies around the globe. BCG drew up an e-Intensity IndexTM which measures countries' Internet infrastructure, the amount of online expenditure and how enthusiastically businesses, consumers and governments engage with new technologies. By 2015, BCG projects, the Internet will contribute 7.3 percent of Danish GDP. Other countries will experience even bigger jumps during the next years. By 2015, the Internet will account for four percent of Spanish GDP, almost double 2009’s figure of 2.2 percent.




If anything, these GDP measures may underestimate the Internet’s true impact—something BCG, McKinsey and Deloitte all acknowledge. For example, in many countries between five and 10 percent of retail sales are researched online before the consumer makes an informed purchase in a physical store, and the cost savings from shopping on the web can be substantial, amounting to almost £1,000 per household in the UK. Similarly, consumers benefit from using free, advertising supported services like email that they would otherwise have to pay to enjoy. McKinsey and IAB Europe found consumers enjoy €100 billion in consumer surplus—almost three times the revenue online advertising companies receive—none of which traditional GDP measures captures.

Earlier this year, McKinsey specifically researched the externalities around Internet search, with collaboration and support from Google. Their independent report, Impact of Internet Technologies: Search, states that search technologies—including but not limited to Google—create over $780 billion of value for the global economy, of which only four percent accrues to the search engines themselves.

Google and other members of the Business and Industry Advisory Committee BIAC last month participated in an expert roundtable at the OECD exploring current and future methods for measuring the impact of the Internet on the global economy. The roundtable will be followed by a report sponsored by Google that will measure the impact of the Internet on OECD member countries.

For BCG, their studies represent only a first step. The goal is to help jumpstart a global conversation on the economic value of the Internet. In Brussels, Dean and Zwillenberg were clear in presentations made to European think tank Bruegel (of which Google is a member) that SME’s are one of the biggest groups of beneficiaries in Europe. Their research, which included a survey of over 9,000 companies, concludes that businesses using the web intensively grow significantly faster than businesses that don't. That’s a theme that we, and BCG, will be revisiting in coming weeks and months.

Posted by Patricia Wruuck, Policy Analyst and Betsy Masiello, Policy Manager

From the desert to the web: bringing the Dead Sea Scrolls online

(Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog)

It’s taken 24 centuries, the work of archaeologists, scholars and historians, and the advent of the Internet to make the Dead Sea Scrolls accessible to anyone in the world. Today, on the eve of the new year on the Hebrew calendar, we’re celebrating the launch of the Dead Sea Scrolls online; a project of The Israel Museum, Jerusalem powered by Google technology.



Written between the third and first centuries BCE, the Dead Sea Scrolls include the oldest known biblical manuscripts in existence. In 68 BCE, they were hidden in 11 caves in the Judean desert on the shores of the Dead Sea to protect them from the approaching Roman armies. They weren’t discovered again until 1947, when a Bedouin shepherd threw a rock in a cave and realized something was inside. Since 1965, the scrolls have been on exhibit at the Shrine of the Book at The Israel Museum, Jerusalem. Among other topics, the scrolls offer critical insights into life and religion in ancient Jerusalem, including the birth of Christianity.

Now, anyone around the world can view, read and interact with five digitized Dead Sea Scrolls. The high resolution photographs, taken by Ardon Bar-Hama, are up to 1,200 megapixels, almost 200 times more than the average consumer camera, so viewers can see even the most minute details in the parchment. For example, zoom in on the Temple Scroll to get a feel for the animal skin it's written on—only one-tenth of a millimeter thick.


You can browse the Great Isaiah Scroll, the most well known scroll and the one that can be found in most home bibles, by chapter and verse. You can also click directly on the Hebrew text and get an English translation. While you’re there, leave a comment for others to see.


The scroll text is also discoverable via web search. If you search for phrases from the scrolls, a link to that text within the scroll viewers on the Dead Sea Scrolls collections site may surface in your search results. For example, search for [Dead Sea Scrolls "In the day of thy planting thou didst make it to grow"], and you may see a link to Chapter 17:Verse 11 within the Great Isaiah Scroll.

This partnership with The Israel Museum, Jerusalem is part of our larger effort to bring important cultural and historical collections online. We are thrilled to have been able to help this project through hosting on Google Storage and App Engine, helping design the web experience and making it searchable and accessible to the world. We’ve been involved in similar projects in the past, including building the Yad Vashem Holocaust photo collection. We encourage organizations interested in partnering with us in our archiving efforts to enter their information in this form. We hope you enjoy visiting the Dead Sea Scrolls collection online, or any of these other projects, and interacting with history at your fingertips.

Posted by Eyal Miller, New Business Development and Eyal Fink, Software Engineer, Israel Research and Development Center