Google Asia Pacific Blog: India

76 more reasons why India is incredible

Monday, August 4, 2014

Last week we brought new panoramas for 76 heritage sites from across India onto Google Maps. Among these are palaces, caves, forts and tombs. We even have Paleolithic era rock shelters that were inhabited by the earliest humans to live in India more than 300,000 years ago. We’ve included a selection of some of our favorite vistas below.

Clicking on the images below will take you to Google Maps, where you can navigate through the sights and admire the detail of the carvings and mosaics up close, or zoom out to enjoy sweeping views.

Screen Shot 2014-08-01 at 3.31.21 PM.png

Rock Shelters of Bhimbetka in Madhya Pradesh

Jain Group of Temples in Madhya Pradesh

Jaunpur Fort in Uttar Pradesh

Ajanta Caves in Maharashtra

Tomb of Akbar The Great in Uttar Pradesh

Leh Palace in Jammu and Kashmir

Posted by Amit Sood, Director, Google Cultural Institute

New views of India’s old wonders

Thursday, July 31, 2014

Cross-posted from the Google India Blog

Even the most ambitious, iron-willed traveler might find it taxing to explore India’s archaeological sites across the subcontinent all in one go. But starting today, visitors from around the world can virtually visit far-flung historical wonders such as the Ellora Caves and Kangra Fort, simply at the click of a button.

With the support of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), Google is releasing new 360-degree online imagery of 76 iconic historical sites from across India. These immersive panoramas are available for viewing through the Google Cultural Institute site as well as on Google Maps. This launch brings the number of ASI locations now online to over 100, including the heritage sites that launched in February 2014 such as the Taj Mahal and Humayun's Tomb.

Safdarjung Tomb in New Delhi is now on Google Maps

We’re also bringing online several Indian arts and archival institutions onto the Google Cultural Institute for the first time ever. You can now explore new exhibits curated by Indian screenwriter and photographer Sooni Taraporevala at the National Gallery of Modern Art in Delhi, follow the journey of the Parsis from Persia to the present day at the Parzor Foundation, and experience India’s first ever Independence Day in 1947 through the eyes of its first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, thanks to archival material from the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library.

Online exhibition of India’s first Independence Day Celebrations, from the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library

Don’t forget that you can curate your own collection on the Google Cultural Institute with the User Galleries function. When browsing an individual exhibit, simply click on the + sign next to the exhibit’s name. It will be added to the drawer at the bottom of the page. For more information, click here.

There’s never an adequate substitute for seeing the real thing, but we hope that by putting these sights online and making them accessible for anyone with an Internet connection, these exhibits will inspire more people to visit, and in doing so, sustain India’s glorious heritage.

Posted by Rajan Anandan, Vice President and Managing Director, Google India

8 charts that show you what Asia really thinks of the World Cup

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Here are eight things about Asia's interest in the World Cup that you might not have known:

1. “But I’ve always supported Deutschland”

These countries in Asia suddenly wanted to know about German flags. Bangladesh, Indonesia and Malaysia were searching for the topic of German flags more intensely than Germany.

Searches for “flag of Germany” over the past 12 months in Asia

2. Indonesia searches for (almost) everybody

Here’s a chart showing Asia’s search interest in Germany. Indonesia’s one of the top countries.

This is a chart showing Asia’s search interest in Argentina. Nepal and Bangladesh are searching for the Argentina team the most. But Indonesia’s number three.

Now note Asia’s search interest in the Netherlands. And note Indonesia again.

And here’s Asia’s search interest in Brazil, which is in general higher than for the other teams in the final four. Yes, there’s Indonesia in third place.

3. Asia’s just not that into Asian teams

Japan and South Korea have the most search interest for South Korea. The rest of Asia? Not so much.

Asia’s search interest in South Korea’s team in the past 90 days

The world’s search interest in Japan’s team over the past 90 days

4. India’s just not that into football

If you think the U.S. is the country that cares the least about football (sorry, soccer), think again. India takes the top spot for shrugging its shoulders at the world’s most popular sport.

5. When it comes to injuries, incurred beats inflicted

Both Suarez’s bite and Neymar’s vertebra injury triggered a swarm of searches, but there were more searches for the Brazilian star’s back-breaking incident than even Suarez’s toothy foul that inspired everything from memes to bottle openers.

6. Classiest meme? World-Cup Tang poetry parody

Poems supposedly written by Chinese Tang dynasty poets Li Bai and Du Pu are trending when netizens rewrote them to make an acrostic that spelled out “Brazil suffers huge defeat in 2014”. Actually the poems were not written by Tang poets at all, but by football fans online who are waxing lyrical.

The line in blue is for the name of the poem “Touring Sichuan”; the line in red is for “Brazil”.

Searches for this poem actually spiked above searches for Brazil at one point last week in Taiwan and Hong Kong.

7. J-Lo, watch out for J-Ro

Golden Boot winner James Rodriguez, the striker from Colombia, trended across Asia. Taiwan’s netizens named him J羅, pronounced “J-Luo.” We can call him J.Ro though. Popularity for J.Ro has shot up past that of J.Lo globally. But even the Taiwanese nickname for Rodriguez is suddenly beating the global nickname for Jennifer Lopez.

8. Causation? Correlation?

Paul the Octopus was credited with picking winners. Mick Jagger got blamed for backing losers. The country with the third-highest interest in Paul the Octopus was India (which is amazing, given 4).

We've put together a public spreadsheet of the charts and data in this blog post for you to create your own versions.

Posted by Robin Moroney, Communications Manager, Google Asia Pacific

World Cup trends: Asia’s far-from-hometown heroes

Tuesday, July 8, 2014

In last week’s installment of World Cup search trends in Asia, Ben Kwon, a US-based follower of this blog, raised a good question: how do countries that aren’t playing in the tournament decide which teams to root for? Despite there being no homegrown teams amongst the semifinalists of Argentina, Brazil, Germany, and the Netherlands, World Cup fever is alive and well in Asia.

So, which of these four teams are most popular in which Asian countries?

We looked at Google searches as a proxy for fandom. It’s no big surprise that host nation and perennial futebol favorite Brazil is extremely popular across the region: from the Philippines to South Korea, the soccer samba-ists are the favorite final four team by far. But you might be surprised to know that Argentina has a legion of supporters in Bangladesh and India’s West Bengal—fans in that region have generally been split into two camps between the Latin American rivals.

The German national team outperforms the Netherlands in searches across the region. Particularly in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and Hong Kong — where the black-red-gold jerseys have also all but sold out — the madness for the Mannschaft has spiked around every one of their games. But who knows, searches for the Dutch oranje might just surge if they ride their current underdog status to a victory against the Argentinians.

To our readers: what explains these search trends? Why is the South American rivalry playing out on the subcontinent? And what makes Germany so popular among so many Asian nations? We’re curious to hear your comments below.

Posted by Joyce Hau, Communications Senior Associate, Google Asia Pacific

Stay on top of India’s elections results as votes are counted today

Friday, May 16, 2014

Now that the polling period for the world's largest elections is over, there are over 500 million votes to be counted. No matter where in the world you are today, you can keep abreast of the results as they come in on our elections hub at google.co.in/elections. A live results map will show you how all 543 constituencies voted as soon as they are declared.

A visit to www.google.co.in will reveal a special Google doodle to commemorate Counting Day. It features India’s national sign for voting -- election ink painted on the index finger of the left hand. This denotes that a person has exercised his or her right to vote, and has become a symbol of democratic privilege.

Join us as we count down to finding out who the next leaders of the world’s largest democracy will be.

Posted by Sandeep Menon, Marketing Director, Google India

India's bus ticket to success

Wednesday, April 30, 2014

This post is part of our regular series of interviews with people across Asia-Pacific who’ve caught our eye, using the Internet to create, connect and grow.

Phanindra Sama of redBus in Bangalore

How would you describe redBus in one sentence?
redBus is the largest online bus ticket agent in India, making bus travel more convenient for millions of people.

Why did you choose to go online?
India’s bus industry is highly fragmented, with thousands of operators across the country, each running 15 buses on average. Prior to redBus, not a single bus operator used Internet technology to manage their operations. They used physical books to keep record of seats sold, so there was no central nor real-time way for potential customers to find out which operator still had availability. Customers would have to go from operator to operator in search of a ticket and they would often end up missing a bus, even though seats were still available. This would be a loss to both the customer and the bus operator.

We saw an opportunity to provide bus operators with a platform that enables them to publish their seat availability online. We have used the Internet to aggregate published information about bus seats from thousands of bus operators, and display it on www.redbus.in for easy comparison and purchase.

What difference has the Internet made to redBus?
The Internet is the only means of seamlessly disseminating information to millions of passengers across the country. The growth of the Internet on mobile devices is also giving us unprecedented reach and distribution. Unlike traditional brick-and-mortar businesses, the Internet enables a self-service model, whereby customers can book tickets with little or no assistance from us. This makes it possible for us to serve millions of passengers efficiently and economically. Thanks to the Internet, we’ve experienced hockey stick growth.

Where’s the Internet going to take redBus next?
The Internet is becoming increasingly affordable and indispensable to every citizen. With its growing reach, it will offer redBus access to an even wider customer base at negligible cost. We are confident we’ll continue to grow exponentially in the coming years.

Who’s your Internet idol?
One of the companies I admire in the Internet space is Naspers. Starting out as a South African cable operator, they realized the power of the Internet quite early on and invested successfully in several Internet companies across emerging markets, such as Tencent in China, Flipkart in India and they also bought into redBus.

Posted by Phanindra Sama, redBus CEO

Alla Rakha: Turning up the tabla

Tuesday, April 29, 2014

There are few sounds as mesmerizing as the tabla, a pair of hand drums of contrasting sizes and timbres, made popular by India’s percussion wizard, Ustad Alla Rakha Khan.

In India today, we’re celebrating this musical maestro’s 95th birthday with a doodle that captures his electric performances which spanned nearly seventy years. Developing a fascination for the tabla at the age of twelve, Ustad Alla Rakha would practice for many hours, achieving flawless timing and sensitivity for his instrument. He was also an acclaimed soloist, vocalist, harmonium player and a prolific composer.

Ustad Alla Rakha was especially passionate about bringing the beauty of Indian music to people everywhere. He composed music for Hindi films, performed on international stages, and went on to teach hundreds of students. Watch him play alongside the famous sitar player, Pandit Ravi Shankar, at Woodstock in 1969, and listen for the elaborate rhythms he is renowned for.

Posted by Varun Sud, Product Marketing Manager, Google India

Unheard voices in India and the media

Monday, March 31, 2014

When we talk about free expression, we tend to think about rights and laws. We tend to forget that the limits to freedom of expression can also be set by how hard logistically it is to make a voice or fact heard by lots of people.

This is exactly what CGNet Swara (Voice of Chhattisgarh) changed for millions of Indians who lack basic access to news. CGNet Swara lets people freely upload their reports to a voice portal that is moderated by trained journalists. These reports then become available for playback to anyone. All that is needed to record and listen to the reports is a mobile phone; no smartphone or Internet access is required.

We congratulate Shubranshu Choudhary who founded CGNet Swara for winning the Google Digital Activism Award at this year’s Index Freedom of Expression Awards, along with all the champions who shine a light on their ongoing struggle to have their voices heard around the world. This award was presented following a public vote.

You can learn more about CGNet Swara in Shubranshu’s TED Talk and tune in to the news reports uploaded to the portal here.

Posted by Lokman Tsui, Public Policy and Government Relations Manager, Open Internet, Google Asia Pacific, Middle East, Africa & Russia.

Keeping one billion voters informed in India and Indonesia

Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Election season is in full swing for two of the world’s largest democracies as a staggering one billion people make their way to the polls in April. To help keep Indian and Indonesian voters informed, we’ve launched tools that provide easier access to the latest news, videos, and practical details about the coming elections.

India

We’re enabling interaction between candidates and their electorates through a series of Hangouts on Air with India’s political leaders. You can view yesterday’s conversation with BJP leader Arun Jaitley and stay informed about upcoming guests through our Elections Hub.

Indians can also submit an interactive Pledge to Vote on the map and make a customizable video to share messages with fellow citizens on why voting is important. If you need any inspiration, watch this moving story of Mr. Shyam Negi, independent India’s first voter, who is 97 years old and has never missed the opportunity to cast his vote.

Indonesia

In Indonesia, voting-rights NGO Perludem and The Asia Foundation are using our Google Maps tools to create a candidate information map that will be updated as votes come in on election day. Together with Perludem, we’ve also held workshops to enable Indonesian candidates to reach and communicate with voters across the country on platforms such as YouTube and Google+. In this year’s election, 44% of voters are between 18 and 22 years old, and are casting their ballots for the first time. We hope that through better engagement with the candidates, more young voters will be encouraged to go to the polls.

Indonesia’s Elections Hub also keeps citizens informed about how the different political parties are trending in Google Search.

As election fever sets in, we hope the Elections Hubs at Google.co.in/elections for India and Google.co.id/elections for Indonesia provide you with all the information that you need to stay on top of these significant events.

Posted by Chetan Krishnaswamy, Head of Government Relations at Google India, and Shinto Nugruho, Head of Government Relations, Google Indonesia

Mapping Asia now and (way back) then

Friday, February 28, 2014

Digital maps can help us understand the world better and enable us to track change in the landscape when it happens very suddenly, because of a flood or a typhoon for example. But as the launch of the Google Maps Gallery shows, it can also show the changes and constants that define an area over the centuries.

Here are three very old maps you can now explore with the new Maps Gallery. Expand the maps below by clicking on the square at the top right, then use the slider to get a glimpse of the old map and the modern one at the same time.

Tokyo 1680
Zoom to the palace to see how little has changed over the years in that part of the city formerly known as Edo. The map also shows how Edo, the city of rivers, became Tokyo, the city of major roads that run over rivers.

Map from the David Rumsey Map Collection: Hayashi, Yoshinaga, The East Asian Library at the University of California, Berkeley

The Philippines 1902
Explore the ports and lighthouses, post offices and telegraph stations in this extraordinarily detailed map of the Southern Philippine Islands.

Map from The National Geographic Society

India 1804
This map was based on surveys by the East India Company, which had the British monopoly on trade with India.

Map from the David Rumsey Map Collection by James Rennell, Thomas Kitchen, Robert Laurie and James Whittle

Maps Gallery works like an interactive digital atlas. You can explore historic city plans, school ratings, deforestation changes, climate trends, shipwrecks and up-to-date evacuation routes. In addition to finding these maps through Maps Gallery, they can be viewed in Google Earth and are discoverable through major search engines.

People can browse content from organizations such as National Geographic Society, the World Bank Group, and the United Nations Environmental Program, but this is just the beginning. With the goal of making this information more readily available to the world, Google Maps Gallery is now open to organizations with content for the public good.

Organizations interested in submitting content can apply to participate in Maps Gallery. To find out more read our FAQ. Together with governments, businesses and nonprofits, we can unlock the world’s geospatial data.

Posted by Jordan Breckenridge, Google Maps, Product Manager

Discover the Taj Mahal and other iconic Indian monuments on Street View

Friday, February 21, 2014

Cross posted from the Google LatLong blog

India’s Taj Mahal, with it’s majestic symmetry of white marble structures, is considered one of the top places to see during your lifetime. Starting today, anyone with an Internet connection can explore the Taj Mahal and 29 of India’s most iconic national monuments through Street View on Google Maps and the Google Cultural Institute.

The Taj Mahal, the crown jewel of India

These Indian heritage sites have historically been admired by those lucky enough to journey to and across India. With the new panoramic imagery live on Street View, people around the world can now visit these iconic monuments online.

Using the Street View Trekker, we’ve brought you images that let you virtually stroll through the vast grounds of Humayun's Tomb, admire the red sandstone walls of Red Fort, and explore the ancient temples at Muvar Koil.

Agra Fort, Agra, India, one the capital forts from the Mughal Empire

Qutb Minar, Delhi, India, home to the tallest brick minaret in India

We’ve worked with the Archaeological Survey of India to bring you this new way of experiencing India’s national treasures. Take a behind-the-scenes look the Taj Mahal, and experience this place in a whole new way through Google Maps.

In a country as rich with heritage as India, technology can change the way we learn about and understand the past. We hope the Street View imagery of these 30 iconic Indian monuments will help share and preserve these sites, their stories and more of India’s diverse heritage for generations to come.

Posted by Gautam Gandhi, Street View Program Manager

Safer Internet Day: Helping families stay safe online

Friday, February 14, 2014

The Internet has brought a number of incredible things to the world - from K-Pop to music awards to long-distance learning. And it should also be a safe space for families to explore, learn and enjoy together. That is why we’re working with partners around the world to get the word out about good Internet practices and how to best use our tools to keep users safe online.

To coincide with Safer Internet Day on February 11, we launched a nationwide campaign in India with the Digital Empowerment Foundation and the Voluntary Organization in the Interest of Consumer Education to bring a series of online safety workshops to schools, NGOs, consumer and industry groups across the country. In Australia, we hosted a roundtable with online safety advocates and in Japan, we’re supporting the National Information Security Center to raise public awareness around Internet security throughout February, which is Information Security Month.

At the first in a series of events we held in New Delhi, Dr. Gulshan Rai, Director-General at the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, spoke of the need to educate and empower web users about online safety to make the most of the Internet’s potential. We couldn’t agree more.

Panel discussion at the launch of Internet Safety Week in New Delhi

Staying safe on the web starts with maintaining a conversation about it with our kids. Every family member should know the dos and don’ts of online safety and the consequences of inappropriate use. It’s important that kids feel they can ask parents for guidance when they encounter tricky online situations.

Google also invests in safety features and partners with parents, teachers and NGOs to make the Internet better. For example, turning on SafeSearch in Google Search or Safety Mode in YouTube helps filter out mature content that you might not want showing up on the family computer. On Android devices, doing something as simple as filtering apps in the Google Play store will limit what content your kids can download to your device.

We hope you’ll take time to sit down with your kids and start the conversation about basic Internet safety with them today. Visit our Google Safety Center for more advice on keeping your family safe online.

The new Google Safety Center

Posted by Vaishnavi Jayakumar, Public Policy & Government Relations Associate, Google APAC

Wish we were here

Friday, February 7, 2014

Now that everyone’s returning from their Lunar New Year travels, let’s take a look back at all the destinations Asia was searching for over the past year. The map below shows the top destinations searched on Google in a few Asian countries. Perhaps surprising for a country that is so far away from its nearest neighbors, Australia’s searches (in red) cast the widest radius across the world: its top travel destination was Disneyland (the nearest one being Hong Kong’s, 7,000 km away), and the second was Dubai, a staggering 12,000 km distance from Sydney. Tourists in China, on the other hand, like to stay close to home, with domestic travel spots like Hangzhou and Jiuzhaigou taking top billing. India stands out as the only country whose users searched for a U.S. city: Boston, home of MIT and Harvard.

Why does this matter? It’s a reminder that often the first step on a journey is taken online and that paying attention to those first steps in Asia is important. Asia will drive most of the growth of the tourism industry over the next 15 years.

Posted by Joyce Hau, Communications Senior Associate, Google APAC

Search Battle of the Kollywood Titans: Jilla vs Veeram

Friday, January 17, 2014

You probably know about India’s most all-singing and all-dancing cultural export, the Bollywood movie industry. You may not be as familiar, however, with Bollywood’s cousin to the south, the thriving Tamil-language film industry known as “Kollywood.” Kodambakkam, the industry’s epicenter, is home to a base of extraordinarily passionate fans. In fact, in 2010 when director Mani Ratnam made two versions of the exact same movie in Hindi and Tamil, the Tamil “Raavanan” brought home $26 million in box office receipts, dwarfing the Hindi “Raavan’s” $5 million box office revenues. That gap was also reflected in searches.

We witnessed some of this passion for Kollywood first-hand over the holiday weekend. Over this past Pongal, or harvest, the two top trending search terms in India nationally were “Jilla” and “Veeram” — movies released by Kollywood’s biggest rival stars, Vijay, aka the “Young General,” and Ajith, aka "The Leader”. Here are the trailers:

These movies claimed top spots in last week’s top trending search terms in India. We also noticed an uptick in searches for these terms in the original Tamil script rather than the phonetic English version that is typically more popular. The volume of search queries has increased significantly since the last time these actors released their respective movies “Pokkiri” and “Alwar” at the same time in 2007, showing that more Tamil-speaking Indians are coming online and searching for what is most interesting to them. While searches for “Jilla” were concentrated in India as well as Sri Lanka, interest in “Veeram” spread more widely across the Tamil diaspora, with search queries from the United Arab Emirates, Singapore, and Malaysia.

Source: Google Trends

Still, Bollywood has kept a bigger profile overseas. For the 2013 International Indian Film Academy awards in Macau, the IIFA organisers brought highlights and backstage interviews to their official YouTube channel, broadcasting the ceremony online to viewers across the globe. Marketing for newly released Bollywood movies usually also includes an active online marketing campaign. The Internet age allows people to market and broadcast to diasporas, not just nations. As interest in Kollywood grows, the industry can boost its international cache even more by building its online presence, appealing both to the Tamil diaspora as well as new audiences worldwide.

Posted by Vaishnavi Jayakumar, Public Policy & Government Relations Associate, Google Asia-Pacific

ਤੁਸੀਂ ਹੁਣ ਇਹ ਹੈਡਲਾਈਨ ਦਾ ਅਨੁਵਾਦ ਕਰ ਸਕਦੇ ਹੋ|

Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Of the nine languages we added to Google Translate today, Punjabi and Nepali are the most widely spoken in Asia and beyond.

Punjabi is the world’s ninth most widely spoken language, with more than 100 million native speakers across India, Pakistan, and the diaspora. Punjabi happens to be the third most widely spoken language in Canada. If you have ever shaken your shoulders to the sounds of bhangra-influenced Bollywood music, you will recognise how closely woven Punjabi is to much of modern global Indian culture. Now available in Gurmukhi script, Google Translate gives users easier access the works of renowned Punjabi authors such as Amrita Pritam, whose haunting Pinjar is one of the most poignant works set against the backdrop of Partition. It also gives Punjabi speakers better access to the wealth of non-Punjabi information on the Web.

Google Translate from English to Punjabi, the world’s 9th most widely spoken language

The availability of Google Translate in Nepali opens up our tools to more than 42 million native speakers worldwide. The dominant language of Nepal, and widely spoken across Northeast Indian states like Assam and Meghalaya, Nepali is commonly written in the same Devanagari script as Hindi. Now readers can access the poetry of Laxmi Prasad Devkota or make the most of a trip to Nepal by translating useful phrases into the local language.

In addition, we are also launching Translate in Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba, Somali, Zulu, Mongolian, and Maori. As with all our Translate languages, we rely on speakers of the language to refine our translations and offer better suggestions for a translation if they exist. Give it a spin, and if you have any suggestions for improvement, click on translated text that we produced automatically, then select or type better translations.

Posted by Arne Mauser, Software Engineer

An Internet for every Indian

Thursday, November 21, 2013

India’s rapid rise towards becoming the second-largest Internet market in the world looks very different according to your gender.

Of the estimated 200 million Internet users in India today, only a third are women. What’s more, just 14% of India’s women who use the Internet live in rural areas.

India’s digital gender gap is larger than those of most developing countries and closing it is crucial. The knowledge the Internet makes available can improve women’s standard of living. Better access to information about health and finance can help lower maternal and infant mortality rates. That leads to a rise in GDP. As Mahatma Gandhi said, educate a woman and you educate a nation.

That’s why we’ve set up Helping Women Get Online with several partners with the aim of bringing 50 million women in India online by the end of 2014.

Schoolgirls in Bhilwara attend a session on Internet basics

On Wednesday, we celebrated the first milestone of this initiative. We’ve successfully reached out to 100,000 women across 300 schools, 500 households and over 50 villages as part of a pilot program in Rajasthan’s Bhilwara district, some 500 kilometers from Delhi. We showed female students, housewives and professionals how the internet is relevant to their day-to-day lives through search, video and email at government-run Internet centers. Armed with the learnings from this pilot, we look forward to replicating the program across other villages throughout the country.

Young women learning about how they can use the Internet in their daily lives

Women within India will also be able to call a toll free helpline number 1800.41.999.77 to get answers for any queries that they may have about the Internet.

This is just one step we are taking towards closing the digital divide between men and women, and between developed and developing countries. Watch out for more updates as we continue to roll out the program through 2014.

Posted by Rajan Anandan, Vice President and Managing Director, Google India

Meet the India Google Impact Challenge winners

Friday, November 1, 2013

[Cross posted from the Official Google India blog]

In August, the Google Impact Challenge came to India with one question for its social entrepreneurs: How would you use technology to improve your community and the world?

Thousands of teams submitted applications for how to spark social impact in India. The proposals were so great that it took over 160 Googlers to review the pile and handpick the top 10 finalists.

On Thursday, the leaders from the 10 finalists pitched their breakthrough solutions to a panel of judges at a live event in Delhi. The room sparked with inventiveness, passion and also urgency for the importance of all of these projects.

After a tough deliberation, the judges selected three winners to receive Global Impact Awards for their innovative plans to make a positive impact on people’s lives.

Join me in congratulating the inspiring judge selections:

Agastya: Launch a network of motorbike science labs to address the lack of science equipment and digital resources for rural children.
Digital Green: Scale a video hub and an online knowledge platform to help farmers gain the agricultural skills they need to lower their costs and increase their productivity.
Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship & Democracy: Create online and mobile apps to connect citizens to their government representatives in urban India.

The public picked a fourth winner. Over half a million votes were cast during the ten day voting period. Who was the winner? The public's favourite was a project from Social Awareness, Newer Alternatives that combines solar-powered micro-ionizing water purification and biodigesting technology to improve water and sanitation infrastructure for rural villages.

The four winners each received a Rs 3 crore Global Impact Award (approximately $500,000), as well as Google mentoring to help get their projects off the ground. We can’t wait to see the impact of their work in India!

Winner Joylita Saldanha, Judge Nikesh Arora, Judge Ram Shriram, Winner Rikin Gandhi, Judge Ana Agu, Winner K. Thiagarajan, Judge Jayant Sinha, Winner Sanchaita Gajapati Raju, Judge Jacquelline Fuller

We also had a surprise for the six remaining finalists. The proposals were so impressive that we invested seed funding of Rs 1.5 crore into each project (approximately $250,000) to refine and scale their impact.

Interested in following the Global Impact Awardees on their journey of implementation? Follow updates on their work on Google Giving G+ page.

Posted by Rajan Anandan, Vice President and Managing Director, Google India

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