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Google.org pledges $20 million to support disability technologies
The World Health Organization estimates 1 billion people across the world live with disabilities, and Google's philanthropy division, Google.org, just pledged $20 million to help improve their situations. The money is spread across 29 programs working on disability technologies -- the average amount they'll each receive is $750,000, with six of the grant winners getting more than $1 million, Wired reports.
The 21st-century charity that puts Google and VR to good use
How do you get people to care about the world's problems? More important, how do you get them to care enough to take action? Some nonprofits, like the ASPCA, are fortunate enough to have the perfect mix of cute animals in distress and a sappy Sarah McLachlan song to get the tears running and the donations flowing. But what if your charity lacks the glamour of a pop icon and the heartstrings pull of a wounded puppy? What if your charity's cause is as mundane as bringing clean water to those who don't have it? In a world where we have the luxury of opting for a $3 bottle of Fiji Water over Pellegrino, how do you drive home the point that some people have no other choice but to drink water infested with leeches? For an organization like Charity: Water, the answer to that question was a technological one: Take people to the Third World in a virtual reality documentary and show them how their dollars are being spent with real-time data from a Google-funded water sensor.
