Google Struggles To Give Away $10 Million 145
theodp writes "On Google's 10th Birthday in 2008, the search giant promised $10 million to the best five ideas for using technology to improve the world, through Project 10^100. CNN reports that while Google's intentions were good, of course, the company's follow-through leaves much to be desired. Google announced the cash prize contest in September 2008 and closed public voting on 16 finalists chosen from over 150,000 ideas in October 2009. Over eight months later, the company has yet to announce the winners. 'While genocide and other pressing problems relentlessly advance,' remarked contest finalist Daniel Meyerowitz to Wired.com, 'it would seem that Project 10^100 does not.'"
Priorities? (Score:4, Insightful)
I think the guy gets it right with the priorities in his quote by making a poor comparison:
Given that most of the major "pressing problems" (like genocide) can't easily be resolved with technology and need simple discussion and agreement, why not ditch the unimportant and stalled competition in favour of putting the money into the pressing problems?
Re:16 finalists? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not Good Enough (Score:0, Insightful)
then why did they pick finalists? Either way google has dropped the ball again...
Re:16 finalists? (Score:5, Insightful)
Nevermind, I found them, under "Ideas". No wonder Google hasn't given out any money, the ideas are really terrible.
"Create a single world bank or supra-national currency, uniform rules and transparent public accounting"
Oh yeah, that's a great fucking idea.
Re:Not Good Enough (Score:2, Insightful)
Significance (Score:3, Insightful)
'While genocide and other pressing problems relentlessly advance,' remarked contest finalist Daniel Meyerowitz to Wired.com, 'it would seem that Project 10^100 does not.'
Huh? The maggots growing in the disgusting bucket behind my garage are advancing through larval stage. What the fuck does that have to do with anything? Is this guy complaining? Noting? Does he mean "if so-and-so can progress toward the annihilation of a people, why can't Google just pick an entry?" Does he mean that the holdup is making the world a worse place? Does he think mass murder and delaying a contest are comparable?
Re:Priorities? (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course, Meyerowitz's allegedly-winning idea was to use technology to map genocide events in real time and use the info to "provide early warning" of new genocide locations, assist relief organizations, etc. That's worth putting money into and would be, essentially, "putting money into the pressing problem" as you said.
Except that it's a pretty lousy idea.
I mean... Sure, genocide is bad and all... And stopping or at least reducing it would be good... But how the hell do you think technology is going to assist here?
Who is going to report the genocide events? Are we going to design a new gun or something that phones home when used for genocide? And what's the genocide threshold? And who's going to maintain the hardware? And what's the penalty for not using one of the new anti-genocide rifles when you commit your atrocities? And then what's going to happen once we've got this data mapped in realtime? We're just going to look at the maps and say wow, that's a lot of genocide? Is somebody supposed to act on that data? Or is it just supposed to provide awareness?
It seems to me that you can already create custom overlays in things like Google Earth and Google Maps. Seems to me that there are plenty of ways to distribute information. Seems to me that we don't really need $10 million worth of new technology. What we need is willingness to act on all the atrocities that we are currently aware of.
Let's make a better world! (for me) (Score:1, Insightful)
* Encourage positive media depictions of engineers and scientists
* Enhance science and engineering education
* Make educational content available online for free
* Drive innovation in public transport
and.... *rolls 1d12*
My cousin asked me what I was studying in school, I decided to be vague in my response: "Engineering"
Her response?
"You're going to work on cars!?!"
Our theory on the thought process is... Hear: "Engine#@$@#$" Think: "Cars have engines!"
I don't think she's technically related by blood, so I don't think my children will be inflicted with the disease.
She could have *least* thought that I was going to drive trains.. alas..
Re:Serious lack of forethought (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem with this view is the 10^100 project can not be compared to the standard marketing-based lottery system where a company gives out some large amount of cash in exchange for lots of even-larger revenue.
"Competing" in 10^100 wasn't about making money by presenting a good idea, cashing out on IP as suggested. Corny as it may sound it was about making the world a better place. You don't get the money just because you proposed the idea, but you could get funded if you had the capacity to follow through on the idea.
And that's exactly the difficulty I would assume Google ran into. It would a piece of cake to just hand $10M to the Red Cross to help out in Africa. But Google's vision goes beyond this. They were thinking bigger, like coming up with something like the RC and unleashing it as a force of good on the world. That's a hard problem which Google is not built for. It's generally the role of governments and people who have nothing else to do. I doubt Google hired someone specifically to run this project, and maybe that's where the idea fails.
I'm really glad this is getting publicity because I want Google to go forward with this project. It's a great idea, but unfortunately many people are unable to appreciate the difficulty involved so they'll just complain about Big Bad Google again. It's a damn shame Google hasn't done more to help the world, but to criticize them for only starting? What harm will have Google done by not following through? People gotta remember that most companies don't even care enough to try.
Re:Not Good Enough (Score:3, Insightful)
No, he's saying that out of the 16 final ideas, all them already have governments and charitable organizations dedicating years and hundreds of millions of dollars trying to do the same thing. $10 mil won't do shit to remove the worlds landmines or improve education quality in Africa.
Re:Not Good Enough (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:16 finalists? (Score:4, Insightful)
No kidding. These are some of the WORST ideas I've ever seen, for a couple for reasons.
Kudos to google if they keep their money and pay nothing out for any of these. The money will be put to much better use if google uses it to develop more products and services instead.
Side Note: As a freedom loving individual who believes in limited government and free markets, I'd actually rather see the money burned than used for most of these ideas... "Work towards social conscious tax policies"? I might puke...
Re:Maybe... (Score:5, Insightful)