Google Finds New Way to Give - An Ounce of Prevention

To me, Google.org's most exciting initiative is the one titled "Predict and Prevent." Like the Inform and Empower initiative, it takes advantage of one of the things Google does best: spread information. The company is trying to support efforts to empower communities to predict and prevent events before they become local, regional, or global crises, by identifying "hot spots" and enabling a rapid response. While the initial focus will be on emerging infectious diseases, many factors contribute to this problem: climate change, urbanization, rising international travel and trade, and increasing contact between animals and humans (nearly 75 percent of new diseases in the last three decades have spread from animals to humans, including AIDS).

So what does Google.org hope to do about this? Well, it's certainly not going to try to discourage international trade! It is giving funds to organizations that focus on improving early detection, preparedness, and response capabilities for global health threats, such as InSTEDD (Innovative Support to Emergencies, Diseases and Disasters). Other companies receiving funds from Google.org include the Global Health and Security Initiative, and Clark University.

That last grant is particularly intriguing because of its cross-disciplinary nature; it is for Clark Labs to develop a system to improve monitoring, analysis and prediction of the impacts of climate variability and change on ecosystems, food and health in Africa and the Amazon. Google.org has big hopes for this system. It will be a prototype for a much larger platform that will deliver global environmental, health, and development data, information and analysis tools that the global community can freely access over the Internet.

There is no question that these five initiatives are ambitious. They play to Google's strengths in that they all deal, to one degree or another, with the flow of information. Some observers have accused Google of selfishness in the energy initiatives because they stand to benefit tremendously, given how much power their data centers consume. I think that's an unfair charge; sure, Google will benefit, but so will many others. There is nothing that obligates them to share their money and expertise with the rest of the world to make it a better place, aside from keeping their word. But they're choosing to do it anyway, because it's the right thing to do. And that, perhaps, is the heart of their motto: "Do no evil."