Google.org

Interesting piece here from The Economist about Dr Larry Brilliant, head of Google.org. Google.org is the philanthropic division of Google. According to the article, when it was conceived in 2004 Google hoped that this division would one day “eclipse Google itself in overall world impact by ambitiously applying innovation and significant resources to the largest of the world's problems”.

What's interesting about this article is its description of how Google.org has developed its strategy. It's taken Larry Brilliant two years to work out what Google.org is going to do. They started with 1,000 ideas, narrowed them down to 11 (dealing with the "biggest, most imminent, least well resourced problems”). Each of the 11 got one member of the team to act as its advocate. These have now been reduced to the 5 final initiatives. These 5 were chosen in part by thinking about how much impact Google itself could have on them.

Interestingly, the final 5 initiatives span 3 areas: fighting global climate change; economic development; and early warning for global pandemics.

I'd love to know more about the process they used to cull their ideas from 1,000 to 5.