Since last week, Google extended its humanitarian efforts through the Google.org Fellowship program. It allows its own employees to work up to six months on special projects of nonprofit organizations, helping in topics of computer engineering, data analysis and artificial intelligence.
The foundation of Google, Google.org has committed to donate 1% of its profits to charitable projects. The company has decided to focus on education, economic opportunities and inclusion. The first collaboration underway is with Goodwill International. From January 15, seven Google employees will spend three months at Goodwill offices in different cities. These are the first group of 40 to 60 experts that Google plans to deploy during the year.
Goodwill is a neighborhood store that resells used items and is present in several countries. In 2017, 39 million people accessed job training, education, financial management to overcome problems of employment. According to the annual report of the foundation, 288 thousand people obtained work thanks to the practices obtained in the foundation.
The program began to function formally after a successful six-month pilot experience with the Thorn foundation of Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher, which fights against child abuse. The organization works with 8,000 legal agents in 30 countries to stop sex trafficking and child pornography. According to the foundation, they have helped identify 30,000 traffic victims, including 10 thousand children.
As reported on the organization’s website, Thorn works with different technology partners to carry out a Technological Task Force. The objective of the program is to develop computer barriers and initiatives to ensure the safety of children on the Internet and to discourage the predators that use this tool. Google has offered its intellectual capacity to foundations in the past. For example, GoogleServe was a month of the year in which employees were encouraged to do community work. Although the exact time contributed by the project was inaccurate, supposedly it involved 25 thousand people and 900 institutions, until 2018.
Last year, Google tested different types of immersive programs from one to four weeks. It was through these programs that Google discovered that the foundations were interested in longer commitments.
To apply for volunteering, Google employees must complete an internal profile. Each stakeholder must answer a questionnaire about the motivation to give their service what they hope to gain from that experience. The company does not want to say how they are going to make the final decision.