Official Google India Blog: October 2018

Towards Gender Equity in STEM through Relatable Role Models

October 29, 2018

At Google we know that diverse perspectives strengthen us as a society. We also know that one way to bring diverse perspectives to the table is to build a strong educational foundation for underrepresented groups in the tech industry. So we’re building programs and supporting partners that reach millions of students every year, with a focus on women who are underrepresented in the field today.

In line with this thought, Google strongly encourages women to excel in Computing and Technology and become active leaders in the field, globally. Women who want to pursue tech as a career do not always find relatable role models or community online due to existing gender disparities in representation, making equitable participation an uphill climb. The lack of community is especially pronounced for women from under-represented backgrounds and communities, such as women from smaller towns of India or those taking up doctoral streams in core sciences like distributed systems or nuclear physics.

The challenge with gender disparity in Computing is often attributed to the pipeline problem--staggeringly dropping numbers of women at various stages. For example, women make up 18% of Computer Science (CS) majors in the U.S., disturbingly down from 37% in 1984. However, the pipeline problem is not shaped similarly across the world.

India: High undergraduate entry, sharp declines in careers

India offers an interesting case study on gender parity in Computing. Indian women represent 45% of CS undergraduate enrollments--a commendable achievement. Yet, when it comes to advanced degrees and career growth, women experience a societal whiplash. Only 30% of CS Ph.D. enrollment is represented by women, and less than 6% of senior Computing professionals are women. To understand these surprising phenomena, a team of Google researchers, along with researchers from the University of Michigan, conducted qualitative research on the various life stages of thirty-nine women in CS in India.

Our research shows that women are encouraged, even coerced, into CS undergraduate degrees due to factors like job security, convenient work environments, and marriage prospects. However, the same socio-cultural factors work against women in higher degrees and early-career stages. Societal stigma faced by women with advanced degrees, housework responsibilities, workplace discrimination, lack of paternity leave, and unsafe late night IT shifts all lead to a precipitous exist by women in the CS workforce around the age of 30. The perception that women become ‘over-qualified’ to find a suitable partner causes many families to pressure women to drop out of or decline advanced degrees.

Relatable role models benefit the entire family

Our findings show that Indian women’s participation dwindles in advanced degrees or careers due to the shared view of women’s primary tasks being to raise families. A major challenge here is that successful and relatable role models are hard to find, especially when women are going against the grain. Relatable role models from similar life experiences, backgrounds, languages, and strata serve an important role for the entire family as much as they do for the woman scholar or professional. Role models enable a dialogue with the family and society on women’s independence and career choices, by pointing to successful women from the same community, making career growth seem accessible and non-threatening. The few women that have access to relatable role models consider them to be game changers in their lives, in choosing career paths and convincing families.

Announcing the Women in STEM video series

Today, we are highlighting eminent women scientists across Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) to bring forth as role models for young women and their parents across India. The scientists come from various parts of India, with diverse backgrounds. Each of them has an inspiring story about their life experiences and challenges, sharing what led them to a successful path. The video series and short film are part of Google’s efforts to inspire millions of young women across India to pursue their passion for STEM fields.

Check out the playlist of inspiring stories of nine eminent Indian scientists in STEM fields

Towards gender-equitable computing

Our initiative is a small step in the complex societal issue of gender parity in Computing and STEM worldwide. A concerted effort is required to address the challenges. Parents and partners have to open up attitudes to women’s gender roles. Funding bodies should provide scholarships at the Masters and Ph.D. levels to enhance women’s financial agency in advanced education. Computing societies should develop a global outlook on STEM diversity. Within Google, the research insights are helping us build a more balanced workforce, through efforts such as promoting relatable role models from underrepresented groups across various levels and building sustainable communities through mentorship and Employee Resource Group programs. We hope that by bringing attention to the societal influence on women's education and careers, we can move towards a fair and equitable field for all.

To know more about Google’s commitments, including commitments towards supporting women and other underrepresented groups, visit https://www.google.com/about/our-commitments/

Thakkar, D.*, Sambasivan, N.*, Kulkarni, P., Kalenahalli Sudarshan, P., & Toyama, K. (2018, April). The Unexpected Entry and Exodus of Women in Computing and HCI in India. SIGCHI (p. 352). ACM.

By Nithya Sambasivan and Saumya Mittal

Making it easier to control your data, directly in Google products

October 25, 2018

https://storage.googleapis.com/gweb-uniblog-publish-prod/original_images/PA_BLOG_FINAL.gif Eric Miraglia Director of Product Management Privacy and Data Protection Office

We’re always working on making it easier for you to understand and control your data so you can make privacy choices that are right for you. Earlier this year, we launched a new Google Account experience that puts your privacy and security front and center, and we updated our Privacy Policy with videos and clearer language to better describe the information we collect, why we collect it, and how you can control it.

Today, we’re making it easier for you to make decisions about your data directly within the Google products you use every day, starting with Search. Without ever leaving Search, you can now review and delete your recent Search activity, get quick access to the most relevant privacy controls in your Google Account, and learn more about how Search works with your data.

Control your data, directly in the Google products you use every day

When you use Google products, you generate data about your activity. For Search, this data includes the terms you search for, links you interact with and other information like your current location when you search.

Before today, if you were searching on Google and wanted to review or manage this data, the best way for you to do that would have been to visit your Google Account. Now, we’re bringing these controls to you – from directly within Search, you can review or delete your Search activity and quickly get back to finding what you were searching for.

We’re also providing quick access to the privacy controls in your Google Account that are most relevant as you use Search. For example, to control the ads you see when you search, we give you access to your Ad Settings. Additionally, you can access your Activity Controls to decide what information Google saves to your account and uses to make Search and other Google services faster, smarter and more useful.

If you want to learn more about what data is being generated as you use Google services and how we use data to improve your experience, you can now find a short video that helps explain this information.

We’re launching this improvement in Google Search on desktop and mobile web today, and in the Google app for iOS and Android in the coming weeks. Next year, we’ll expand this to Maps, followed by many other Google products. Having access to relevant and actionable privacy controls directly from the Google products you use every day is just one way that we are continuously working to build privacy that works for everyone.

Posted by Eric Miraglia, Director of Product Management, Privacy and Data Protection Office

5 reasons to love the new Chromecast

October 24, 2018

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/uJ_Dwg_g96eXtKUqTx2d4oDIlfRzJ0gWzG1LhgMXEwC-02oRIvsaTMM3svbAvudvGkVoBf53g3rqVvyDPvti4oJ6jaBox7aNBzS2jM6nww0j6o9xQar1NYFuSyJwU_z3IQEonJAH Jess Bonner PM Chromecast

We launched our first Chromecast in 2013 with the aim to make it easy to get your favorite content right from your phone to your TV. With hundreds of compatible apps to cast from, people are tapping the Cast button more than ever. And since Chromecast, the Made by Google family of products has continued to grow, bringing the best of hardware, software, and AI together. So for this 5th year of Chromecast, we wanted to share the top 5 reasons we’re excited about our newest Chromecast:

Fits right in. With a new design, Chromecast blends in with your decor and the rest of the Made by Google family.
Stream hands-free. Chromecast and Google Home work seamlessly together. Just say what you want to watch from compatible services, like YouTube or Netflix, and control your TV just by asking. Try, “Hey Google, play Lost in Space from Netflix.” (You’ll need a Netflix subscription to get started.)
Picture perfect at 60fps. Our newest Chromecast supports streaming in 1080p at 60 frames per second, giving you a more lifelike image. So when you’re watching the match, it will feel even more like you’re there.
More than a screen, it’s a canvas. With Ambient Mode, you can personalize your TV with a constantly updating stream of the best and latest photos taken by you, your friends and your family from Google Photos. With new Live Albums from Google Photos, you can enjoy photos of people and pets you care about and skip blurry photos and duplicates -- all without lifting a finger. New photos will show up automatically on your TV -- no uploading hassles.
And it has an MRP of just ₹3,499. So it’s the perfect gift this upcoming holiday season for the streamer in your life.

The new Chromecast is available in Charcoal starting today exclusively from Flipkart, and comes with a one-year Sony LIV Premium subscription along with a six-month Gaana Plus subscription.

So go ahead, #StreamOn!

Posted by Jess Bonner, Chromecast PM

Meet the finalists of Doodle 4 Google 2018 from India

October 23, 2018

Entries now open for online voting for users to choose the winner

This year, we asked art loving students from Class 1 - Class 10 in India, to tell us “What inspires me?”, and we are indeed inspired to see their vivid imagination and utmost creativity. Thousands of children from across the country sent in their entries. Over 55% of the entries were from non-metro cities, including Visakhapatnam, Bhopal, Jabalpur, Kottayam, Bareilly and Bhubaneswar, proving that creativity has no boundaries.

Today, we are glad to announce top 20 finalists for the annual Doodle4Google (D4G) 2018 competition. These children expressed themselves in unique ways! From a beautiful sight at the beach to nature’s tiny creatures; India’s farmer community to the Indian folk music; space exploration to learning from animals; children drew their inspiration using crayons, clay, and graphic designs.

This year’s D4G participants are grouped into five categories: Group 1 comprising students from Class 1 to 2; Group 2 with students from Class 3 to 4; Group 3 with students from Class 5 to 6; Group 4 with students from Class 7 to 8 and Group 5 with students from Class 9 to 10.

These entries went through multiple rounds of judging, first by a panel of art teachers and then jury comprising of creative mastermind Arun Iyer, famous artist and YouTube Kids Creator, Rob (Harun Robert), India’s leading female YouTube Creator Sejal Kumar and our original doodle team lead, Ryan Germick. Details of the finalists along with their doodles are showcased at https://doodles.google.co.in/d4g.

You get to vote for your favourite little doodler too! It’s time for you to show some love, and ensure their doodle is featured on www.google.co.in on Children’s Day i.e. November 14, 2018. Online voting to pick the final winner will start on October 23 and will close at 10:00AM IST on November 6. Finally, based on your votes, the national jury will pick the final winners.

Here is the list of the 20 finalists from across India:

Group 1: Class 1 to 2
C Jayavant Kamesh, Sri Prakash Vidyaniketan, Visakhapatnam
Shalom Keshet, St.Mark's Sr. Sec. Public School, New Delhi
Aryamn Chitlangiya, Jayshree Periwal High School, Jaipur
Shaikh Mohd Rufael Rizwan, MESCO Crescent English High School, Mumbai

Group 2: Class 3 to 4
Aarohi Dixit, Dolphins International School, Pune
Patel Priyal Dilip, BKM Primary School, Bhopal
Daksh Verma, Gaur International, Greater Noida
Ankit Bhattacharya, Delhi Public School, New Town, Kolkata

Group 3: Class 5 to 6
Daniya Kulsum, Sri Prakash Vidyaniketan, Visakhapatnam
Aritra Haldar, G.B. Memorial Institution, Kolkata
B Sathwik, Sri Prakash Vidyaniketan, Visakhapatnam
Yash Pandurang Shelar, Ramannaug, Pune

Group 4: Class 7 to 8
Pingla Rahul More, J B Vachha High School, Mumbai
Manvi Jain, The Emerald Heights International School, Indore
B Shreya, Kendriya Vidyalaya Ganeshkhind, Pune
Aribah Fatima, Madina High School, Hyderabad

Group 5: Class 9 to 10
Dhwanit P Nagar, Swami Vivekanand International School, Mumbai
Anika Goel, Global Indian International School, Hyderabad
Aditi Shekhawat, Army Public School, Bengaluru
Sujoy Swastik, KIIT International School, Bhubaneswar

About the History of the Doodle:

Over the years, doodles on the Google homepage have made search on Google more fun and enjoyable for its users worldwide. When doodles were first created, nobody had anticipated how popular and integral they would become to the Google search experience. Nowadays, many users excitedly anticipate the release of each new doodle and some even collect them!

Doodles are known as the decorative changes that are made to the Google logo to celebrate holidays, anniversaries, and the lives of famous artists and scientists. Having a little bit of fun with the corporate logo by redesigning it from time to time is unheard of at many companies but at Google, it is a part of the brand. While the doodle is primarily a fun way for the company to recognize events and notable people, it also illustrates the creative and innovative personality of the company itself.

Posted by Sapna Chadha, Director of Marketing, Southeast Asia & India

A Final Update on Our Priorities for 2018

October 23, 2018

Dear Creators,

Since 2005, YouTube has transformed from a single video at the zoo to a global video library where billions of people turn to each day for knowledge, creativity and connection. Today, YouTube is a diverse community of creators who are building the next generation of media companies and drawing fans from every corner of the world. You are making history and changing the way people watch video, engage with each other and share their voice. I feel honored to help you do this, and I continue to be inspired by what I see.

In the last year, the number of channels with over 1 million subscribers has increased by 75%. Each month, more than one billion fans come to YouTube to be part of music culture and discover new songs and artists. Building on that momentum, we’ve expanded YouTube Music to the UK, Ireland, Germany, Austria, France, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Russia, Canada, Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Brazil. We also rolled out three new stories on Janelle Monáe, J Balvin and Shawn Mendes in our YouTube Artist Spotlight series over the last few months. And we launched 13 YouTube Originals in the last quarter, including three in Germany and two in France.

All of this is possible because of the creative economy powered by you. However, this growing creative economy is at risk, as the EU Parliament voted on Article 13, copyright legislation that could drastically change the internet that you see today.

Article 13 as written threatens to shut down the ability of millions of people -- from creators like you to everyday users -- to upload content to platforms like YouTube. It threatens to block users in the EU from viewing content that is already live on the channels of creators everywhere. This includes YouTube’s incredible video library of educational content, such as language classes, physics tutorials and other how-to’s.

This legislation poses a threat to both your livelihood and your ability to share your voice with the world. And, if implemented as proposed, Article 13 threatens hundreds of thousands of jobs, European creators, businesses, artists and everyone they employ. The proposal could force platforms, like YouTube, to allow only content from a small number of large companies. It would be too risky for platforms to host content from smaller original content creators, because the platforms would now be directly liable for that content. We realize the importance of all rights holders being fairly compensated, which is why we built Content ID, and a platform to pay out all types of content owners. But the unintended consequences of article 13 will put this ecosystem at risk. We are committed to working with the industry to find a better way. This language could be finalized by the end of year, so it’s important to speak up now.

Please take a moment to learn more about how it could affect your channel and take action immediately. Tell the world through social media (#SaveYourInternet) and your channel why the creator economy is important and how this legislation will impact you.

Please read on for an update on our priorities for 2018.
Communication and transparency

As I’ve written to you before, we’ve made a conscious effort to communicate with you more in the places where your conversations are taking place--social and video. Based on your feedback, we’ve also increased the number of product updates or “heads up” messages regarding changes to YouTube, including smaller tests or experiments, on our @TeamYouTube handle and the Creator Insider channel. And we continue to share helpful tutorials and inspiring creator stories on our YouTube Creators channel, formerly the Creator Academy channel. We’re working to increase these efforts. I’m posting more videos to my own channel and the Creator Insider channel just posted their 100th video!

We’ve heard that you want communication from us in a simplified way and in one central location. To that point, we launched YouTube Studio, the new one-stop shop for platform news and product updates. This is the primary place for getting YouTube-related information, such as announcements about new features, creator academy videos and Creator Insider weekly news flashes. This easy-to-view dashboard is THE place you can go to find the latest news and will be the new homepage for all creators by end of the year.

Finally, our leadership continues to meet face-to-face with creators around the world. Robert Kyncl and Neal Mohan spoke to creators from across Europe, the Middle East and Africa at the Creator Summit in Berlin. Robert continued his series of Creator Interviews with Caspar Lee in Berlin and Gautam Anand, Managing Director of YouTube APAC, sat down with Korean creator Dotty in Seoul. We saw incredible turn out at our Creator Summit in Seoul, with creators from across Asia Pacific, and we look forward to hosting Latin American creators at our final 2018 Creator Summit in November.

Helping you succeed

Monetization is the heart of your business. To that end, we released an update to our monetization systems this quarter, which improved the accuracy of monetization icons by 10%.

In my last letter, I talked about our pilot to test a new video upload flow that asks creators to provide specific information about what’s in their video as it relates to our advertiser-friendly guidelines. Most creators in the pilot were able to accurately represent the content in their video, and it is providing more transparency to creators in terms of what type of content is suitable for ads. We hope to offer self certification to more creators before end of year and plan to expand broadly in early 2019.

This summer, we announced Channel Memberships, and since then, we’ve seen thousands of creators take advantage of this feature. For instance, Wintergatan, creator of the Marble Machine, grew his revenue by more than 50% since adding channel memberships and is using it to fund his next generation Marble Machine and a World Tour. Gaming creator Markiplier increased his revenue by 20% and comedy creator Mike Falzone tripled his YouTube revenue. We’ve also seen creators use Memberships to support creative endeavours, such as TriStar Gym offering exclusive Brazilian Jiu Jitsu technique videos and Ola Englund offering guitar lessons online to members. Because of this success, we're accelerating the roll-out of memberships to more channels and lowering the subscriber threshold from 100,000 to 50,000 subscribers. We plan to expand memberships to even more of you in the months to come.

Over the past few weeks, we've hosted three special editions of our NextUp camps designed to support up-and-coming Black, Latino and women creators. We received more applications for this round than any other before it. If you missed your chance to apply this time, please stay tuned for the next round. We are hosting two more in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil and St. Petersburg, Russia and plan to announce more in the coming months.

Giving people more ways to engage

Since we announced Premieres this summer, creators have been using this new feature to generate more views, more engagement and more revenue for their channel. For instance, Twenty One Pilots premiered their new video My Blood to more than 75,000 fans who watched it together and engaged over live chat and comments. One of our top gaming creators, TheRadBrad, tried it out and told his fans in his live chat that “it was one of the coolest experiences in my 8 years on YouTube.” And Linus Tech Tips’ premiere of his recent tech reviews was one of his best performing videos. I’m happy to announce that premieres is now available to all creators.

We recently introduced YouTube Giving, a suite of features that allow creators and nonprofits to raise funds for causes they care about directly on YouTube videos and live streams. While these features are currently in beta, we’ve seen creators use them to create inspiring impact. Hope for Paws raised over $100,000 in the first 10 days, and over 12 gaming creators have teamed up with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital to raise over $125,000 throughout Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. Our hope is to expand these features soon to more creators so that they can give back and support causes they care about.

Finally, we’re building a stronger gaming community on YouTube with features, such as our new Gaming Destination, Gaming Creator on the Rise and dedicated pages for over 80,000 games. We’ll also be retiring the standalone gaming app next year. We know this change impacts a lot of you, but it will allow gaming creators to have greater access to fans while still providing a unique gaming experience.

Tightening and enforcing our policies

One of our biggest priorities from a policy perspective has been investing in the news experience on YouTube and tackling misinformation. In close collaboration with many of our news partners, we've rolled out a number of changes to address them. For example, we have worked to make credible sources more readily available to users and rolled out breaking news and top news shelves in 23 countries. We also hosted the first YouTube News working group meeting at our headquarters and used this opportunity to listen to news organizations, academics, and creators on how we can improve news on the platform. Finally, we’re supporting journalism with technology that allows news to thrive, including an innovation fund to help news organizations sustainably build their video capabilities. We know we have more to do to combat misinformation, and we will continue to invest in innovative solutions to address this.

We also continue to provide updates to our YouTube Community Guidelines enforcement report, which you can read here.

Learning and education

Learning is one of the best parts of YouTube. In recent months, BookTubers came together for their annual BookTubeAThon, during which creators read books, shared their thoughts via their channels and inspired people around the world to do the same. We also saw “Study with me” videos gain popularity--motivating users to persevere through their own study sessions.

We’re committed to empowering both the creators who want to share their knowledge with the world and the users who come to our platform to learn--from home improvements to the basics of physics to grammar lessons. Today I’m happy to announce we’re investing $20 million in YouTube Learning, an initiative to support education focused creators and expert organizations that create and curate high quality learning content on YouTube. Part of this investment includes a Learning Fund to support creators who want to build multi-session learning content for YouTube. If you’re interested in this program, please fill out this form.

As part of our efforts to support creators who are sharing their knowledge on the platform, we also launched Learning, a new channel of curated tutorials, DIY videos, skill-based playlists, and other high-quality educational content from a range of creators. And we hosted three YouTube EduCon gatherings in Los Angeles, Mexico City and Rio de Janeiro. These conferences were great opportunities for Edutubers to network and learn new skills, and we’re planning to hold more conferences in new places in the upcoming year.

At YouTube, we hope to give back. We’ve worked with Lilly Singh to support girls’ education and fight violence against children, and we teamed up with Priyanka Chopra, BB Ki Vines and MostlySane to encourage girls’ literacy and education around the world. Please take a moment to watch and support theses causes.

Thank you for making YouTube an incredible source of creativity, knowledge and inspiration. As always, keep the feedback coming. I’m listening.

Susan Wojcicki

India Blog

Towards Gender Equity in STEM through Relatable Role Models

Making it easier to control your data, directly in Google products

5 reasons to love the new Chromecast

Meet the finalists of Doodle 4 Google 2018 from India

A Final Update on Our Priorities for 2018

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