Earlier this month, we co-hosted the Brussels premiere of ‘Suffragette’, a film about female emancipation in the UK starring Helena Bonham Carter, Meryl Streep and Carey Mulligan. The film is directed by Sarah Gavron and is interesting for policy geeks since it is the first film in history to be shot in the UK Houses of Parliament. The film follows the struggles of several women fighting for the right to vote and for greater equality. Even though we have made great strides in the fight for equality since the 19th century, the film is a reminder that we still have a long way to go. At Google, diversity and equality are big priorities. We think creating product and services for users --all users-- starts with having a workforce that reflects the diversity of people around the world. We’re not there yet, but we’re working on it. That’s why we publish our data on diversity - it’s hard to address these kinds of challenges if you’re not prepared to discuss them openly, and with the facts. Overall only 30% of Google’s workforce are women - a reflection of the picture in the tech sector and STEM education overall. We’re working hard to improve this, not only for Google but for our communities. We’re empowering Googlers to confront unconscious bias and to celebrate diversity in their teams. We offer internships to young people interested in pursuing a career in tech and programs encouraging girls to learn how to code. We do all this because we want to move the needle on equality. With more and more career opportunities in technology, the fight for equality means encouraging young girls to study STEM subjects, improving representation of women in government and business and demanding equal pay for equal work. You can find out more about Google’s work on diversity here. Posted by: Catherine Williams, Public Affairs Associate Google Brussels

For us, this year has been all about getting Europe trained up in terms of digital skills. The follow-on from that is creating growth when European companies go global. We've been partnering with Politico to host a series of events across the continent exploring the roadmap for Europe's digital growth. Earlier this month we were in Paris, and last week we took the debate to Berlin, where guests included MEP Eva Paunova, Bundestag member Thomas Jarzombek and Poland's Undersecretary of State for Digital Affairs Jurand Drop.

Computers, the internet and smartphones are integrated into our daily lives in a way that was unthinkable a few years ago. How can we ensure the next generation have the skills necessary for working in this digital world? Tech smarts aren't an optional extra: the European Commission predicts that by 2020, there will be nearly 900,000 unfilled jobs in Europe because of the digital skills gap.

Friends of Europe and Google teamed up this week to discuss this urgent issue. In Brussels, we brought together experts from around the world including Esther Wojcicki, Vice Chair of Creative Commons and author of ‘Moonshots in Education’, Jos Bertemes, Director at Luxembourg's Ministry of National Education and René Tristan Lydiksen, Managing Director of LEGO Education Europe.

Before speaking with educators, we did our homework. We commissioned research by the Economist Intelligence Unit, titled "Driving The Skills Agenda," which looks into digital skills levels worldwide. (The report definitely gets an A+ grade). They describe how education systems around the world are changing. We kicked off the discussion with the report's author, Irene Mia, telling us about her findings.

The report draws on data from global surveys of senior business executives, teachers and two groups of students, aged 11 to 17 and 18 to 25 -- and is a must-read for anyone interested in the future of education. For example, 51% of executives say a skills gap is hampering their organisational performance and only 34% claim to be satisfied with the level of attainment of young people entering their company.

The research didn’t only look at general skills, but also at digital skills specifically. Teachers know this is an issue -- 85% of teachers say that technological advances have changed the way they teach, but only 27% claim to be very confident in developing digital literacy in their students. Technology could ultimately level the playing field, by giving students access to tools and teaching from around the world and broadening their horizons.

An overview of the ideas discussed at our event, captured by Somang Lee

Skills for the future is a topic that’s relevant not only to young people. As a digital company with hundreds of millions of users in the EU, Google is dedicated to ensuring Europeans have world-class digital skills. We're working on everything from giving entrepreneurs the tools they need to set up their own business, to putting Europe's top galleries online so everyone can enjoy their cultural treasures. And all of these projects need digital skills -- which is why it's so important the next generation learn them now.

Posted by: Liz Sproat, Google’s Head of Education for Europe, Middle East and Africa

The Dutch have always known that Delft is a special city. Now a recent discovery by Frans Grijzenhout, Professor of Art History at the University of Amsterdam, using a unique pairing of seventeenth century records and Google Street View technology, has uncovered a new treasure on its streets. A small door, tucked between numbers 40 and 42 on Vlamingstraat, which marks the alleyway depicted in Johannes Vermeer’s world-famous Little Street.
"In my endeavours to pinpoint the exact location of Vermeer's Little Street, I have been an avid user of Google Maps, particularly in studying the rythmic articulation of the canal walls along Vlamingstraat,” said Professor Grijzenhout this week.

The discovery of the whereabouts of Vermeer’s Little Street is the subject of an exhibition running from 19 November 2015 to 13 March 2016 in the Rijksmuseum. It will then transfer to Museum Prinsenhof Delft.

To commemorate this discovery--including the small part that Google Street View technology has played in it--we’re marking 19 November 2015 Vermeer Day on the Google Cultural Institute. Today our homepage will feature 17 works of art by the Dutch master, including Little Street, and the site will feature a special look at the present day Little Street in Delft. The aim of the Google Cultural Institute is twofold, helping users to discover artworks in new ways and helping the cultural sector to make the most of digital opportunities. 

We’re thrilled to celebrate the Delft’s own Vermeer with our longtime partners at the Rijksmuseum, and to mark the discovery of this little street in that’s been culturally significant--if unknown--since the 17th century.

Posted by Meghan Casserly, Communications Manager Google Netherlands

We’ve said it a lot this year: every business should be a digital business, because every customer is a digital customer, and that’s a huge economic opportunity.  And by extension, that means that everyone coming into the job market should have some digital skills too. So when we heard about the European Pact4Youth, we were keen to be a part of it.

The agreement is an exciting idea from The European Business Network for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR Europe) which aims to help young people across Europe find work.  Together with the European Commission, other businesses, social partners, education and training providers all over Europe, we  have committed to developing and consolidating partnerships in support of youth employability and inclusion.

We're not the only ones who are excited. "Our top priority has been to get Europe growing again and to stimulate good quality job creation," said Marianne Thyssen, Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs, Skills and Labour Mobility. "It builds on the successful European Alliance for Apprenticeships.... the Commission, together with business, is moving now towards one quarter million new opportunities for young people across Europe."

While we're looking forward to working with our fellow signatories to create jobs for young people in the same way Erasmus has broadened their educational experience, we can't resist telling you about some of the work we're already doing in this area. We're currently in the middle of training up one million Europeans in essential digital skills -- in time for next year. We've committed over €25 million to build a Europe-wide training hub.

And in Spain -- one of the countries worst hit by youth unemployment -- we've developed a series of massive open online courses (MOOCs), Google Activate, together with the Spanish Ministry of Industry, through the business school, EOI, Universidad Complutense de Madrid and Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). The news from Spain is encouraging: more than 148,000 people have registered for Activate with 13% of participants earning a certificate.

Another example is Italy, where we have the initiative Crescere in Digitale, offering free digital skills online training to the 700,000 young Italians currently not in employment, education or training. This program is run in partnership with the Ministry of Labour and the Chamber of Commerce and will provide 3,000 internships in addition to the training.

Improving Europe's skills in everything from data analytics to web design are a key part of tackling youth unemployment -- and we are excited to support the Pact4Youth.

Posted by: Lie Junius, public policy director, Google Brussels

Over half the world’s population live in cities and urban areas, and over the next thirty years, 2 billion more people are expected to become urban residents. Cities are thinking carefully about the challenges associated with such rapid growth - like avoiding over-stressed public transit infrastructure and reducing traffic congestion. We’re interested in these questions too: we’ve been helping people navigate urban areas and route around traffic jams for many years.

So a while ago, we started working with a small group of research partners in the EU and the US to see if we could tackle some of these challenges together, using aggregate, anonymised data about historical traffic patterns to help improve urban mobility for everyone.

Our initial exploration has lead to a series of pilot projects with our partners to find ways to minimize traffic congestion, speed up journeys, improve safety, and reduce the amount of money spent on infrastructure.

In Stockholm, a city with many bridges and tunnels, we’re working with KTH Royal Institute of Technology to reduce the number of tunnel closures on the Södra Länken, the second longest urban motorway tunnel in Europe, to improve travel times for citizens.

In the Netherlands, we’re working with the Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research (TNO) to see whether it’s possible to reduce their reliance on expensive physical road sensors for information about traffic flows. The aim is to reduce infrastructure costs without compromising on traffic safety. We’re also working with the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions on related questions.

We’re also working with major research institutions and transportation planning groups in Denmark (the Technical University of Denmark) and in the US (the Rudin Center for Transportation at New York University Wagner School of Public Service, San Francisco County Transportation Authority, and the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy).



We only share aggregate, anonymized snapshots of historical traffic statistics with these institutions, including average traffic speed, relative traffic volumes, and traffic trajectory patterns. These statistics are derived from aggregate Location History data that our users have proactively chosen to share with us (and which they can switch off again at any time via My Account). This is the same data we use in Google Now to notify users of disruptions to their commute due to traffic, and tell them about the best time to visit their favourite museum in Google Maps.

To ensure that no individual user’s journey can be identified, we only share representative models of aggregate data employing a technique called differential privacy, which intentionally adds “noise” to the data in a way that maintains both users' privacy and the data's accuracy. The technique has also been successfully tried and tested in Chrome.

It's still early days, but preliminary results have been positive. In the Netherlands, TNO ran tests on a 10km stretch of highway that regularly faces traffic jams, using our anonymized traffic statistics instead of physical road sensors. They found that they could still accurately detect traffic jams at the right moment and at the correct location on the road without the sensors, potentially saving 50K Euro per year if the redundant sensors were removed. Other pilots are starting to show similarly positive results.

We’re excited by the promise that these initial projects have shown in meeting the challenges of urban mobility, and today, we’re pleased to announce that we’re expanding our pilot programme. We’re seeking to build partnerships with cities and research institutions to evaluate ideas and run experiments, ultimately improving urban mobility for everyone. If you’re working on a project addressing congestion, pollution, safety and similar mobility challenges, and are interested in working with us, please get in touch.

Posted by Andrew Eland, Engineering Director

Last February, we invited entrepreneurs from across Europe, including the Netherlands, to celebrate their online success stories in Brussels. At the same time we made a commitment: to train 1 million Europeans in crucial digital skills by the end of 2016. Today we've begun to put those plans into action in the Netherlands with the launch of the Digitale Werkplaats (Digital Garage) in the city of Eindhoven, a two day training programme. In the Netherlands, more than 40% of the labor market is made up of small business owners and independent contractors.

Why Eindhoven? Eindhoven is often called the digital capital of the Netherlands, and the region is rich with digital startups that were born there and have grown to international successes. Companies like 3D printing marketplace Shapeways, and Study Portals, which connects students to international travel opportunities, and which are familiar with the ways that the web can accelerate a business. With the Digitale Werkplaats we aim to bring the opportunity to use the Internet as a growth engine to the small businesses and independents of the region. And there’s plenty of growth opportunity--in Eindhoven 80% of small businesses have fewer than 20 employees.

We’re not alone in these efforts. All across the country governments and SMB organizations are recognizing the need for digital skills--from online marketing to general proficiency in web tools-- in achieving growth. We’re keen to be playing our part. It's simple: SMEs throughout the country get training in the essential digital skills they need to grow online. We'll partner with Dutch microfinance organization Qredits, and both small business associations and local governments to achieve big results: our goal is to train 30,000 people in the Netherlands by the end of 2016 through in-person events like this week's and online trainings.



This morning in Eindhoven the Dutch Minister of Economic Affairs Henk Kamp said: "The Netherlands is one of the most innovative countries in the world, in part because of its strong tech infrastructure. To ensure our country remains competitive, the skills needed for using technology have become indispensable for SMEs. These entrepreneurs create a lot of new jobs and play an important role when it comes to developing products and services. By helping SMEs to become better at using technology, we're building a stronger fundament for economic growth, which leads to more jobs. Google's initiative deserves praise, because it enables this development."

Elwin Groenevelt, the general manager of Qredits Microfinance, explained in Eindhoven that they have created 10,000 jobs in the past five years by financing Dutch 7,000 entrepreneurs. By partnering with Google, giving workshops on the topic of microfinance, they want to offer even more opportunities to ambitious entrepreneurs to achieve their growth objectives.

There are many Dutch entrepreneurs who have achieved growth through their smart use of the Internet, and we’re excited to meet thousands more over the next year. What’s inspired us is that these business owners and independents come from all different backgrounds and levels of tech-savvy -- three that we’ve met in Eindhoven are husband and wife pair Henk Jan Bruil & Irene, who aspire to scale their new soup and salad bar, PIT, nationally; Wendy Govers of Trimsalon Pet’s Choice, who has seen her clientele of dogs and cats grow from 20 to over 500, and Marie-Louise Holl of Holl Klompen, whose 40+ year souvenir business ships “Made in Holland” souvenirs all over the world thanks to the reach of the web. 

See here for more Dutch success stories.

Posted by: Pim van der Feltz, country director Google Netherlands

Nothing ruins the experience of watching an awesome European YouTube video like Heroes more than seeing the dreaded buffering wheel, which is why we're always working to make videos play smoothly in the best quality possible. And when you can't see what you want, when you want, it’s helpful to know why.

Starting today, if you’re in Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Sweden, or Iceland, you can use the Google Video Quality Report to see how well YouTube performs for you.

If you’re regularly seeing videos buffer, this report can give you a better idea of why, as well as tips to make YouTube play better. You can also see the video quality in your area, based on these levels:

• HD Verified: If your provider can consistently deliver HD video, a resolution of at least 720p, without buffering or interruptions--it’s HD Verified.
• Standard Definition: If you can watch videos at a resolution of at least 360p, your provider is delivering Standard Definition.
• Lower Definition: If videos load slowly or frequently buffer, even at resolutions lower than 360p, your provider is delivering Lower Definition performance.

The Google Video Quality Report is already available in Finland, Norway, Switzerland, the United States and Canada, and we will continue to roll it out to more countries in partnership with ISPs.

Want to see our methodology? Check out the geeky details, and learn how videos get from us to you with this video:



Finally, making sure you can watch YouTube in HD from anywhere, anytime is a shared effort between us, your Internet service provider and even you. So, to make sure you're getting the best video quality possible, check out these seven tips you can use right now:


Posted by Jay Akkad, Product Manager, YouTube