Tag Archives: India

A big step for flood forecasts in India and Bangladesh



For several years, the Google Flood Forecasting Initiative has been working with governments to develop systems that predict when and where flooding will occur—and keep people safe and informed. 


Much of this work is centered on India, where floods are a serious risk for hundreds of millions of people. Today, we’re providing an update on how we’re expanding and improving these efforts, as well as a new partnership we’ve formed with the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. 


Expanding our forecasting reach


In recent months, we’ve been expanding our forecasting models and services in partnership with the Indian Central Water Commission. In June, just in time for the monsoon season, we reached an important milestone: our systems now extend to the whole of India, with Google technology being used to improve the targeting of every alert the government sends. This means we can help better protect more than 200 million people across more than 250,000 square kilometers—more than 20 times our coverage last year. To date, we’ve sent out around 30 million notifications to people in flood-affected areas. 


In addition to expanding in India, we’ve partnered with the Bangladesh Water Development Board to bring our warnings and services to Bangladesh, which experiences more flooding than any other country in the world. We currently cover more than 40 million people in Bangladesh, and we’re working to extend this to the whole country. 


Coverage areas of our current operational flood forecasting systems. In these areas we use our models to help government alerts reach the right people. In some areas we have also increased lead time and spatial accuracy.


Better protection for vulnerable communities


In collaboration with Yale, we’ve been visiting flood-affected areas and doing research to better understand what information people need, how they use it to protect themselves, and what we can do to make that information more accessible. One survey we conducted found that 65 percent of people who receive flood warnings before the flooding begins take action to protect themselves or their assets (such as evacuating or moving their belongings). But we’ve also found there’s a lot more we could be doing to help—including getting alerts to people faster, and providing additional information about the severity of floods.


Checking how our flood warnings match conditions on the ground. This photo was taken during a field survey in Bihar during monsoon 2019.


This year, we’ve launched a new forecasting model that will allow us to double the lead time of many of our alerts—providing more notice to governments and giving tens of millions of people an extra day or so to prepare. 


We’re providing people with information about flood depth: when and how much flood waters are likely to rise. And in areas where we can produce depth maps throughout the floodplain, we’re sharing information about depth in the user’s village or area.


We’ve also overhauled the way our alerts look and function to make sure they’re useful and accessible for everyone. We now provide the information in different formats, so that people can both read their alerts and see them presented visually; we’ve added support for Hindi, Bengali and seven other local languages; we’ve made the alert more localized and accurate; and we now allow for easy changes to language or location.

Alerts for flood forecasting
Partnering for greater impact 


In addition to improving our alerts, Google.org has started a collaboration with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. This partnership aims to build local networks that can get disaster alert information to people who wouldn’t otherwise receive smartphone alerts directly. 


Of course, for all the progress we’ve made with alert technology, there are still a lot of challenges to overcome. With the flood season still in full swing in India and Bangladesh, COVID-19 has delayed critical infrastructure work, added to the immense pressure on first responders and medical authorities, and disrupted the in-person networks that many people still rely on for advance notice when a flood is on the way.


There’s much more work ahead to strengthen the systems that so many vulnerable people rely on—and expand them to reach more people in flood-affected areas. Along with our partners around the world, we will continue developing, maintaining and improving technologies and digital tools to help protect communities and save lives.

Posted by Yossi Matias, VP Engineering & Crisis Response Lead

Equality and economic recovery can – and should – go hand in hand

  
Google's Asia Pacific President, Scott Beaumont, shares his views on the DigiPivot reskilling program for Indian women

Nobody really taught me digital skills. I’ve been lucky enough to have the opportunity to build them up day by day, over the course of a career working mostly in technology. (A career long enough to have engaged with digital from its very beginning!). It is easy to take this for granted. 

Catching up on a year’s worth of skills can be daunting. For people who’ve left the workforce for longer, it can be overwhelming. Even for those who haven’t spent time away, the daily pressures of work mean it’s easy to miss out on training opportunities that could help you progress or evolve your career into a new area. Inevitably, these challenges disproportionately affect women rather than men — holding their careers back and denying economies a massive pool of potential leadership talent ($4.5 trillion-worth in Asia Pacific, according to McKinsey).

All these issues hit home a few weeks ago when I took part in a panel at a virtual event for DigiPivot, a reskilling program created to help more Indian women return to work — or move into different roles —  by developing their leadership and digital marketing skills. 


A model for change

The 40 participants in the DigiPivot program all have the potential to be senior business leaders. There are accomplished professionals like Manvi Bajpai and Ayushi Atray, looking to move their career to the next level. Almost half the cohort was women like Tanya Mehan, wanting to bring their skills and drive back to the workforce after time away.  

They’d been nervous - after time away from the workplace - that they wouldn’t be able to grasp the digital tools the program teaches, but realised it was easy with the right training—and that knowledge was empowering for them. Doing the training with others like them also helped them see opportunities in the COVID-affected economy that they hadn’t noticed before.

At the same time, they saw the flexibility of digital tools as a way of rebalancing the workload at home while all of us are prevented from going into the office. (How to make this sustainable when offices return is another important conversation that employers need to have.) 

The program’s impact — the sense of confidence it instilled —made me think about the role similar programs could play across Asia-Pacific. 


Lessons for the region

There's good reason DigiPivot was launched in India. About 45% of Indian women under the age of 30 quit work before they turn 30, and one-fifth don’t come back at all. In total, 77% of Indian women drop out of the workforce at least once during their career. 
But every country in Asia Pacific faces a version of the same issue. When women can't return to or progress in the workforce, we lose out on a powerful driver of economic growth.  That was a problem before COVID-19. It’s a bigger problem now as we confront the most complex economic environment we’ve ever experienced.

I wrote recently in Nikkei Asian Review that where there are specific barriers to inclusion in the digital economy, we should develop targeted solutions. DigiPivot is a perfect example, and offers lessons that could be applied anywhere. 

It has a clear focus— workplace gender equality, especially after a career break. It’s limited to manageable cohorts, so every participant gets the most from the program. It makes Indian Google leaders like Madhuri Duggirala, Pooja Banerjee, Roma Datta Chobey, Bhaskar Ramesh, Rahul Jindal and several others available to the community. It’s delivered by a coalition, with each partner bringing different expertise — in this case Google, Avtar (a DEI research firm focused on bringing women back to the workforce) and the Indian School of Business.

Finally, DigiPivot doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It’s part of a bigger commitment Google India and its partners have made to advancing equality — from grass-roots programs like Internet Saathi, to other programs that support professional women, like I Am Remarkable. And it fits into a longer term plan. From here, the DigiPivot team’s plan is to take the lessons from the first cohort and begin scaling the program to reach more women across the country, and potentially beyond. 
Overlapping challenges and opportunities.

The DigiPivot discussion has stayed with me because it spoke to so many of the overlapping challenges and opportunities we face right now. The need to make progress on entrenched inequities, share economic opportunity more fairly, and draw on diverse talent and ideas in rebuilding from COVID-19. 

Ultimately, we can’t afford to choose between economic recovery and tackling deeper problems like gender equality. We can and should do both at the same time. I hope we can build on the early success of DigiPivot and launch more initiatives like it across the region. 


Posted by Scott Beaumont, President Asia Pacific, Google

Connecting people to economic opportunity with Kormo Jobs

Last year at Google for India, we launched Jobs, an NBU-first, jobs and career development tool specifically for entry-level positions, as a Spot on Google Pay. Since then, the Jobs Spot has connected millions of job seekers with opportunities in fast growing categories including on-demand businesses, retail and hospitality. 


Jobs was originally piloted in Bangladesh and subsequently launched in Indonesia, under the brand Kormo Jobs. It has since grown into a job platform that can help job seekers and businesses of all sizes in multiple markets. 


In India, employers like Zomato and Dunzo have found the Jobs matching algorithm effective in finding candidates with the required skills, experience and location preferences, with over 2 million verified jobs posted on the platform. 


Encouraged by this momentum and to lend support to employment efforts in a post-pandemic world, we are bringing our Kormo Jobs Android app to India to help even more job seekers discover and apply for jobs across India with an additional gateway.


Simultaneously, the Jobs Spot on Google Pay will be rebranded to Kormo Jobs to create a consistent experience for users. We will continue to invest in it with new features and jobs so that its users can continue to benefit from its convenience.


In the wake of the pandemic, the jobs landscape stands altered, with demand shifting to new services that require different sets of skills and experience. Businesses of all sizes face the challenges of the new normal, while job seekers are having to adapt to this shift quickly. We are heartened to be able to play a helpful role in facilitating connections to impact lives for the better, including introducing important features like remote interviewing earlier this year to ensure social distancing.


An example of one such connection is the experience of Anand, a 20 year old who lives in Bengaluru, Karnataka with his parents. 


Previously employed at an ice cream parlour in Bengaluru as a shop manager, he sought growth opportunities in the booming on-demand sector, but couldn’t seem to find anything relevant close to his home since resources that aggregate open jobs at that level are rare, and personal networks are often the only sources of information.
The Jobs Spot on Google Pay caught Anand’s attention. In less than a week, Anand was placed at Dunzo through a fast and simple hiring process. The entire process was conducted remotely including the submission of his documents for verification and interviewing through the remote interview feature.  


Since then, Anand has been able to contribute financially to his family, gain valuable experience with a brand like Dunzo and is poised for growth in his career.


Anand’s story is just one of many such stories that Kormo Jobs has catalysed, and we remain committed to contributing towards helping Indians find credible and promising starts to their careers with the new Kormo Jobs app.


Posted by Bickey Russell, Regional Manager and Operations Lead, Kormo Jobs, Google

The sound of India’s AI potential

On August 15, India’s Independence Day, it’s customary to sing Jana Gana Mana: the Indian national anthem, originally composed by the poet Rabindranath Tagore and adopted as the anthem after India gained full independence.  


This year, together with Prasar Bharati and Virtual Bharat, we offered Indians a new take on the familiar with Sounds of India, an AI-powered web app. Using the app, you sing Jana Gana Mana into your phone, karaoke-style, and it transforms your voice into one of three traditional Indian instruments. The day culminated in a rendition of the national anthem, combining many of the voices that Indians submitted through the app.


Sounds of India GIF

The Sounds of India experiment was made possible by machine learning models built with Google’s TensorFlow platform to convert sounds into musical instruments (in this case, the Bansuri, the Shehnai, and the Sarangi). 


It was a fun, fresh way for Indians to express their national pride, and showcase the traditions of Indian classical music. But it’s also an opportunity to think about AI’s bigger potential for India’s future—something Google is increasingly focused on. 


Last year, we started Google Research India, an AI lab based in Bangalore, to advance AI research and apply AI in solving some of India’s biggest challenges. We reinforced that commitment last month, announcing that leveraging technology and AI for social good would be one of the four focus areasfor our $10 billion Google for India Digitization Fund.


Supporting Indians’ health and wellbeing


In healthcare, we’re using AI to help people manage their health, focusing on wellbeing and a mobile app for cardio-vascular disease prevention. We're also building on our efforts to apply AI in screening for the eye disease diabetic retinopathy, working with partners like Aravind Eye Hospital and Sankara Nethralaya. 


Improving environmental protection and forecasting


Our flood forecasting tools are already being used to send alerts to hundreds of millions of people, and we’re working on computer vision techniques that can analyze satellite imagery to assist with restoring water bodies and protecting forest cover.  


Harnessing AI for social good


As part of our commitment to the broader Indian research community, we’re supporting researchers and NGOsusing AI to make further progress on health and environmental problems. Nonprofit ARMMAN and a team from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras are collaborating on a project to predict the risk of expectant mothers dropping out of healthcare programs, while other projects aim to reduce the risk of HIV/Aids, minimize human-wildlife conflict, and improve water release from dams.  

One promising initiative is NGO Wadhwani AI’s work using AI to provide timely, local pest management advice to farmers. With a grant from Google.org’s AI Impact Challenge—and support from our Launchpad Accelerator— Wadhwani AI has started to roll out their solution to detect bollworm, helping farmers monitor pests, take action, and improve crop yield. 

Independence Day is always a time to reflect on both India’s past and its future. We’re looking forward to building on our progress so far, and working with our partners to bring the benefits of AI to many more Indians in years to come.

What’s coming to Meet and Classroom, to enable learning anywhere

Google has always aimed to invest in products, programs and philanthropy that make learning possible for everyone, anywhere. This year we’ve been especially inspired by the teachers and students around the world who have used our tools in new creative ways and at unprecedented scale. 
We’re excited to share the many new capabilities we’re bringing  to Meet and Classroom, to support teaching and learning, no matter where it’s taking place.
Let’s start with what’s coming to Meet.
More control for moderators in Meet 
Over the next few months, we’re giving moderators of Education meetings more controls for managing their virtual classes. Here are new capabilities, arriving in September, that moderators will have:
  • Prohibit participants from joining meetings after they’ve been ejected or after they’ve been denied entry twice (launching later this month) 
  • End meetings for all participants when class is finished
  • Manage join requests with ease by accepting or rejecting them in bulk
  • Disable in-meeting chat and set restrictions on who can present during a meeting 
  • Lock meetings until the moderator joins 
More interactivity in Meet 
Opportunities for interactivity are critical for distance learning and we’re sharing new features to increase engagement with your students virtually:
Launching in September
  • A larger tiled views with a 7x7 grid so you can see up to 49 students at once 
  • A collaborative whiteboard with Jamboard in Meet so you can encourage students to share ideas and try creative approaches to lessons 
Launching in October
  • Blur or replace backgrounds so everyone feels more comfortable during distance-learning classes. Note: Admins can disable custom backgrounds as needed.
  • Attendance tracking to see and track which students attended virtual class (G Suite Enterprise for Education) 
  • Breakout rooms so educators can split classes into simultaneous small group discussions (G Suite Enterprise for Education) 
Launching later this year
  • Hand-raising to help you identify students who may need help or have a question 
  • Q&A features to provide a way for students to ask questions without disrupting the flow of the class discussion or lesson, and polling to engage students to share their voice (G Suite Enterprise for Education) 
New features coming to Meet can help make classes more engaging.
Additionally, we’ll launch a new temporary recordings feature later this year, which will be available to all Education customers for free (premium recordings will still be part of G Suite Enterprise for Education). With this new feature, any meeting host will be able to record a meeting and share the recording within their domain for up to 30 days before the video expires. They will not be able to share the recording outside their domain or download it. While the promotion for access to premium Meet features will be ending on September 30th (live streaming and meetings of up to 250 participants), all education users will have continued access to premium recordings until temporary recordings are available later this year.
Now, let’s cover new features you can expect in Classroom.
Helping students and instructors stay on top of their upcoming work
Both students and instructors have risen to the challenge of learning and teaching from home, but it can be tough to stay on top of what they need to do and when. To help instructors and students better discover and track their work in Classroom, the Classes page will soon have a to-do widget for students and a to-review widget for teachers.




New, easier ways to join classes
In addition to sharing course join codes, educators can now share a link to join classes with a single click. Link-sharing allows educators to share classes anywhere they communicate with students, including in messaging platforms such as WhatsApp.




Spot missed citations and possible plagiarism with enhanced originality reports
Originality reports, which are built into Classroom and Assignments, provide educators with flags for potential plagiarism in student work and also help students quickly identify passages that may need citations. Now, we’re making originality reports even more helpful.
First, we’re raising the number of originality reports that educators can use per class from three to five. (Educators with G Suite Enterprise for Education licenses will continue to get unlimited originality reports.) Educators will also be able to print, save and download reports to share with students, parents and administrators. Soon educators and students will be able to run originality reports on Google Slides, in addition to Google Docs, as well as in multiple languages, including Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Swedish, Indonesian and Italian.
Check for potential plagiarism between students 
Traditionally, originality reports have surfaced matches for potential plagiarism against hundreds of billions of web pages and over 40 million books. Now, instructors with G Suite Enterprise for Education licenses will be able to see potential plagiarism between students at their school. Starting in a few weeks, originality reports will check submissions against a private, school-owned repository of past student work to look for student-to-student matches. Student submissions are automatically added when instructors use originality reports in Classroom. If admins want to actively manage the repository, they can manually add files or remove documents directly. Google never has access to or the ability to use this repository—it’s owned and used solely by the school domain.
Detect potential plagiarism between students with school matches, a feature of G Suite Enterprise for Education.
More visibility and tools for Classroom admins
Coming soon, we’re rolling out additional tools for admins who want to troubleshoot Classroom issues or gain deeper insights into usage across their domain. For example, all Education admins will now have access to Classroom audit logs, and admins with an Enterprise license will also be able to export their logs to BigQuery or create a customizable dashboard on Data Studio to see a slate of engagement metrics. 
Classroom now available in even more languages
With Classroom usage quickly growing around the world, we’re making it accessible to more learners in their native language. We’ll be launching Classroom in 10 additional languages, including including Bengali, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil, and Urdu. Soon Classroom will support over 54 languages globally; with even more coming in the future.
More support from partners
With the new features in Google Classroom, you’ll also see that many apps are also launching new features that make their tools easy to use alongside Classroom. Explore these apps to learn how teachers and students can continue to stay organized, interactive, and collaborative with Classroom: Canva, Nearpod, Screencastify, Achieve3000, and Adobe, to name a few.
More Classroom features coming soon
In the coming months, we will provide a more detailed roadmap to help education leaders and teachers understand and prepare for other improvements that will launch to Classroom throughout the school year.  Here’s a sneak peek at some of the specific areas we’ll be working on:
  • Student engagement metrics: Educators will be able to see stats that help track how students are interacting in Google Classroom each day.
  • Deeper integration with other teaching tools. With Classroom now playing a role as “mission control” for many classes, we'll enable more seamless integrations with the content and learning tools schools are using alongside Google’s tools.
  • Mobile offline improvements. We know that home and mobile internet connections aren’t always available or reliable, so we’re working to update the Classroom mobile apps to work much better even with intermittent connectivity.
  • Integrated admin capabilities for deploying and managing Classroom. Provisioning classes for an entire school system can be time-consuming, especially given the scale of many of our customers. We’re building integrated tools to make it easier to create and manage courses at scale.
If we can’t all physically be together in our schools this year, we’re committed to making Classroom and Meet even better to bring everyone together online. Please continue to share your feedback, and we’ll keep adapting our tools to meet your evolving needs.

Posted by Zach Yeskel, Group Product Manager

Introducing people cards: virtual visiting cards on Google Search

If you search for famous people on Google, it’s easy to find information about well-known personalities: search their names and you’ll often find knowledge panels that organize information about them from trusted sources, all in an easy-to-digest format. But what happens when you search for people who aren’t famous - or even search for your own name? It’s not always easy to find the person or information that you’re looking for. After all, there are many people who share the same name, and it’s hard to know who’s who on the internet.
If you’re a business professional, performer, or anyone looking to build up your own online presence, you might have a website, social profiles, and other information spread across many sites. If you’re just getting started, you may not have a website or much of an online presence at all. Today, we are solving these challenges with a new feature called people cards. It’s like a virtual visiting card, where you can highlight your existing website or social profiles you want people to visit, plus other information about yourself that you want others to know.
Creating a people card is easy. First, sign into your Google Account, then simply search for your name or “add me to Search” and tap the prompt that appears. To start building your people card, you can choose to include the image from your Google account, add a description of yourself, links to your website or social profiles, and, if you want, a phone number or email address. The more information you provide, the easier it is for people to find you.
Our goal with Search is to always make sure people can find helpful and reliable information, so we have a variety of protections and controls in place to maintain the quality of information on people cards. Only one people card is allowed per Google Account, and a phone number is required to authenticate the account. We have a number of mechanisms to protect against abusive or spammy content, and if you come across low quality information or a card that you believe was created by an impersonator, you can tap the feedback link to let us know. If you no longer want your people card to appear in Search, you can delete it at any time.
If you’re trying to find someone on Search, these new cards make it quick and easy to find the right person. When you search for someone’s name and there’s a card available, you’ll see a module with the name, profession and location, which you can tap to see their card. For people who share the same name, you’ll see multiple modules, and the information can help you distinguish between the different individuals to find who you’re looking for. 
For the millions of influencers, entrepreneurs, prospective employees, self-employed individuals, freelancers, or anyone else out there who wants to be discovered, we hope this new Search feature will help the world find them. For people in India searching on mobile phones, people cards are rolling out in English starting today.
Posted by Lauren Clark, Product Manager, Google Search

Introducing people cards: virtual visiting cards on Google Search

If you search for famous people on Google, it’s easy to find information about well-known personalities: search their names and you’ll often find knowledge panels that organize information about them from trusted sources, all in an easy-to-digest format. But what happens when you search for people who aren’t famous - or even search for your own name? It’s not always easy to find the person or information that you’re looking for. After all, there are many people who share the same name, and it’s hard to know who’s who on the internet.
If you’re a business professional, performer, or anyone looking to build up your own online presence, you might have a website, social profiles, and other information spread across many sites. If you’re just getting started, you may not have a website or much of an online presence at all. Today, we are solving these challenges with a new feature called people cards. It’s like a virtual visiting card, where you can highlight your existing website or social profiles you want people to visit, plus other information about yourself that you want others to know.
Creating a people card is easy. First, sign into your Google Account, then simply search for your name or “add me to Search” and tap the prompt that appears. To start building your people card, you can choose to include the image from your Google account, add a description of yourself, links to your website or social profiles, and, if you want, a phone number or email address. The more information you provide, the easier it is for people to find you.
Our goal with Search is to always make sure people can find helpful and reliable information, so we have a variety of protections and controls in place to maintain the quality of information on people cards. Only one people card is allowed per Google Account, and a phone number is required to authenticate the account. We have a number of mechanisms to protect against abusive or spammy content, and if you come across low quality information or a card that you believe was created by an impersonator, you can tap the feedback link to let us know. If you no longer want your people card to appear in Search, you can delete it at any time.
If you’re trying to find someone on Search, these new cards make it quick and easy to find the right person. When you search for someone’s name and there’s a card available, you’ll see a module with the name, profession and location, which you can tap to see their card. For people who share the same name, you’ll see multiple modules, and the information can help you distinguish between the different individuals to find who you’re looking for. 
For the millions of influencers, entrepreneurs, prospective employees, self-employed individuals, freelancers, or anyone else out there who wants to be discovered, we hope this new Search feature will help the world find them. For people in India searching on mobile phones, people cards are rolling out in English starting today.
Posted by Lauren Clark, Product Manager, Google Search

Collaborating with the Maharashtra government to bring our digital learning platform to crores of students and teachers

At Google, we have always been committed to directing our resources -- our products, programs, philanthropy and people -- towards making education accessible for everyone. And access to quality education has become even more critical in these current times. Since the Covid-19 outbreak, over 32 crore children in India have been impacted by school closures. Educators have had to adjust to the reality of:
  • Students not being able to physically attend classes, and
  • Continuing to meet the learning needs of kids in these challenging times

    There is a clear and present need for tools and resources that facilitate remote learning. 
    We are delighted to announce today our collaboration with the Maharashtra State Government, to enable a digital platform for over 2.3 crore students and teachers in the state to access blended learning that combines the classroom approach with online learning, using free tools like G Suite for Education, Google Classroom, Google Meet and more. As part of this partnership today, the state will be providing each of the educators and students with their own G Suite ID.


    The digital transformation of education in a country as large as ours requires many partners to come together, united in their vision to deliver quality education to everyone. We are heartened that the Maharashtra State government is championing this vision with today’s announcement, of working toward a reality when every student -- whether in private school in Mumbai or in a remote village in the Sahyadris -- can get access to the same quality education.
    When the Maharashtra Government rolled out a survey asking teachers from the state to register for the first set of teacher-training programs, we were humbled by the tremendous demand: of the 700,000 educators across the state, we received 150,000 sign-ups in less than 48 hours.
    Whether learning takes place in the classroom, at home, or within a hybrid model, Google for Education solutions spark learning anywhere, and empower teachers to provide excellent educational experiences, nurture individual needs, and enable students to learn better together. These tools enable educators and students to be more productive when when connecting remotely, with powerful features like:
    • G Suite for Education: A free suite of familiar communication and collaboration tools including Gmail, Docs and Drive, as well as Classroom. These help enable learning anywhere, anytime, and on a range of devices.
    • Google Classroom: An easy yet powerful tool in G Suite for Education, which helps educators to easily create, review, and organize assignments, as well as communicate directly with students in the classroom or while distance learning.
    • Google Forms: A simple question and response tool that allows educators to fill out or import questions to quickly create quizzes and tests.
    • Assignments: Quickly and securely create, analyze, and grade coursework, and provide students with a more flexible way of learning.

      Each of these solutions have been designed to be easy to use, flexible and scalable, built for collaboration, and secure by design, and will now be available to scores of teachers and students across Maharashtra, for free.


      Just recently, we announced at the sixth Google for India that we will be enabling over 1 million teachers across 22,000 schools in India to deliver blended learning by the end of 2020 in partnership with CBSE. Earlier this year we collaborated with FICCI Arise to ensure teachers and students can transition to remote learning seamlessly, where we trained teachers in over 250 schools across 23 states in the use of digital tools such as Google Meet.
      In this new reality, the biggest challenge that faces us all is to find a way to continue to meet the learning needs of children, even as we continue to find ways to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic. More than ever, the last four months have demonstrated how technology has played a vital role in helping people come to terms with a new way of living. Our teachers and schools have the huge responsibility in shaping the future of our new generation, and we continue to be honored to play a role in offering digital tools that can enable more teachers to help even more students stay firmly on their journey of learning, during these times and beyond.

      Posted by Sanjay Gupta, Country Head & Vice President, Google India

      Making privacy personal with Files by Google


      In many places around the world, sharing a personal device with spouses, siblings or children is often a cultural expectation, especially for women. Sharing a device can be beneficial, but it comes with the risk that others might access your personal files.

      As part of Google’s research, we hear the perspectives of people like Shaina—a woman in Bangladesh whose children use her phone after school, both to learn and to play. Shaina worries that her important files could be accidentally shared or deleted. For Rashid, a father in India, the lack of privacy means he can’t keep his identity documents on his phone, even if he needs them for job applications. 

      Building privacy features that make sense for different needs is a top priority for us as we continue to work towards a more inclusive internet. To keep personal content more safe, we're launching Safe Folder, a new feature in Files by Google.

      How Safe Folder works

      Safe Folder is a secure, 4-digit PIN-encrypted folder that protects your important documents, images, videos and audio files from being opened or accessed by others. The folder is securely locked as soon as you switch away from the Files app, so none of its contents can be accessed when the app is in the background. As a security assurance, it will ask for your PIN again on reentry.  Even people that don't share devices can benefit from keeping the most important files safe.
      File Safe Folder gif

      Managing files for 150 million people

      We launched the Files app in 2017 to help people free up space, manage content and share files. We wanted to help people who live in countries such as India, Nigeria and Brazil and often run out of space on a daily basis. Now, more than 150 million people around the world regularly use Files each month, reducing the stress of managing content on their phones.

      Files Safe Folder gif 2

      And for the things you no longer need on your phone? Files can continue to help you with that. Since launch, the app has:

      • Deleted over 1 trillion files of digital clutter, which would take over 30,000 years if you were to manually remove a duplicate, old meme or junk file every second.
      • Saved 400+ petabytes of space on people’s phones—around 1,400 years of nonstop HD video recording.
      • Freed about 12GB of space every second, equivalent to 5,000 photos per second, allowing you to save more photos that mean a lot to you.  

        The Safe Folder feature will start rolling out in beta for Files by Google today and we’ll gradually expand its availability to more people over the following weeks. You can get the app at g.co/getfiles to keep your content safe, free up space and make your phone feel like new.

        Posted by Pranay Bhatia, Product Manager, Next Billion Users and Joris van Mens, Product Manager, Next Billion Users

        YouTube Music will replace Google Play Music by end of 2020

        Over the past couple of months, we’ve been welcoming Google Play Music listeners to YouTube Music as they effortlessly transfer their music libraries, personal taste preferences and playlists to YouTube Music. Today we're announcing two important updates. First, YouTube Music will replace Google Play Music by December 2020. Users will have the opportunity to transfer their music libraries from Google Play Music to YouTube Music in that timeframe. Second, in the coming months, Google Play Music users will no longer be able to stream from or use the Google Play Music app. Additionally, we are making changes to the Google Play store and Music Manager. 


        Starting in September 2020 in New Zealand and South Africa — and in October for all other global markets — users will no longer be able to stream from or use the Google Play Music app. But don’t worry, we will be holding onto things like your playlists, uploads, purchases, likes and more until December 2020 to make your transfer to YouTube Music easier. Users who wish to transfer their music libraries from Google Play Music to YouTube Music, can do so through December 2020, after which their Google Play Music libraries will no longer be available.


        Simple transfer and additional changes to Music Manager


        Starting in late August, users will no longer be able to purchase and pre-order music or upload and download music from Google Play Music through Music Manager. 

        To ensure users don’t lose any of their content, they’ll need to use the simple transfer tool to migrate any purchases over to YouTube Music or use Google Takeout to export data and download their purchased and uploaded music. Once the Music Store is no longer available, users will continue to be able to upload any tracks purchased elsewhere to YouTube Music.

        For Google Play listeners that have not yet started the transfer process over to YouTube Music, now’s the time. Listeners can also choose to delete their Google Play Music data, and we will clearly notify all users before they lose access to their Google Play Music library and data. 



        Enhancements to your new home for music: YouTube Music   


        Since introducing the transfer tool in May, we’ve continued to improve and add new features to YouTube Music for all music lovers to enjoy, including many that are important and familiar to Google Play Music users. 


        • Playlists: We’re continuously evolving the way listeners can create and enjoy playlists, including:
          • Assistive Playlist Creation - Quickly and easily create playlists by adding recommended songs based on existing songs in the playlist, as well as personalized signals, such as watch history and likes.
          • Collaborative Playlists - Collaborate with other music fans to create shared playlists for any occasion.
          • New Programmed Playlists - Explore newly launched programmed playlists like Highline, Caribbean Pulse, Conditions Underground, and more.
        • New Features and Improvements:
          • Player Page Redesign - Updates to the player page, available for Android mobile users, provides a more modern design that allows better playback controls and easier access to related music and other features like song lyrics.
          • Explore Tab - The new Explore tab, available on both mobile and the web, now features Top Charts, making it easy to explore popular music from around the world.

        • More Ways to Enjoy YouTube Music:
          • Android TV - An update for Android TV brings YouTube Music to the big screen, letting listeners enjoy videos and live performances from their favorite artists, along with all their favorite music.
          • Google Maps - The Android integration lets listeners seamlessly listen to music and get personalized music recommendations within the Google Maps interface.
          • Discover music with Google Assistant - You can now ask your Google Home and Nest smart speakers, “Hey Google, play recommended music from YouTube Music.” Then, Google Assistant will share personalized recommendations based on your favorite artists and genres. 


          Over the last few years, we've worked to build a fantastic fan experience on YouTube Music, merging the very best of Google Play Music with the very best of YouTube. For users who decide not to transfer their Google Play Music account to YouTube music, we will be sure to cancel your subscription at the end of your billing cycle so you aren't paying for a subscription. This will happen in September in New Zealand and South Africa and in October for all other markets. And, of course, we will be sure to notify all users ahead of subscriptions being canceled.


          We can’t wait for you to start exploring YouTube Music features and discovering new music favorites along the way. Have more questions or need help? Check out all of our support resources here.


          Posted by Team YouTube