Google launches $6 million innovation challenge to Australian charities and non-profit orgs

Google wants Australia’s world-changing technology ideas and is issuing a new multimillion-dollar challenge to fund them.

Technology change ... Google is launching a multimillion-dollar competition for non-profit organisations with innovative technology ideas.

GOOGLE is seeking ideas to change the world and “solve its most pressing problems” with technology in a $6 million challenge issued to Australian charities and non-profit organisations today.

The internet giant’s second Australian Google Impact Challenge will offer almost double the prizemoney this year after it partnered with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to discover innovations to solve Australian and international issues.

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The challenge previously funded the development of a camera to detect diabetic blindness, a toilet producing energy from waste, and an app connecting Australia’s homeless people with vital services.

Google Australia and New Zealand engineering director Alan Noble said the company received “several hundred” applications in 2014, and hoped more non-profit groups would pitch world-changing ideas before the July 13 deadline.

Charitable innovation ... Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull greets a homeless man at the launch of the Ask Izzy app. (Picture: David Caird.)

The ideas, he said, could propose improvements on anything from healthcare for older Australians to more help for domestic violence victims.

“We live and breathe technology but we also believe technology can be applied to solve some of the world’s most pressing problems and challenges,” he said.

“We’re looking for finalists which can demonstrate what they’re proposing is feasible and can scale.”

Google’s panel of judges, including David Gonski, Lucy Turnbull, and Layne Beachley, will award three top prizes of $750,000, while another will receive the same amount from a popular vote, and six further finalists will receive $250,000 funding.

“We’ll be providing technical assistance to the finalists as well, including access to Google engineers,” Mr Noble said.

“It can make the difference between a good idea and a great implementation.”

The Foreign Affairs Department will also award four $500,000 grants to projects that could make an international social impact.

Infoxchange chief executive David Spriggs said Google’s investment after its last Australian challenge helped create the Ask Izzy app that connected homeless people to its database of more than 350,000 services.

“When we were pitching to Google, we said we might have 100,000 users over a two-year period, and we managed to get there in two months,” Mr Spriggs said.

“One of the comments from an early user was it had taken him two years on the street to work out what he could find out using Ask Izzy in minutes.”

The Fred Hollows Foundation used its Google investment to develop a “retinal image analysis tool” to detect diabetic retinopathy and deliver treatment to prevent blindness. It is currently testing the technology in Nepal.