Google 10 100 Project

[Tristan Lall]

Before you vote, read all of the proposals. And think very carefully about your priorities.

You know how sometimes, someone will post an appeal for signatures on a petition, or solicit the aid of the ChiefDelphi community in support of a project that benefits a FIRST team? Despite the mention of FIRST in the text of one proposal, this is a different matter.

With a petition, it's a matter of trying to drum up as much support as possible, so your choice is binary: yes or no. With a popularity contest (like the ones that award a prize to the entrant that can generate the most click-through traffic on some commercial website), the FIRST-related option is usually competing against a slew of relatively unworthy causes, so it's easy to select it on that basis. This is different, because Google is has narrowed down 150 000 entries into 16 representative proposals, all of which are important (to varying degrees). So don't just pick the "Enhance science and engineering education" option because we say so—do it if and only if you think it's one of the best ways to spend Google's money, of the 16 options.

Personally, I want to see them fund something with a global outlook. And I'm leery of the idea that by supporting first-world or urban initiatives, the benefits will trickle down to the rest of the world. I especially want to see that science and technology education funding being put to worldwide use, rather than supporting it exclusively in countries with modern industrialized economies. After all, scientific literacy goes a long way towards making rational, sustainable choices, no matter what sector or nation you apply it in. Don't 240 million Indonesians or 150 million Nigerians need immediate science and technology education more than 300 million Americans do?

Given that Google is willing, in principle, to make this a global project, there's an argument to be made for lobbying Google to fund FIRST out of its domestic budget, rather than competing for resources with projects that encompass a truly international scope. Or have I got that backward? Maybe we should be lobbying FIRST to take bolder steps toward securing FRC partnerships abroad, and to adjust its operations to meet the needs of an international audience, so that it can unabashedly accept funding as a purveyor of worldwide inspiration.

There's another issue to consider: $10 million split among five proposals unfortunately represents far too little money to credibly solve (or even significantly address) some of the problems described. It could be worth considering some of the smaller-scale ideas, because with Google as a prime sponsor (rather than a single contributor among many), the vision embodied in these proposals is more likely to be directly implemented.

The best part of this exercise for you won't be the knowledge that you voted for a winning proposal (because the vote is advisory, not binding). Instead, it will be the fact that you took the time to understand the problems and solutions embodied in the proposals, and thought about the implications of allocating limited resources toward important, and perhaps nearly-intractable problems.