Using Tech to Drive Change: Google.org and Brigitte Hoyer Gosselink

Brigitte Hoyer Gosselink: [00:00:00] Coordinating across organizations is hard. I'm not naive to that challenge, but it is an opportunity, I think particularly when we are using technology and, and sort of able to use shared platforms to think about ways that a particular approach can have impact beyond a particular organization and ideally, Bring a great, much greater benefit to the world as a result.

Paul Shapiro: Welcome to The Business for Good podcast to show where we spotlight companies making money by making the world a better place. I'm your host, Paul Shapiro, and if you share a passion for using commerce to solve many of the world's most pressing problems, then this is the show for you. Welcome friends to episode 68 of the Business for Good Podcast.

Even though this is a show about companies that are making the world a better place from time to time, we do episodes featuring really great non-profit organizations that are supporting such companies in the ecosystems that they need to thrive, For example, We had an episode with Isha Duar of New Harvest, the nonprofit that supports the cellular agriculture sector, and [00:01:00] it remains one of the most popular episodes we've ever done.

In fact, our last episode was with Nicole Rowling of the Material Innovation Initiative, a nonprofit working to increase entrepreneurial activity in the alternative. Leather and silk space. So if you haven't checked out those past episodes, go check 'em out. I think you'll like them. And in this episode, we are focusing on a different kind of non-profit one that is the corporate foundation of one of the world's most valuable companies.

You may have heard of them. They're called Google. Of course, we all know about google.com and its range of products that are woven into our daily lives. From Gmail to Chrome, to Google Maps and more. But you may be less familiar with google.org. The company's foundation that gives away 200 million a year in grants, both to nonprofits and to social enterprise startups that are trying to use technology to advance their missions.

For all of you startup founders out there, note that these are dilution free non-equity grants, or essentially free money as opposed to investments. So listen up. And in this episode we've got Google dot org's, Director of Product Impact, Bridget Hoyer. [00:02:00] Gus Link in it, Bridget tells us what type of companies and charities they support and why, and she discusses what kinds of grant applications she wishes they saw more of.

For example, we hear about Google dot org's work to collect emissions data and make it public to put up eco acoustic sensors and rainforest to help catch those who are poaching or deforesting, and even just to give money away to those in developing countries who need it the most. Bridget has got an impressive story and it's an empowering tale about the work that they are doing in the world.

So take a listen. Be sure to weave this podcast a five star review on iTunes or wherever you get your podcast. And just maybe you'll be working with Bridget and google.org yourself in the near future. Bridget, welcome to the Business for Good podcast. Hi

Brigitte Hoyer Gosselink: Paul. Thanks for

Paul Shapiro: having me. Hey, it is my pleasure to be chatting with you.

I am an avid Google user, and I imagine at the end of our conversation I'll be a little bit more proud of being a Google user based on what you tell me that you all are up to. So, I, of course, am familiar with google.com, but we are talking here about google.org, which I [00:03:00] imagine very few people are familiar with compared to google.com.

So just for people who are the uninitiated, What's google.org?

Brigitte Hoyer Gosselink: google.org is Google's philanthropic arm or charitable arm. But interestingly, we were actually founded in 2005, so, uh, have been around for quite a while and we were founded at the time that the company went public. So we like to think that in many ways we are, well, maybe not as known as Google Search and some of our big products, very much a part of the company's dna.

Um, and, you know, our founders Li and Serge. Put into that founder's letter, the idea that they wanted Google and, uh, the efforts of the company to have great impact in the world. And part of the way that, that we try to still act on that. Aspiration is through the work of google.org. So we primarily work by giving away funding, um, and also bringing our technical expertise and our products [00:04:00] to organizations out in the world who are already working on or looking to start really inspiring, um, missions.

And they are usually using technology or taking more innovative approaches. So we fund a lot of things. You would kind of think we fund right? As Google, um, and bringing the values that we have. So when

Paul Shapiro: you say you're funding, it's not just non-profits and you're talking about entrepreneurs. So are you giving money to startups or are you investing in startups through google.org?

Brigitte Hoyer Gosselink: It's a great question. We operate as a foundation. More or less. So we mostly give our funding to nonprofit organizations, although we do occasionally, sometimes fund social enterprises. Um, actually recently funded a number of them through a project, specifically focused on climate in Europe. We know that there's a lot of climate oriented social enterprises out there, so we wanted to make sure that they would qualify as well.

We do that, we don't invest. There are other parts of Google, of course, that are doing investing, but we, uh, give funding for a more charitable purpose [00:05:00] within that social enterprise's work,

Paul Shapiro: right? So if somebody wants an investment from Google, they're gonna go, for example, to Google Ventures, which my guess is probably there's higher dollar, um, investments there.

But from google.org, you're looking just to give grants to startups that don't take any equity at all in the. That's

Brigitte Hoyer Gosselink: right, and it's a relatively small percentage of what we do. So the vast majority of our funding does go to nonprofit organizations. Many of them are operating like startups, so they're very innovative in what they're doing.

They're, they're building new products and putting 'em out in the world. Um, and we award about $200 million in, um, in cash grants each year. So it's a pretty substantial offering for those organizations, although the individual grants are, you know, uh, a piece.

Paul Shapiro: So 200 million, obviously, really big number.

Bridget, like what's the average grant size that you're giving out to any particular grantee?

Brigitte Hoyer Gosselink: It ranges as you would expect. It might. Um, everything from, you know, maybe 250 or 500 K all the way up to say 5 million or so.

Paul Shapiro: Okay. So we're, I [00:06:00] mean, even at the lowest end, For a non-profit organization, um, for most of them.

We're still talking about a pretty substantial chunk of change here. So let's talk about how you came into this, Bridget, because you know, you've not worked in the for-profit space, um, uh, considering Google as a for-profit. Of course. I know that you're working for the foundation, but, um, you come from the non-profit world.

So tell me a little bit about your background and what you were doing prior to your life@google.org. What made you make that want to make that.

Brigitte Hoyer Gosselink: Yes, as you said, Paul, my background is primarily in the social sector. I've worked actually across a lot of different types of organizations and um, everything from the federal government where I was working in international development, I worked in some nonprofits and then I also did strategy consulting for non-profits and foundations, which was a great opportunity to really get a sense of what's happening in the sector and frankly, where I might see opportunity for.

New approaches to be brought into play. Interestingly though, I [00:07:00] have an engineering degree, um, as an undergrad and I did some work in engineering in that early part of my career with a nonprofit I was working for. And so the opportunity to come to Google in some ways is, is really been a chance to bring together that early experience and interest I've always had in technology and the way in which it can hopefully help to create new solutions in the world with the.

The experience that I've had kind of working through the social sector and uh, really is an opportunity for me to say, Hey, we're really changing the world and the way that things operate, um, with technology day after day, and how can we bring that same technology to the world's most pressing issues, and in a way that really does that in partnership with organizations who have been working on those issue.

For years on the front lines and really deeply understand the needs in a community so that we're not, you know, coming in with an idea that is perhaps sounds good on paper, as we sometimes are opt to do as technologists, [00:08:00] but actually in reality wouldn't play out. So I've really enjoyed the opportunity.

I've been here almost eight years and. It's been a chance to really come back to those engineering roots, and I love to work with our technical teams and, and really get into the weeds of some of that while still, of course, um, continuing to drive impact.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah. Well, we're gonna talk about some of those examples, um, including some of those botched examples, like what you're talking about, where sometimes, um, the aid is not going as intended.

But I just wanna ask you, in, in an interview you gave, uh, Yeah, I'm quoting you here. You said that the social impact organizations that you were working. Prior to your Google Wife, they said that they. Effectively deploying technology to advance their missions. Was that something that you were thinking at the time, or did you only come to realize that after you had been at Google?

Like when did you start sensing that, uh, that sense of frustration that you had about the lack of technological implementation on some of the, uh, non-profits that you were working with?

Brigitte Hoyer Gosselink: It was, it was before I came to Google, and part of the reason that I joined was really to be able [00:09:00] to, to take what was really more of an inkling of a thought or an observation than, you know, a full well thought out, um, research thesis, uh, and really explore it in the time that I, that I have here.

I would say that part of that is that, you know, I sit, I'm sitting in the Bay Area in Oakland, California. In the air around here, right? You hear about, I had friends I know of, uh, organizations who are, who are really using technology. And this was really even before we got into some of the more recent advances around machine learning and artificial intelligence as well.

And it is such a resource constrained environment in the, in the social sector, in the nonprofit space. And so as I sort of watched this juxtaposition of organiz. Working on critical issues like youth unemployment or, uh, transitioning youth out of foster care to a successful sort of next step and next stage of their life or suffering, [00:10:00] um, uh, populations.

It was. Just clear that there should be an opportunity to use technology more. But one of the main factors for it not being something that organizations is using is not because they haven't had the same thought, or that they don't necessarily, um, want to be exploring that it's that funding is actually relatively scarce for supporting those kinds of technical projects.

And talent is scarce as. And so the opportunity to come to, uh, google.org, where obviously, uh, a lot of what we fund is technology. And as I mentioned previously, we are bringing some of that technical talent to bear on these problems and in partnership with these organizations. It was just a, a way of kind of taking that, as I said, more inkling of a thesis than a real thesis into practice and, and hopefully building forward, um, more structures and opportunities in the ecosystem while also demonstrating, and this is something [00:11:00] we hope to do, demonstrating to other funders and um, uh, kind of parts of this system that funding technology is possible and that, uh, it really can drive great programmatic outcome.

It's often the case, right, that organizations will be thinking about technology in the context of, say, an IT department or that funders are thinking about it that way when they see something like an ask for, you know, technical infrastructure or a technical staff member in a proposal, and we don't think about technology that way in the way that we.

Use commercial products. I don't think of technology as just an it, um, solution in my life. And so I think we are still, we have made a lot of progress. Um, but you know, 10 years ago or so, I think we were still very much trying to make the case that technology had potential for program outcomes to actually change the way that a mission could be realized rather than just, you know, allowing someone to do.

Paul Shapiro: Yes. Although, uh, I, I certainly am grateful for Gmail in my life. [00:12:00] I wish definitely, uh, makes my life better, uh, the snooze function. I highly recommend for anybody who hasn't used that in Gmail. I, I am a master snoozer of so many things in my life, so that is certainly one it solution in my life, for which I am grateful.

But I realize that you know what you're talking about, Bridget is. Actually using technology to solve the problems that these non-profits are trying to solve. Not just to make their own work easier, but to actually make it more effective. And so I'm wondering if you wanna offer some examples, um, let's, you know, just take for example, in the environmental realm, since I know that, um, part of Google dot org's funding is going to a lot of environmental non-profit organizations.

So what are some examples of ways that you think that environmental nonprofits can utilize technology better, uh, as evidenced by the work of your grantees?

Brigitte Hoyer Gosselink: Yes. So I have a, a somewhat endless list of examples, but I will highlight a couple. Hey,

Paul Shapiro: we got, we got no time limits. Bridget, you can keep going. So as long as they're interesting, people will keep listening

Brigitte Hoyer Gosselink: That's great. Yeah. So I'll, I'll, I'll [00:13:00] share kind of two examples that are in, um, at kind of different operating at different scales. So the first is an organization that we funded, actually back in 2018. We ran an open call focused specifically on organizations that were using AI and machine learning to better advance their missions.

Uh, this is an an area of technology that I think we obviously are seeing a lot of. Progress in and impact in commercial products and our businesses and our personal lives, but where there's still, I think, a ton of untapped potential, um, in the nonprofit space. And so we ran this open call to surface ideas that might be out there and, and to support the best of them, the organ.

One of the organizations we supported through that is called What Time? And they, along with Carbon Tracker, an organization based outta the uk. Proposed based on some pretty early analysis they had done to use image processing algorithms, um, and satellite imagery to essentially get a better [00:14:00] picture of power plant emissions.

Currently the way that we monitor power plant emissions, um, on site is by actually placing a sensor on the smoke stack or, you know, putting other output and using that sensor then to drive data so that we have a better sense of what's happening at a power plant in a given place and time. But it doesn't take much to imagine how complicated that is to scale globally.

Uh, and of course, emissions is something that we need to have a global picture of. And to date, we really haven't, we haven't had necessarily all the information that we would ideally have to enforce, uh, things like the Paris Agreement to help drive policy decisions to even just understand what's happening, um, in the world.

So we, we gave them a grant. It was a 1.7 million grant through the challenge to essentially build models that would take satellite imagery and, um, use that to estimate the emissions from thermal power plants [00:15:00] to try to see, hey, could this be a technology that then is widely available? Of course, we have imagery from all around the globe, uh, and it could potentially supplement some of the data that we're getting from, from these sensor networks.

We also, as I mentioned, a critical piece of what we try to do is bring our experts to the table. So we brought in a team of google.org fellows who worked full time with them for six months, and they, um, identified a bunch of publicly available image sets, built the pipelines to, you know, ingest those.

Working closely, of course, with what time in their team and bringing in emissions data from three different government agencies. It was actually, uh, pretty early in this project that we, when we invested this, weren't really sure if it was going to work. They had a very early stage proof of concept, as I mentioned, some research they'd done, and I remember, you know, talking with the team and saying, Look, this is, this is a bet we've made.

We. Would love for this to be successful, but we're also, it's was one of the riskier ones we had [00:16:00] made in this, um, in this call. And we spoke with them, you know, in the early months and I remember talking to them and they said, I think this might actually work, , which, uh, one, always good to hear that. But as we started to think about it, um, it became apparent as well that if it could work for power plants, what if we could actually build an open platform, a transplant platform?

That would look at all sources of greenhouse gas emissions, human sources. And so we started to, at the same time, in parallel, uh, field incoming from other organizations who said, Hey, I saw y'all are doing this for power plants, but. We're actually thinking about this for the shipping industry or the cement manufacturing industry, and wouldn't it, you know, are you, how, what are you learning?

How are you thinking about it? And maybe there's something we should do together. That work ultimately evolved into the Climate Trace Coalition, um, which was announced last year, [00:17:00] year, and it is now working to. Realize that vision, right? So how can we now have a transparent picture of all human sources of greenhouse gas emissions, drawing on satellite imagery and other images and models that people are building, um, so that we can.

Have a picture of what's happening in our globe. Um, and that is something that we're, they're all planning to launch the beta of that platform later this summer. So we're kind of anxiously working with them and, and thinking with them about how that will play out. But to me, that is the, the sort of ultimate opportunity, um, as we think about technology and AI particular, how can we better understand our world and then drive the action that we wanna have as a.

All

Paul Shapiro: right friends, I hope you're enjoying the interview so far and let me just briefly interrupt, to let you know that this episode is sponsored by the very good food company, more commonly known by one of their brands, The very good butchers. I can't [00:18:00] tell you how many times listeners of this show ask me how they not as captains of the venture capital industry with hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars to invest, but as mere mortals like you and me can invest in great companies making the world a better.

Well friends ask no longer because the very good food coat is now the second publicly traded plant-based meat company in the United States, meaning you can go online and buy shares in their company today. You can check them out at their ticker V R Y Y F. Again, that is V R Y Y F. For full disclosure, even before they were a sponsor of this show, my wife Tony and I became shareholders ourselves since we were so impressed both by the array of really great plant-based meat products that they're offering and the All Star team that they have assembled over there at the Very Good Food Co.

These folks are growing fast. They're building production plants a restaurant and more. They even just pass their first ever $1 million revenue month showing that this startup is no joke, whether it's [00:19:00] steaks, rib. Burgers, sausages, pepperoni, or more, you name it, the very good butchers are making and selling it.

They even do plant-based salmon and yes, before you ask plant-based cheese to via an acquisition that they made. While they are based in Canada, they have production in California too. And yes, they're traded in the US. And they are rapidly expanding the reach of the animal free meats that they are selling.

I love their messaging, which focuses on how they are proudly butchering beans, not animals, but they still embrace that artisanal butcher aura in their imagery and in their packaging. So go check 'em out@verygoodfood.com to see all the brands they in the good work they're doing and how you can become a shareholder yourself if you're so inclined and of.

Tasting is believing, so make sure to order a few things from their site and prepare to be wowed. Now, back to the I. Well, that's really impressive, Bridget. I, I love the idea of, um, monitoring greenhouse gas emissions so that we can not only monitor them, but hopefully also start reducing them once [00:20:00] we have that, um, information that we can measure it.

Uh, there's some other examples that I was also really impressed by. So, Um, tell me about some of the things that you're doing using AI in Forest to protect a deforestation and helping to protect wildlife diversity and so on, because that, to me seemed like a, a really compelling, uh, case example of where AI can be utilized in a way that directly saves lives here.

Brigitte Hoyer Gosselink: Yes, we have been doing, um, a number of different projects on, on reforestation. There's a couple of grantee. One in particular that was also a part of this AI challenge is, is focused on, um, on forests, but also on the biodiversity within those forests and is particularly leaning into the work on bioacoustics.

That helps us to again, monitor and understand the, the world around us. So that organization is called Rainforest Connect. And they are, uh, a really interesting group that [00:21:00] started out by actually placing monitors into trees. So they've built a pretty, um, simple but but powerful solution that uses mobile tech and kinda existing telecommunications infrastructure to actually.

Place monitors, you know, literally physically in trees. So picture, you know, a box with a little, uh, solar panel to keep the power on that someone has climbed a tree and put there, uh, in partnership with usually local groups who are, who are looking after them, and then they're capturing live audio streams.

That is both able to, uh, give us a sense of potential threats. So they started out trying to use, um, take that audio feed and use AI models to, within that audio detect when perhaps they heard a chainsaw or something that sounded like, you know, maybe a large truck coming in. Uh, so really trying to actually say, Hey, there's [00:22:00] potential deforestation happening in this place.

It might be something that someone should take a look at. They also though, are recording the rest of the forest soundscape with that device. And, um, have started, you know, they sort of started with this one thing of, Hey, let's build this model to detect this sound. But of course, with these audio feeds that they have now started to install around the world in, um, multiple continents, they're working with researchers and scientists to build a platform that can allow them to catalog and analyze that bio acoustic data.

Across species. So bird species, monkey, species that can be heard. All of that obviously with the quest of just giving us a better understanding of what's happening with biodiversity as we know our forests are changing, um, uh, and continuing to essentially provide that information for local groups, but also, uh, use it to, as we just be hook about with the other example, informed policy and, and broader under.[00:23:00]

It seemed

Paul Shapiro: like, you know, the original plan of just putting cameras and trees and having humans have to watch all this footage is kind of like having like a huge ear with a very little brain, right? Like, you can only watch so many hours, you can only have so many people watching it, but that you need some AI to be monitoring those actual sounds so that you can have some realistic chance of, in increasing the brain to be able to, uh, take in as much information as possible.

Is that how, how you.

Brigitte Hoyer Gosselink: That's right, exactly. AI is good at doing, you know, discreet tasks, highly repeatable, discreet tasks. Right. In a way that, you know, of course, if you needed to discern out lots of different sounds at the same time, it would be potentially challenging. Although we're work, they're working to train on that.

But yes, if they wanna detect species X or this particular sound, then yes, you can listen to hours and hours and days of footage. Um, in fact, they recently, uh, shared some numbers with us that they had been working with researchers who have [00:24:00] been trying to do this work of, you know, listening, tagging.

Ingesting this kind of information for their research and with the tool that that Rainforest Connection has now built and some of the early models that they've put into that, that have existing species detection built in, they're now able to take a three month process and reduce it to weeks. So even that saves, you know, tremendous amounts of.

Paul Shapiro: That's great. That's really great. So there's a lot of ways that it's pretty easy to see how technology can be used to help improve the environment. We've talked about so many of them on other episodes of this show, so I don't wanna do too much for folks who want to, who wanna listen to the past episodes.

There's lots of companies out there that are doing some really interesting things as well as non-profit organizations using tech to try to solve serious environmental problems from climate change to deforestation and more. Um, but there. One type of philanthropy that you're doing, Bridget, that I, I really caught my attention because of the controversy associated [00:25:00] with it.

And increasingly people were starting to think this is a pretty good idea. Um, even though in the past it was, uh, viewed in, in a less favorable way. So tell me a little bit about. Money that you give, for example, directly, I think the charity is called Give Directly. Isn't that it? That where you're literally just giving money to people as opposed to, uh, giving some service.

So what, why was it controversial? Why are you doing it, and why do you think it's a good idea?

Brigitte Hoyer Gosselink: So as simple as it might seem, giving cash to people is something that we don't often talk about and think about in the social sector, we. We actually should be doing is, is running programs. We should be setting up, uh, support services for people.

And in many cases those services and supports are extremely helpful. But I think a number of over many years now, people have been asking the question, What if we just gave people cash? What if we gave them [00:26:00] just literal money in their bank account? How would that affect what, what is possible for. It really takes a different frame than kind of the typical response, uh, to I think do that, uh, shift.

So the, the conversation around this has really been an evolving one and um, and I think. One of the ways that we, we often think about kind of how controversial this has felt is that in some ways, I think cash transfers, this idea of direct cash to individuals is probably the most studied social intervention ever.

Mm-hmm. . So we have more research studies available for this particular, uh, particular intervention than anything else. And still we are having a conversation. Yeah. Sorry, go ahead.

Paul Shapiro: Who are the individuals? Like who, who are the individuals? How much cash are they getting?

Brigitte Hoyer Gosselink: Yeah, so there's an organization that we funded that you mentioned called Give Directly, who has really been at the forefront of this [00:27:00] work, and we've, we've worked with them now since, uh, since 2012.

So we've been partnered with them for a long time. They are giving in, in cash transfers to individuals who are in extreme poverty. And they particularly have started their work in East Africa. So, uh, in Kenya they've expanded to Rwanda. Um, and they essentially work with kind of national government to come in and then they identify individuals using a, a pretty structured process.

They, you know, send folks out and say, Hey, we're going to give you some cash. Usually people are quite surprised to get that person coming by their door. So there's a bit of an education process about what it means and the fact that there's nothing expected from them in return. Um, And then, and then they do, and they, uh, have utilized part of what's made this possible.

And part of what's made us excited about it is that technology is critical here. So, uh, part of what's made this possible is mobile money becoming more pervasive. So it's [00:28:00] much easier to actually get that funding to, uh, individuals. At scale. And so they transfer them, um, funds and then per these research studies, they do some tracking of how it's spent.

And it's been, um, the outcomes from the cash transfers for give directly. They've done a number of research studies. There are other groups that of course, do this work as well. Are pretty remarkable. They see increases in income generation. They see, um, improvements in health. They see, um, that people are investing in, you know, maybe long term assets for themselves and buying, uh, some livestock, improving their home, paying for school fees.

So kids are maybe more likely to go into school again if they've been, if they've been not attending. So all of that, Quite positive. One of the things they've also studied is what do people not tend to spend money on? Um, that you might assume they do. So I think, you know, very early on, especially lots of reaction to this of like, Oh, [00:29:00] people just waste that money on things, right?

They'll buy alcohol, they'll buy other stuff that we don't want them to buy. And the data on that is also pretty impressively. Negative of over all of those thoughts. So, um, most of those things are not seen. Of course some, sometimes that does happen, but for the most part, people are spending it on things that improves their lives.

And I think the sort of flipping the frame to say, Hey, that's actually. Really a, a great way to consider, um, supporting people is just by allowing them to choose what they need, um, is really powerful. Yeah. I,

Paul Shapiro: I, that's certainly the criticism of, of it or the concern that's raised is, you know, well, what if they don't spend the money on things that, you know, we think they should have?

Right. That's a, uh, a concern that you hear, but the evidence does show that, you know, following these mobile payments, Actually, it doesn't seem like that's a, a big part of the spend on, on this money. So one more way that technology is, is helping to prove that point, actually. [00:30:00] So that's a, a pretty, uh, compelling case.

So I wanna talk about the other side, Bridget, uh, just briefly about ai, because you know, there's a lot of folks now who are basically saying they think, you know, AI is this dangerous thing, right? That it's gonna, uh, lead to some dystopian or apocalyptic outcome. I presume have a, um, have a more optimistic view of it.

So what would you say to somebody who is expressing that concern that they think that there's, you know, this concern that you're gonna have a company like Google that is, um, you know, spending a lot of money on advancing ai, um, help assure the, the skeptic out there that, you know, AI is gonna be a force for good in our world, more so than it'll be a force

Brigitte Hoyer Gosselink: for.

I think that what the thing that I try to remind myself is that this is all still up to us. We are still very much in the early days of thinking about AI's development and it is critical that we as society, that we as a company, that anyone who's working on AI [00:31:00] is taking a responsible approach and his clear-eyed about the potential risks.

But similarly, I also believe deeply that we need to be clear-eyed about the potential benefit. And the opportunities there and the potential, uh, failure to realize that opportunity and the negative impacts that could have. Right? So if we, if we are not addressing our biggest challenges with some of our innovative technology, then I of course firmly believe that we're potentially missing out on, on impact we could have.

It is, I think, important to be asking questions about how AI. Uh, being used in our society and you know how it's impacting people and it's a critical part of how we think about our work. So both examples I mentioned today, use AI and machine learning. We've make sure that those are in line with our AI principles, which are, uh, principles that we've put out publicly, and we've consulted with groups to sort of [00:32:00] help, not just say, Hey, in general run those principles, but what are the practices that need to be built?

Workflows and the sort of AI technology development to make those principles a reality. It's been interesting too, to see organizations that we're working with start to become not just users of ai, but also, uh, thinkers about how AI is showing up in society. So, and I think that's a benefit. You know, we see more organizations that have social impact at the core of what they do.

At the table as AI developers themselves, I think that will advance this whole conversation, um, and help us see more of those societal benefits while continuing to be clear eyed in mitigating the potential risks.

Paul Shapiro: Cool. Very cool. Well, speaking of seeing more Bridget, you know, you are, um, in, you are disseminating literally hundreds of millions of dollars a year out primarily to non-profit organizations.

So what do you wish you would see more of in terms of folks who are applying to you? [00:33:00] If there's somebody out there who has either an idea for a non-profit or they already have their own nonprofit, uh, what are the types of organizations that you wish that you were getting more proposals?

Brigitte Hoyer Gosselink: Well, I have the benefit of, as you said, seeing a lot of different ideas, and one of the things I try not to do is to, to sort of cut off potential ideas that most of these things I've never thought of that come across my desk

Um, and, and I'm lucky to be able to, to have the privilege to look through them. I do think one of the things that would be, we would love to see more of, and that I think is happening more and more are frankly efforts like the Climate Trace example that I shared. Where we have an organization or set of organizations coming together and saying, Hey, actually we each are doing our own little piece of this puzzle, but we feel it collectively, there's an opportunity to do more.

And coordinating across organizations is hard. I'm not naive to that challenge, but it is an opportunity, I think particularly when we [00:34:00] are using technology and, and sort of able to use shared platforms to think about ways. A particular approach can have impact beyond a particular organization and ideally bring a great, much greater benefit to the world as a.

Paul Shapiro: Okay. Nice. Well, speaking then of bringing a greater benefit to the world, are there any particular companies, Bridget or non-profit organizations that you wish existed that are solving some pressing problem that is concerning to you? Is there any, um, groups out there that you wish maybe somebody listening to you might be inspired to start?

Uh, have you thought about that?

Brigitte Hoyer Gosselink: One area that we've been thinking a lot about at Google lately is, um, is 24 7 clean energy. So we made a commitment last year to reach 24 7 clean energy. So this would mean every hour, all the energy that we're using to power our work at Google is, is clean. That's quite a challenging goal.

We've already, you know, been operating [00:35:00] 100% renewable using offsets and things like that, um, for many years now. But I would say we are, it's quite ambitious to get to this goal by 2030. And so we've been thinking about not just of course, what might we do, but what is needs to happen out there in the world?

What ecosystem, um, pieces need to be in place to actually get to that so that we could operate in that way. But also, of course, more entities could operate in that way. Um, we've got some interesting challenges, I think, around data. Uh, Just knowing what is going on on the grid at any given point around certifications.

So we're exploring some ideas in that direction. Um, but I think that is in some ways a, a next frontier for some, so much of what we will need to do on climate. So not just for us, of course, but for everyone. And so we're interested in ideas that are working in that direct. Cool.

Paul Shapiro: Interesting. Well, you heard it here.

Uh, if you are interested in talking to google.org more about that and you wanna start something like [00:36:00] that, and maybe you and Bridget will be talking about that so you can get in touch with them, uh, about that idea. But finally, Bridget, I just wanna ask you, uh, for folks who really are impressed, By your story, having gone from, um, the nonprofit world to now essentially running this, uh, very large foundation to help other nonprofits, are there any resources that have been useful for you that you'd recommend to folks that are considering something similar in this journey?

Brigitte Hoyer Gosselink: Yeah, so I would say that I am, uh, I really have benefited from a lot of different experiences and both my own experiences, but I think also just learning from the stories of others. Um, I don't read a lot of, you know, business or advice books, uh, but I do listen to the, and read a lot of stories of individual people who I think have had impressive world changing impact.

Two that come to mind, one prob maybe both obvious, but um, but that are, uh, kind of always in my mind. One is, um, just [00:37:00] mercy from Brian Stevenson. Who, of course has had tremendous impact, not just in the work that he does day to day, but I think in also reframing the narrative around racial justice in the United States.

And the other is, um, a book by Samantha Power, who was just nominated to be the, the new US Agency for International Development Administrator called Chasing the Flame. It's about, um, Sergio DeMelo, who was a Brazilian diplomat, UN diplomat, uh, who was, um, unfortunately killed too young in Iraq in 2003, and he uses.

He's, it's a story of the, the many peace deals he's brokered and, um, the interesting life that he led through that time using, actually, I think some pretty controversial methods. They're two very different people. Um, and, and I like to read a lot of sort of memoirs and biographies like this. Um, cuz I think it helps me see one that there's no one way to do everything.

Um, and two, I think always [00:38:00] just inspiring to think about the potential impact that any one individual can have in this case, you know, pretty aspirational folks. Um, but I think the, the tactics and the, the way that they show up in the world and the, the way that they do their work, um, are both things. I kind of carry with me in the way that I do my work as well.

Well, that's

Paul Shapiro: fantastic, Bridget. We'll include, uh, links to both of those in the show notes for this episode, and I too share your passion for reading biographies and memoirs because I really do, uh, take a lot of sos in reading. Um, not only about people who've made a big impact as an individual or as a leader, but also about their failures.

I really enjoy reading about the struggles that people who I admire have had, because it reminds me that they too are, are mortal humans just like I am. And that they too have fallen or they too have made mistakes or whatever the case may be in, in, in their particular story. And it reminds me that people who we lionize are just people and that the impact that we can each have is, is really great.

So, uh, I look forward [00:39:00] to, uh, promoting both of those books on this. Uh, episodes page and hopefully other people will read them, uh, based on your recommendation here, Bridget. So I really appreciate all you're doing to help make the world a better place via google.org, and I'll look forward to continuing following all of the organizations that you're funding and hoping that they'll continue doing great things out there as well.

So thanks so much, Bridget. I appreciate it. Thank you

Brigitte Hoyer Gosselink: Paul. Really glad to have the conversation today, and thanks for all that you're doing to share more stories like this with the world and hopefully inspire more people to take up the mantle and join

Paul Shapiro: us. Let us hope. Let us hope. Thanks Bridget. Thanks for listening.

We hope you found use in this episode. If so, don't keep it to yourself. Please leave us a five star rating on iTunes or wherever you get your podcast. And as always, we hope you will be in the business of doing good.