Google 10^100 $10 Million Winners Finally Announced

After two years, Google has finally announced the winners of its 10^100 contest.  The company launched the project on September 24, 2008 as a way to celebrate its 10th birthday.

The 10^100 contest aimed to award a total of $10 million to the company or companies that could implement ideas that would change the world in the most positive way.  Originally, contest officials hoped to have the finalists narrowed down by early 2009, but they became a bit backlogged.

Now, the 10^100 winners have officially been announced and the company will give a total of $10 million to five inspiring organizations.  Here are the organizations that were selected, as mentioned on the official Google blog:

Idea: Make educational content available online for free
Project funded: The Khan Academy is a non-profit educational organization that provides high-quality, free education to anyone, anywhere via an online library of more than 1,600 teaching videos. We are providing $2 million to support the creation of more courses and to enable the Khan Academy to translate their core library into the world’s most widely spoken languages.

Idea: Enhance science and engineering education
Project funded: FIRST is a non-profit organization that promotes science and math education around the world through team competition. Its mission is to inspire young people to be science and technology leaders by giving them real world experience working with professional engineers and scientists. We are providing $3 million to develop and jump start new student-driven robotics team fundraising programs that will empower more student teams to participate in FIRST.

Idea: Make government more transparent
Project funded: Public.Resource.Org is a non-profit organization focused on enabling online access to public government documents in the United States. We are providing $2 million to Public.Resource.Org to support the Law.Gov initiative, which aims to make all primary legal materials in the United States available to all.

Idea: Drive innovation in public transport
Project funded: Shweeb is a concept for short to medium distance, urban personal transport, using human-powered vehicles on a monorail. We are providing $1 million to fund research and development to test Shweeb’s technology for an urban setting.

Idea: Provide quality education to African students
Project funded: The African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) is a center for math and science education and research in Cape Town, South Africa. AIMS’ primary focus is a one-year bridge program for recent university graduates that helps build skills and knowledge prior to master’s and Ph.D. study. We are providing $2 million to fund the opening of additional AIMS centers to promote graduate level math and science study in Africa.

Obviously, Google learned that there are some things you just can’t rush, and it takes a lot of time and effort to go from 150,000 ideas to just five.

Congratulations to the 10^100 winners!  More in the video below.

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