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Google offers cash for world-changing ideas
2008-09-24
SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - Google is marking its 10th anniversary by offering 10 million dollars to back world changing ideas. Google promises to divvy up the cash between the five best ideas that spring from its Project 10 to the 100th, a reference to the numerical sum "googol" from which the Internet powerhouse took its name. "Our company's very name expresses our goal of achieving great results through smart technology that starts small and scales dramatically over time to have a tremendous long-term impact," Google said in a website posting. "Project 10 to the 100th is a similar attempt to produce those kinds of scalable results by harnessing our users' insights and creativity." Winning ideas will get Google funding, while the people that submitted them will get "good karma and the satisfaction of knowing that your idea might truly help a lot of people," according to the Northern California firm. The deadline for submitting ideas to Google is October 20. A panel of Google employees will pick 100 top submissions to be announced on January 27, 2009. Google users will then vote to determine 20 semi-finalists, from which a Google advisory board will select five winners. "At Google, we don't believe we have the answers, but we do believe the answers are out there," a message at an introductory project Web page said. "Maybe the answer that helps somebody is in your head, in something you've observed, some notion that you've been fiddling with, some small connection you've noticed, some old thing you have seen with new eyes." Information about the project is posted on Google 10th Birthday Web pages that also feature a company timeline featuring such tidbits as how co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin met and the website originally being named "BackRub."
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