TechnoServe announces entrepreneur development program winners in Ghana

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Nick Railston-Brown, Ghana Country Director, TechnoServe</span><br /><br /><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://google.org/">Google.org</a><span style="font-style: italic;"> and the Google Foundation support select organizations whose work addresses the challenges of global poverty in ways that are effective, sustainable and scalable. We invited TechnoServe, a 2006 Google Foundation grant recipient, to tell us more about the winners of its business plan competition and entrepreneurship development program in Ghana. The Google Foundation joins TechnoServe in sending heartfelt congratulations to all of the winners, finalists and participants in Believe Begin Become.</span><br /><br />With financial support from the Google Foundation, <a href="http://www.technoserve.org">TechnoServe</a> (an economic development organization that applies business solutions to rural poverty) launched <a href="http://www.believe-begin-become.com">Believe Begin Become</a> in Ghana in <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/03/technoserve-update-new-program-in.html">March</a>. It's a program that identifies entrepreneurs whose businesses can create jobs and increase incomes. Ghana’s competition marks the beginning of TechnoServe’s multi-country rollout of these business plan competitions across Africa.<br /><br />More than 300 of Ghana’s most promising entrepreneurs applied to the program, and 60 participated in the rigorous training and business plan development for this year’s competition. With strong support from over 70 local partners and 23 business development service providers, participants receive individual support from technical consultants and access to a business network that included more than 15 financial institutions.<br /><br />The 20 finalists came from seven of Ghana's 10 regions and represent a diverse cross-section of the Ghanaian population. One-third of the finalists are women, and more than a third are from rural areas. They range in age from 20 to 55, and their business concepts are varied, from a web-based tour company to a high-tech environmentally friendly carwash. Each of the 20 finalists receive between $10,000 and $15,000 of individualized local business services. Each of the top 10 winners received $15,000 in seed capital to start or expand their businesses.<br /><br />To the delight of Ghanaians, the <a href="http://www.believe-begin-become.com/Ghana/morenews.asp?NewsID=27">top winners were announced</a> at today’s awards ceremony in Accra. They include: Nicholas Vordzogbe, Isaac Bohulu, Maxwell Hammond, Paul Tetteh, Daniel Tamatey and Prince Yakubu. There are also three winners who presented the best business plans in three sectors: light manufacturing, services and agriculture. These sector winners, all women, are: Agnes Frimpong (Mixline Ventures – disposable baby diaper packaging and retailing), Joyce Opon (Adekyee Lodging and Conferencing – hospitality business) and Rita Asamoah (Kasdar Company Ltd – dried fruit processing). The top winner of the overall business plan competition went to the impressive Joseph Tackie, who is revolutionizing the meat processing business in Accra by introducing the highest standards of quality and new sales and distribution models.<br /><br />Google.org provided support by sending Google employees to Ghana to serve as judges, guest lecturers and supporters of the participating entrepreneurs. Here are three reflections on their experience:<br /><ul><li>"When I originally agreed to volunteer, I wasn't sure what contribution I was going to be able to make, trying to teach finance in a place where having access to electricity is as big a concern as running out of capital. But during my lecture, I could see how introducing some of the lessons we've learned at Google to these budding entrepreneurs in Ghana was really making a difference. It was definitely the best week of work I've ever had." – Albert Ching</li></ul><ul><li>“It was refreshing to see the impact of TechnoServe’s results-driven approach to development. This approach seems more successful for generating skilled and unskilled jobs, income for the community, and in the long run, sustainable economic growth for developing nations. It can instill a sense of pride and achievement in people that can have tremendous effects - successful entrepreneurs can contribute to their communities and inspire others to achieve more.” – Jackie Bona</li></ul><ul><li>“The highlight of my trip was the event celebrating the graduation from the core training of the business plan competition: the best 20 business plans that would receive some level of funding. I realized that the aim of supporting sustainable businesses and creating a local ecosystem to spur innovation and entrepreneurship was really happening.” – Marco Marinucci</li></ul>

TechnoServe announces entrepreneur development program winners in Ghana

Posted by Nick Railston-Brown, Ghana Country Director, TechnoServe Google.org and the Google Foundation support select organizations whose...

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New Spreadsheets fun

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Fuzzy Khosrowshahi, Tech Lead, Google Spreadsheets</span><br /><br />The day after we launched Google Spreadsheets, one of the team said, "I can't believe you're already on the (Google) Groups page answering questions." After a late night-launch night? No way. "I'm definitely not posting, and I don't have the time even if I wanted to," I told him. Strangely, someone going by "Fuzzy" and/or "Fuzzy wuzzy" was answering everyone's questions! This unlikely-named person seemed to be very knowledgeable about Google Spreadsheets and spreadsheets in general. Well, the identity of that Fuzzy is still a mystery, but here's my chance to weigh in as myself.<br /><br />I've been carefully watching the feedback we get on <a title="Google Spreadsheets" href="http://spreadsheets.google.com/">Google Spreadsheets</a>, looking for people who may have discovered a bug or just need help using it. I'm also trying to judge our success in offering the right features. In a recent perusal of our <a title="Google Group" href="http://groups.google.com/group/Google-Labs-Spreadsheets">Google Group</a> (where interested people can discuss the product, help each other, and suggest improvements), it occurred to me that our growing body of users is about as diverse as a group can get, in terms of spreadsheet desires (if we can call them that!).<br /><br />Here's a sampling of what people have been asking for:</p> <ul><li>support for Open Document Format (handy for those who use linux-based machines and Open Office products)<br /></li><li>a way to force multiple line text in a single cell (like a street address in, say, a spreadsheet for planning a wedding)<br /></li><li>currency symbols in addition to $<br /></li><li>an option to create PDF files that will print nicely</li><li>the ability to share a spreadsheet with anyone who receives the URL (without having to specify their email address).</li></ul> <p>This latest release of Google Spreadsheets that we just rolled out does all of these things and more. Here's a <a href="http://www.google.com/googlespreadsheets/whatsnew.html">list of all the new features</a>. I'm still watching the list of requests grow – and will keep trying to meet those needs -- unless of course the mysterious "Fuzzy wuzzy" beats me to it.</p>

New Spreadsheets fun

Posted by Fuzzy Khosrowshahi, Tech Lead, Google Spreadsheets The day after we launched Google Spreadsheets, one of the team said, "I ca...

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Students: Get your gadget on

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Samantha Crow, Product Marketing, Google Gadgets</span><br /><br />When was the last time you tried to write HTML, build your resume and strut your stuff all at once? Well, now's your chance. We recently launched the <a href="http://www.google.com/gadgetawards">Google Gadget Awards</a>, a program designed to challenge U.S. college students to create clever Google Gadgets. It's easy for anyone with even a little bit of web design experience to create one. They can be fun (like one of my personal favorites, this <a href="http://www.google.com/ig/directory?hl=en&num=24&url=http://www.labpixies.com/campaigns/radio/radio.xml&q=labpixies+radio&start=0">radio gadget</a>), useful (like this <a href="http://www.google.com/ig/directory?hl=en&num=24&url=http://www.google.com/ig/modules/todo.xml&q=&start=0">to-do gadget</a>), or just really, really simple (like this <a href="http://www.google.com/ig/directory?hl=en&num=24&url=http://www.factacular.com/googlemodule.xml&q=&start=144">facts and trivia gadget</a>). And anyone can add the gadgets to their <a href="http://www.google.com/ig">Google personalized homepage</a> or to <a href="http://desktop.google.com/plugins/">Google Desktop</a>.<br /><br />If you're not a university student in the U.S., you can still create <a href="http://code.google.com/apis/gadgets/">Google Gadgets</a>. Although they won't be entered in the Awards, if they're clever enough you just might find them on Google homepages around the world.

Students: Get your gadget on

Posted by Samantha Crow, Product Marketing, Google Gadgets When was the last time you tried to write HTML, build your resume and strut your ...

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Congratulations, Luis von Ahn

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Alan Eustace, VP Engineering</span><br /><br />Today our warmest congratulations go out to a notable young computer scientist, <a href="http://www.cs.cmu.edu/%7Ebiglou/">Dr. Luis von Ahn</a> of Carnegie Mellon University. Based on his work in cryptography, AI, and natural intelligence, Luis has just been recognized as a Fellow by the MacArthur Foundation, which has <a href="http://www.macfound.org/site/c.lkLXJ8MQKrH/b.2066197/k.3F6D/2006_Overview.htm">granted him a "genius" award</a>.<br /><br />A major thread of his research is about <a href="http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8246463980976635143">human computation</a> that can't currently be emulated by computers. (Together with colleagues he developed the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAPTCHA">CAPTCHA</a> system, which has of course found widespread commercial application in preventing automated-generated spam.) He also works in the area of cryptography known as steganography. Unlike standard encrypted communications, a steganographic message disguises the fact that it contains a secret; one example is a text message subtly embedded in the bits that encode a digital photograph. He's also developing systems for characterizing visual images in ways that can vastly improve their searchability, and which help to build a rich database for exploring human visual cognition. (We've developed the Google Image Labeler based on his groundbreaking work in this area.)<br /><br />Around here, we like to quote Isaac Newton's phrase about "standing on the shoulders of giants." Clearly, Luis is one of these.

Congratulations, Luis von Ahn

Posted by Alan Eustace, VP Engineering Today our warmest congratulations go out to a notable young computer scientist, Dr. Luis von Ahn of ...

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Bigger and better search appliance

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Nitin Mangtani, Product Manager, Google Search ApplianceTeam</span><br /><br />We hear you, we hear you -- your company has more documents than ever. That's why today there's a <a href="http://www.google.com/enterprise/gsa/index.html">new version of the Google Search Appliance</a> that can handle even more documents, and offers some cool new features to boot. The GB-8008 now searches up to 30 million documents (if you need more, just <a href="http://services.google.com/appliance/request_info/site">let us know</a>). And we've added date and number range search plus support for 16 languages. There's more on the <a href="http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2006/09/new-version-of-google-search-appliance.html">enterprise blog</a>.

Bigger and better search appliance

Posted by Nitin Mangtani, Product Manager, Google Search ApplianceTeam We hear you, we hear you -- your company has more documents than ever...

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Time travel

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Mike Samuel, Software Engineer</span><br /><br />For a while now, it's been rumored that Google has been working on time travel. Unfortunately, I have to lay these rumors to rest: we've really been working on having "organizing-your-time" travel.<br /><br />Back <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/04/its-about-time.html">in April</a>, we released <a href="http://calendar.google.com">Google Calendar</a> to the world in English. But that wasn't good enough. So now it's available in 17 new languages: <a href="https://www.google.com/accounts/ServiceLogin?service=cl&passive=true&nui=1&continue=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Fcalendar%2Frender%3Fhl%3Dfr&hl=fr">French</a>, <a href="https://www.google.com/accounts/ServiceLogin?service=cl&passive=true&nui=1&continue=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Fcalendar%2Frender%3Fhl%3Dit&hl=it">Italian</a>, <a href="https://www.google.com/accounts/ServiceLogin?service=cl&passive=true&nui=1&continue=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Fcalendar%2Frender%3Fhl%3Dde&hl=de">German</a>, <a href="https://www.google.com/accounts/ServiceLogin?service=cl&passive=true&nui=1&continue=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Fcalendar%2Frender%3Fhl%3Des&hl=es">Spanish</a>, <a href="https://www.google.com/accounts/ServiceLogin?service=cl&passive=true&nui=1&continue=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Fcalendar%2Frender%3Fhl%3Dzh_CN&hl=zh_CN">Chinese</a> (Simplified), <a href="https://www.google.com/accounts/ServiceLogin?service=cl&passive=true&nui=1&continue=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Fcalendar%2Frender%3Fhl%3Dzh_TW&hl=zh_TW">Chinese</a> (Traditional), <a href="https://www.google.com/accounts/ServiceLogin?service=cl&passive=true&nui=1&continue=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Fcalendar%2Frender%3Fhl%3Dja&hl=ja">Japanese</a>, <a href="https://www.google.com/accounts/ServiceLogin?service=cl&passive=true&nui=1&continue=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Fcalendar%2Frender%3Fhl%3Dko&hl=ko">Korean</a>, <a href="https://www.google.com/accounts/ServiceLogin?service=cl&passive=true&nui=1&continue=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Fcalendar%2Frender%3Fhl%3Dnl&hl=nl">Dutch</a>, <a href="https://www.google.com/accounts/ServiceLogin?service=cl&passive=true&nui=1&continue=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Fcalendar%2Frender%3Fhl%3Dpt_BR&hl=pt_BR">Portuguese</a> (Brazilian), <a href="https://www.google.com/accounts/ServiceLogin?service=cl&passive=true&nui=1&continue=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Fcalendar%2Frender%3Fhl%3Dru&hl=ru">Russian</a>, <a href="https://www.google.com/accounts/ServiceLogin?service=cl&passive=true&nui=1&continue=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Fcalendar%2Frender%3Fhl%3Dno&hl=no">Norwegian</a>, <a href="https://www.google.com/accounts/ServiceLogin?service=cl&passive=true&nui=1&continue=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Fcalendar%2Frender%3Fhl%3Dsv&hl=sv">Swedish</a>, <a href="https://www.google.com/accounts/ServiceLogin?service=cl&passive=true&nui=1&continue=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Fcalendar%2Frender%3Fhl%3Dfi&hl=fi">Finnish</a>, <a href="https://www.google.com/accounts/ServiceLogin?service=cl&passive=true&nui=1&continue=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Fcalendar%2Frender%3Fhl%3Dda&hl=da">Danish</a>, <a href="https://www.google.com/accounts/ServiceLogin?service=cl&passive=true&nui=1&continue=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Fcalendar%2Frender%3Fhl%3Dpl&hl=pl">Polish</a>, and <a href="https://www.google.com/accounts/ServiceLogin?service=cl&passive=true&nui=1&continue=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Fcalendar%2Frender%3Fhl%3Den_GB&hl=en_GB">English</a> (UK).<br /><br />We hope this means people in countries across the world will want to organize their daily lives with a fast, easy to use online calendar. Perhaps even better, you can now share calendars and events with people who speak and use Google Calendar in different languages. Schedule calls with your Tokyo office, or schedule that call to your relatives in Amsterdam or Seoul. Changing the language is as easy as a few clicks on your settings page.<br /><br />As for time travel, maybe someday. After all, we're already <a href="http://moon.google.com/">on the moon</a>.

Time travel

Posted by Mike Samuel, Software Engineer For a while now, it's been rumored that Google has been working on time travel. Unfortunately, ...

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Picasa goes online, gets new features too

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Michael Herf, Picasa Engineer</span><br /><br />I have 80,000 photos in <a href="http://picasa.google.com">Picasa</a>, Google's free photo organizer, but most of my friends haven't had a chance to see them yet. That's why I'm so excited about the new version of Picasa that came out today. It has a feature called <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com">Picasa Web Albums</a> that lets you post and share your photos online for free with just one click. You can show the world (or just your friends and family) what kinds of pictures you've been taking. And best of all, you can even download your friends' online photos right back to Picasa.<br /><br />I run around at parties and take photos of people, and now my friends can see the pictures online as soon as I post them. Rather than bugging me all the time to email them around (which I'm too lazy to do), now they're asking to have the bad shots deleted instead. Some of them even add online comments right to the photos themselves.<br /><br />We've also <a href="http://readme.picasa.com/public/releasenotes.html">fixed a whole bunch of things</a> in Picasa. Folders finally work as you'd expect, so people who've kept their photos meticulously organized in folders and subfolders can see them displayed the same way in Picasa. And we've added a shiny new feature to photo-editing: Save. Your Picasa edits can now be preserved when using other programs. The save feature is even undoable, so you never lose your original files.<br /><br />And there's more -- you can import into any folder you like, make time-lapse sequences into movies, search by color, create a screensaver with beautiful visual effects, and even re-arrange Picasa's buttons. Oh, and we also made Picasa work with Google Earth, so you can put information about where you went on vacation into the photos themselves, and then, view your shots on a 3-D globe. Try it all out for yourself at <a href="http://picasa.google.com/">picasa.google.com</a>.

Picasa goes online, gets new features too

Posted by Michael Herf, Picasa Engineer I have 80,000 photos in Picasa , Google's free photo organizer, but most of my friends haven...

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