Google again delays debut of Project 10^100 ideas
It's proved harder than Google thought it would be to analyze the ideas submitted to a project to fund bright ideas to help others.
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Google had planned to announce on Tuesday the ideas for its Project 10-to-the-100th to improve the world through Google-sponsored work, but the search giant delayed the announcement a second time.
"We will unfortunately have to delay announcing the top ideas for Project 10^100 for a while longer. We've never managed a project like this and it's taken more time than we ever imagined possible. We apologize for our overoptimistic assumptions about how quickly we could analyze all the ideas that we've received, and thank everyone for their patience," said Andy Berndt, managing director of the Google Creative Lab, in an update to the January 26 blog post that announced the first delay.
Through the project, Google invited people to submit ideas for projects that could change the world for the better. Google is working on presenting the projects, and then plans to let the public vote on the top 20. An advisory board will select five that actually will be funded with $10 million.
"Beyond a certain very basic level of material wealth, the only thing that increases individual happiness over time is helping other people," Google said when announcing the project in September. "If you have an idea that you believe would help somebody, we want to hear about it. We're looking for ideas that help as many people as possible, in any way, and we're committing the funding to launch them. You can submit your ideas and help vote on ideas from others."
The name of the project refers to a googol, the number of 1 followed by 100 zeros.