Thursday, November 22

Official Google Blog

Official Google Blog


Join the Arabic Web Days movement

Posted: 20 Nov 2012 11:20 AM PST

Arabic content on the web represents just 3 percent of the total digital content online—yet Arabic speakers make up more than 5 percent of the global population. To help build a vibrant Arabic web, we've created Arabic Web Days, an initiative in the Middle East and North Africa focused on boosting the amount of Arabic content online. (Note: the video below is in Arabic only.)



For the next 30 days, we're holding a series of online and offline events along with our partners Vinelab, Wamda, Yamli and Taghreedat, as well as Twitter, Wikipedia, TED, Soundcloud, and regional organizations Al Arabiya, TwoFour54 and Qatar Foundation's Qatari Computing Research Institute. Here's how you can get involved:
  • Participate in a series of Hangouts on Google+ to get tips and tricks from industry experts on contributing Arabic content to the web—through online journalism, YouTube videos, Wikipedia editing, translation of English content, SEO and more
  • Join the YouTube Tweet Up in Doha, Qatar on December 15 to learn how to create viral Arabic videos and make money through YouTube
  • Participate in the region's first Arabic infographics competition with Tajseed
  • Volunteer to be part of a TED initiative to create quality Arabic digital content via Arabic subtitling during a kick-off event with TED, twofour54 and Taghreedat in Abu Dhabi on December 4
  • Sign up for developer training at g|days in Jordan on December 5-6 and Egypt on December 9-10 to learn about Arabic localization, webmaster tools, SEO and YouTube for Business
  • Learn about the Egyptian Ministry of Education's educational channels on YouTube which include different curricula from first to twelfth grade, as well as e-Lessons via video and Google+ Hangouts.
  • Celebrate 12/12/12 as National Arabic Web Day
  • Connect with us: add the Arabic Web Days badge to your site, upload a video to youtube.com/arabicwebdays, visit our website: www.arabicwebdays.com and follow us on Google+ and Twitter (in Arabic)
To get more details and to sign up for any of the above events, visit Arabic Web Days on Google+ or see the Arabia Blog. Until then, let's go Arabic!

Discover the world of open source with Google Code-in 2012

Posted: 20 Nov 2012 11:07 AM PST

Every time you send a text, check a webpage or post a status update, you're using open source software. The Internet is made of open source. But have you ever created any yourself? With the Google Code-in contest, pre-university students (13-17 years old) can learn more and create open source software that people all over the world can use—and win cool prizes along the way.


Starting Monday, November 26 and for the following 50 days, contest participants will work on fun online tasks for 10 different open source organizations. Possible challenges include documentation, marketing outreach, software coding, user experience research and more.

Participants earn points for each task they successfully complete and can earn prizes like T-shirts and certificates of completion. This year we're doubling the number of grand prize winners to 20 talented students, who will win a trip to Google's headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. They'll spend a day getting a tour of the "Googleplex," meeting and talking with Google engineers, plus enjoy another full day exploring San Francisco and other surprises.

Some of the 2011 Google Code-in Grand Prize Winners by the Golden Gate Bridge

Last year, 542 students from 56 countries and 360 schools completed 3,054 tasks during the eight-week contest. This year we want to encourage even more students to participate in the contest and learn about open source development. If you'd like to sign up, please review our Frequently Asked Questions and the contest rules on our program site. You can also watch our screencast, check out some sample tasks from last year's contest and join our discussion list for any other questions. For details on important dates for the contest, see the timeline. You can register for your account on the program site when the contest opens on Monday, November 26 at 9:00am PST.

Finally, our Open Source Programs team will be hosting a Hangout on Air on the Google in Education page November 26 at 2:00pm PST to discuss the details of the Google Code-in contest and answer any questions.

We hope you'll spend your winter (or summer, for our friends in the southern hemisphere) learning about the ins and outs of open source development through hands-on experience. Ready...set...

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