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Solve for X was a community solution engagement project and think tank-like event launched by Google [1] to encourage collaboration, solve global issues and support innovators. The "X" in the title represents a remedy that someone or a team is already pursuing which ran from 2012 to 2014. [2]
The project began on February 1, 2012 at a three-day convention at CordeValle Resort in San Martin, California. Google's team sought people working on various solutions. Solve for X talks were presented by innovators to 50 people in attendance who then collaboratively brainstormed to help those pursuing solutions, hosted by Google executives Eric Schmidt, Megan Smith, and Astro Teller who co-created the project. [3] The convention took place annually. [4] The website launched on February 6, 2012. [5]
The pitch component of Solve for X has been likened to TED talks [1] [6] since both projects host seminars by innovators, which can be viewed by others online. European director Bruno Giussani stated regarding Google's endeavor: "The world needs more ideas, not fewer and more commitment to sharing them freely and openly so that collectively we can test-run them and turn them into reality ... Google being at the origin of this, obviously technology and engineering will play a big role in Solve For X". [4]
Solve for X, co-founded by two leaders at Google with the support of Eric Schmidt, was initially believed to be linked to the Google X Lab working on new technology such as web-connected appliances, driverless cars, and space elevators, [1] [6]
In 2013–14, the Solve for X team joined with several partner organizations, to support embedding their talks-plus-audience-community-brainstorming format in partner gatherings. [7] The inaugural meeting that took place in 2012 featured the inventor and entrepreneur Rob McGinnis, discussing "Global Water Scarcity". [8] Ira Glass opened the 2014 summit with a talk on climate change entitled “Ira Glass tries to boss you into a moonshot”. [9]
A hackathon is an event where people engage in rapid and collaborative engineering over a relatively short period of time such as 24 or 48 hours. They are often run using agile software development practices, such as sprint-like design wherein computer programmers and others involved in software development, including graphic designers, interface designers, product managers, project managers, domain experts, and others collaborate intensively on engineering projects, such as software engineering.
Edison Awards is an American company that runs an annual competition honoring excellence in innovation in a broad range of categories.
Google Developers is Google's site for software development tools and platforms, application programming interfaces (APIs), and technical resources. The site contains documentation on using Google developer tools and APIs—including discussion groups and blogs for developers using Google's developer products.
BumpTop was a 3D desktop environment that simulates the normal behavior and physical properties of a real-world desk and enhances it with automatic tools to organize its contents. It is aimed at stylus interaction, making it more suitable for tablet computers and handheld PCs. It was created at the University of Toronto as Anand Agarawala's master's thesis. Agarawala also gave a presentation at the TED conference about his idea. The 1.0 version was released on April 8, 2009, along with a fully featured pro version as a paid upgrade. On April 30, 2010 the author announced that BumpTop was being discontinued and that they were taking the software "in an exciting new direction." Two days later, it was announced that the company had been acquired by Google. On January 5, 2011, Google released a sneak preview video of Android 3.0 Honeycomb showing a 3D desktop with features purportedly taken from BumpTop.
Google.org, founded in October 2005, is the charitable arm of Google, a multinational technology company. The organization has committed roughly US$100 million in investments and grants to nonprofits annually.
Eric "Astro" Teller is an American entrepreneur, computer scientist, and author, with expertise in the field of intelligent technology.
Natasha Tsakos is a conceptual director, interactive designer, and performance artist from Geneva, Switzerland, living in Florida. Her work explores the symbiosis of technology and live performance. She is the president and founder of NTiD inc.
Kaggle is a data science competition platform and online community of data scientists and machine learning practitioners under Google LLC. Kaggle enables users to find and publish datasets, explore and build models in a web-based data science environment, work with other data scientists and machine learning engineers, and enter competitions to solve data science challenges.
SpaceWorks Enterprises, Inc. (SEI) is an aerospace engineering company based in Atlanta, Georgia, United States that specializes in the design, assessment, hardware prototyping and flight demonstration of advanced space concepts for both government and commercial customers.
X is an American semi-secret research and development facility and organization founded by Google in January 2010. X has its headquarters about a mile and a half from Alphabet's corporate headquarters, the Googleplex, in Mountain View, California.
Megan J. Smith is an American engineer and technologist. She was the third Chief Technology Officer of the United States and Assistant to the President, serving under President Barack Obama. She was previously a vice president at Google, leading new business development and early-stage partnerships across Google's global engineering and product teams at Google for nine years, was general manager of Google.org, a vice president briefly at Google[x] where she co-created WomenTechmakers, is the former CEO of Planet Out and worked as an engineer on early smartphones at General Magic. She serves on the boards of MIT and Vital Voices, was a member of the USAID Advisory Committee on Voluntary Aid and co-founded the Malala Fund. Today Smith is the CEO and Founder of shift7. On September 4, 2014, she was named as the third U.S. CTO, succeeding Todd Park, and serving until January, 2017.
The Windows Phone 8X by HTC is a smartphone that was announced by HTC Corporation on September 19, 2012.
Android Developer Days (ADD) is an open conference held at various locations worldwide each year. The Android Developer Days conference is a growing organization that allows developers of various software and applications to showcase, observe, and participate in Android Developing events, such as informational lectures, workshops, entertainment activities, panel discussions, and networking opportunities make up a majority of the Android Developer Days. As an international leader in mobile operating systems, ADD has become increasingly popular as the center for mobile device conventions. Unofficial participants may elect to observe different booths and displays. However, in order to partake in the festivities, one must apply to join the organization. There is an assortment of ways that one is able to join the conference including exhibiting your own presentation, showcasing posters featuring developing applications, or instructing hands-on, interactive coding tutorials. In 2014, the Android Developer Days conventions had been held in Ankara, Turkey, from May 16 to May 17.
Loon LLC was an Alphabet Inc. subsidiary working on providing Internet access to rural and remote areas. The company used high-altitude balloons in the stratosphere at an altitude of 18 km (11 mi) to 25 km (16 mi) to create an aerial wireless network with up to 1 Mbit/s speeds. A reference to the balloons used, Project Loon began as a research and development project by X in 2011, but later spun out into a separate company in July 2018. In January 2021, it was announced that the company would be shut down due to lack of profitability.
ConceptDraw OFFICE is a proprietary office software suite of business productivity tools, developed by Computer Systems Odessa for use with either Microsoft Windows and macOS operating systems. ConceptDraw OFFICE is composed of mind mapping, project management and business diagramming tools. The three components use the cross-format exchange technology, allowing users to employ a visual approach to information management whereby the same set of data can be shown as a mind map, Gantt chart, or business graphic design.
Google Brain was a deep learning artificial intelligence research team under the umbrella of Google AI, a research division at Google dedicated to artificial intelligence. Formed in 2011, Google Brain combines open-ended machine learning research with information systems and large-scale computing resources. The team has created tools such as TensorFlow, which allow for neural networks to be used by the public, with multiple internal AI research projects. The team aims to create research opportunities in machine learning and natural language processing. The team was merged into former Google sister company DeepMind to form Google DeepMind in April 2023.
A design sprint is a time-constrained, five-phase process that uses design thinking with the aim of reducing the risk when bringing a new product, service or a feature to the market. The process aims to help teams to clearly define goals, validate assumptions and decide on a product roadmap before starting development. It seeks to address strategic issues using interdisciplinary expertise, rapid prototyping, and usability testing. This design process is similar to Sprints in an Agile development cycle.
Amara, formerly known as Universal Subtitles, is a web-based non-profit project created by the Participatory Culture Foundation that hosts and allows user-subtitled video to be accessed and created. Users upload video through many major video hosting websites such as YouTube, Vimeo, and Ustream to subtitle.
IBM Quantum System One is the first circuit-based commercial quantum computer, introduced by IBM in January 2019.
