Diversity & Inclusion in our Users and Communities

Everybody’s searching for something different. Our success hinges on our ability to understand the needs of millions of Google users. That’s why we work hard to ensure that attention to diversity is built into the way we think about our business and develop our products and services.

Diversity in our business

Google is committed to making the web work for small businesses and making the power of the web accessible and useful. Accelerate with Google is a marketplace initiative focused on helping underrepresented small businesses, content creators, and non-profit organizations achieve success on the web. We empower them to establish their web presence, find customers, build infrastructure and increase productivity through Google products such as Google AdWords, Google+, Google Apps, and YouTube. Some of our programs include Women Entrepreneurs on the Web and Accelerate Your Business. Our programs are driven by passionate Googlers who are dedicated to helping diverse communities succeed online.

Diversity in our products for our users

As we continually work to advance accessibility, we are pushing the frontiers of research and development to further enable people with disabilities. We strive to make information available to everyone, including users with disabilities like blindness, visual impairment, color deficiency, deafness, hearing loss, and limited dexterity. We’ve found that providing alternative access modes such as keyboard shortcuts, captions, high-contrast views and text-to-speech technology not only helps people with disabilities; it helps everyone. We aim to serve an ever-larger number of users by increasing the accessibility of products which impacts not only the millions of people with disabilities, but also the lives of the people connected to them.

YouTube captions

We continue to build upon our commitment to offer automatic captions tools for YouTube video content. Since introducing the captions tool, YouTube has created more than 1 million videos with uploaded captions, and more than 100 million videos with automatic captions in multiple languages.

Silent hangouts for Google+

Hangouts on Google+ lets you video chat with 10 people at the same time. For people who rely on sign language, video is a natural mode of communication. We continue to work with Google+ users who communicate via sign language to find ways of making communication in Hangouts seamless and easy - no matter what language they use.

ChromeVox screen reader

We launched ChromeVox, a screen reader for Google Chrome. ChromeVox helps users with vision impairment navigate websites, using the latest web standards. It’s easy to learn and free to install as a Chrome Extension.

Diversity in our communities

At Google, we are committed to positively impacting the world around us. We support the work of numerous organizations that share our goal of diversifying the fields in which we work by bringing together thought leaders, conducting workshops, and providing networking and professional development opportunities.

Partnering with the Black community

Google has partnered with UNCF since 2006 to support Historically Black Colleges & Universities (HBCUs) through financial donations, scholarship programs, recruitment, mentoring and event sponsorship. The cornerstone of our program has been the Google UNCF Scholarship for computer science students. Each year Google donates $10,000 scholarships to up to 20 African-American students pursuing degrees in computer science at the Bachelors, Masters and PhD levels. We also work with National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and educational organizations like the LEAD Program in Business, the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, and Management Leadership for Tomorrow (MLT). Through these partnerships, Google provides financial and in-kind donations to support their work. Google also participates in conferences with partner organizations such as AdColor Coalition and National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) to increase the pipeline of diverse candidates at Google.

Partnering with Women

Google is an annual sponsor of the Anita Borg Institute for Women in Technology (ABI). With programs like the Women of Vision Awards, Tech Leaders Events, and the Grace Hopper Celebration for Women in Computing, ABI seeks to increase the impact of women on all aspects of technology and to increase the positive impact of technology on all women. Google is honored to be a strong supporter of ABI’s core programs and also continues to support The Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, which brings together technical women of all ages, who are traditionally underrepresented in the field of computer science.

Partnering with the LGBT community

We support the work of organizations such as the Human Rights Campaign, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, and the Transgender Law Center through financial and in-kind sponsorships. We also collaborate with other companies to increase LGBT workplace equality through conferences and events, including hosting workshops at the annual Out & Equal Workplace Summit.

Google is proud to support the work of the following partner organizations: