The 2009 Google Online Marketing Challenge is on

Online advertising is an increasingly important part of Australian businesses' marketing mix.

In 2008, we launched an Online Marketing Challenge to give students the chance to experiment with the medium and empower small local businesses to harness the power of the web to attract more customers.

The response to last year’s Challenge was so overwhelming that we decided to make this an annual competition. Giving students direct experience of online marketing whilst they are studying is a great way for Universities to provide students with direct practical skills they can use on graduation. Whether they find a job in marketing, accounting or retail, or set up their own business, graduates can all benefit from understanding online marketing.

The 2009 Google Online Marketing Challenge is now open. It's a global online marketing competition that is open to any higher education institution, anywhere in the world. To find out more or to register your team, visit the 2009 Challenge website.

1650 different teams across 47 different countries took part in 2008, pitting their wits against one another to further develop and maximise returns for real world local businesses' online marketing strategies.

Using free $200 vouchers to spend on Google AdWords, each student proposes and implements a campaign for their chosen local business, makes tweaks and then final recommendations at the conclusion of a three week competition period.

Full details on 2008’s winning teams and finalists can be seen here.

Last year, a team from the University of Western Australia was the global winner. We're hoping Australia can go back-to-back this year!

Recently, the 2008 Asia Pacific regional winners – from the Australian Graduate School of Management, and two regional finalists – The National Kaohsiung University of Applied Sciences (Taiwan) and The National Taiwan University – visited Google's headquarters in Sydney for the Regional Finalists' retreat. For many students, it was their first visit to Australia and a chance to compare approaches, discuss strategies with online marketing optimizers at Google and gain some insights prior to the 2009 Challenge.

For us at Google, it was immensely gratifying to meet these students and hear them speak of the enthusiasm and benefit they received from competing. In fact, one of our winners had to leave early for a job interview, and it was fantastic to hear that his Challenge experience is helping him in his quest to find a job!

We hope lots of Australian students from across different academic disciplines will get involved in 2009. Good luck!

Posted by Will Blott, University Programs Manager

Aussie Scholars visit Grace Hopper Conference

1500 women technologists in one room: this is the 2008 Grace Hopper Celebration (GHC) of Women in Computing! As one of a number of Google Australia Anita Borg scholars, I was sent to this year’s GHC as part of the scholarship. Held in Keystone, Colorado, nestled in the beautiful Rocky Mountains at an elevation of about 9300 feet (just less than 3000m), GHC participants are urged to drink plenty of water to ward off altitude sickness; but, feeling woozy and out of breath from simply walking up stairs doesn't deter me from jumping headfirst into the networking, technical, and career development sessions!

GHC was unlike any other technical conference that I have been to before. With only a handful of men present (quite the opposite of a typical engineering conference), participants were a range of ages and from different technical backgrounds - be they students, academics or industry professionals (or all of the above!). The sessions covered a wide variety of professional development and technical topics, from petaflop computing to projects helping the developing world. Also, social activities and networking were as integral to the conference schedule as the technical sessions.

Universities and industry, invited to hold stalls at the conference, lined the foyer with information about graduate programs, internships and job opportunities; not to the mention the plethora of freebies including T-shirts, pens, water bottles, notebooks, bags, lip gloss, Rubik's cubes and rubber duckies (holding laptops, no less!). Armed with only a backpack, I ended up having to return a few of the freebies as they just wouldn't fit!

GHC gave me the chance to share experiences and ideas with other Google scholars (from the US, Latin America, and Canada), undergraduate and graduate students, academics and women from the computer technology industry - including Googlers! It was a really motivating experience to be in a room with so many like-minded women who share a passion for technology; from just one of the keynotes I walked away inspired and amazed by how much one woman had achieved with the OLPC project!

My thanks to Google for the scholarship which made my first trip to the US possible, and without which I might not have heard about GHC. I've taken home with me the importance of having mentors and a strong support network, ideas and opportunities for after study (a second PhD!), inspiration for innovative technology that can help change the world, and the knowledge that there is always more than one path to achieve what you really want.



Guest post by Eva Cheng, 2007 Google Australia Anita Borg Scholar, University of Wollongong

Introducing our 2008 Anita Borg Scholars

On Friday we hosted our annual Anita Borg Scholars' Retreat at our Engineering Centre in Sydney as a way for women to come together and share their experiences as leaders in the field of computer science.

The Google Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship started in the United States in 2003 in association with the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology to honour the legacy of Anita Borg and her efforts to encourage women to pursue careers in computer science and technology. Australia became the first country outside of the US to launch the scholarship in 2006, and in 2007 we extended the opportunity to students studying in New Zealand.

 

This year we received applications from women at 28 universities throughout Australia and New Zealand, and we're pleased to announce Andrea Schweer, from the University of Waikato and Janina Voigt, from the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, as the recipients of $5,000 scholarships for the 2009 academic year.

A big congratulations as well to the twelve 2008 finalists, each of whom will be awarded $1,000:

• Gretel Png (University of Adelaide)
  
• Heather Macbeth (University of Auckland)
  
• Iris Yan (Monash University)
  
• Jenine Beekhuyzen (Griffith University)
  
• Magdalena Stremeski (Swinburne University of Technology)
  
• Miriam Hochwald (University of Queensland
  
• Olena Medelyan (University of Waikato)
  
• Sally Hodson (University of Western Australia)
  
• Sarah Killey (Queensland University of Technology)
  
• Shaoqun Wu (University of Waikato)
  
• Sue Lynn Choy (RMIT University)
  
• Tamara Beames (University of South Australia)

The scholarship recipients and finalists enjoyed their retreat, which included tech talks, workshops, career panels and social activities and provided an opportunity to network with other women in technology-related fields.

One of the scholarship winners, Janina Voigt, told me, "It's been a great experience to meet people with similar views of issues we all face as women in this industry - we're all girls going through the same thing right now. It has also been great to share ideas and participate in the workshops." 

The scholars are studying a wide variety of disciplines and talked openly about their projects, inspiring and learning from each other.

Shaoqun Wu shared how she's creating a system to assist with second language learning.  Having moved to New Zealand from China seven years ago, she understands what it's like to learn a second language first-hand.  Her project has been funded by the New Zealand government, and she hopes to continue developing her career around this area.  During the retreat, she emphasised how important it is that women in IT connect and help one another.  

We also discussed how to encourage other women to enter the field of engineering and computer science.  Sue Lynn Choy, a Ph.D. student in surveying, geomatics and cartography, told me "Studying computer science or other IT-related fields can be a big stepping stone to other things.  The possibilities are only limited by your imagination."

Posted by Will Blott, University Programs, Australia & New Zealand