Google India launched ‘Doodle 4 Google – My India’ contest in August and the results were announced on November 14th (Children’s Day).
Gurgaon based Puru Pratap, Class 4 student won the contest for the following logo
![in_doodle4google2009[1]](http://www.pluggd.in/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/in_doodle4google20091.jpg "in_doodle4google2009[1]")
The fun doesnt’ end here.
Puru won a laptop for himself, t-shirt with his doodle and Rs. 1 lakh for his school. Awesome, if you ask me!
What’s the big deal, if you ask?
Puru’s counterparts in US (and UK), i.e. kids who won the Doodle contest received $15,000 college scholarship to be used at the school of their choice, a trip to the Google New York Office, a laptop computer, and a t-shirt printed with their doodle and $25,000 technology grant towards the establishment/improvement of a computer lab in the school.
Question for Google (especially Google India)
Any specific reason why Indian contest was stripped off the scholarship? Care to clarify why Indian schools got only 10% of what US/UK schools received as ‘prize money’?
Maybe, as Techgoss points out
Are we children of a lesser Google? Or is the Indian market less important? Perhaps Bing has the answer.
What’s your opinion? Shouldn’t Google, being a global organization take a more ‘global’ view?
Was this competition held for other countries also? What were the prizes there? I just checked…for the UK competition they gave an interactive white board to the school, laptop to the kids..that’s all, no college grant or T-shirt http://www.google.co.uk/doodle4google/prizes.html
So it varies from country to country and I think it makes sense too…you can give 10 lakhs to an Indian school
but who has the time and energy to educate the ignorant teachers on how to use the technology in Education? US market is much more developed…
It’s a merciless world out there, isn’t it? Why don’t you ask Google (and all other multinationals out there, for that matter) about the disparities in salaries in UK/US vs the rest of the world?
Talk about Perks: The google office in Mountainview has 18 different cafeterias, each cooking delicacies from around the world. It has a whole fleet of electric cars ready for employees, whenever they want to zip out of office for a couple of hours. Yoga centres, massage parlours, laundry rooms – I think you get the point here.
Are we children of a lesser Google? Or is the Indian market less important? Perhaps Bing has the answer
Yes, YES! and NO
Please don’t make an issue out of anything. I don’t know if you are looking at this (act of google) as Charity, Marketing Campaign or anything else you would like to term it as.
Firstly, Google does not need to maintain standards like this across the world. All information about the competition is published prior and schools participate.
Secondly, $2000 to an american school might not be attractive enough – while $2000 to most of the Indian schools would make a world of difference. Feasibility and process of how scholarship works in India might be lot different and less organized in India.
Lot of Indian MNCs do a lot for scholarships in India and not in other countries – for whatever reason it might be. This does not mean you (or foreign media) judge them based on this.
“Lot of Indian MNCs do a lot for scholarships in India and not in other countries – for whatever reason it might be. This does not mean you (or foreign media) judge them based on this.” –
That’s the way. GOogle shouldn’t do a global campaign and make other countries look cheap. Bing has cashback offer only for US..being a global org, you need to follow global standards. You can’t do such stupid things (am surprised that ppl actually support such initiative..maybe result of our ‘chalta hai’ attitude)
You can’t do such stupid things
Why not? What’s stopping Google from doing whatever the heck they want to do with their money?
It’s not answerable to people like us, at least for the charity it does, or the prize money it puts.
And it’s the opposite of the ‘chalta hai’ attitude, that people find anything and everything to sensationalize a non-issue.
That’s stupidity++.
Google isn’t anwerable to it’s users?
Was this a charity?
Dude – Ask qns..do not accept what’er is given to you, just because you are an Indian.
Of course, this isn’t charity. It was a competition, which was held by Google. And the rights to decide what amount it will give to any country rests with it.
Assuming you work for a software MNC (even if you don’t, try to see the parallel):
Dude – Ask qns.. do not accept whatever salary is given to you, just because you are an Indian. Ask for the same salary as your US counterparts.
See the flaw in this statement? If you can’t understand the analogy, maybe we shouldn’t discuss this anymore
Hi Rohit,
It is upto any tech company to award any prize they want to any country. And for Indian school kids/citizens to decide if that is a balanced approach. And the rest of us to give our views either way.
If you read the article you will see there are many other companies who give the same prize to US and Indian citizens.
One of the facts is that the UK winner also got a week long trip with four people of their family to USA. See below from the UK site
1 National Winner
Dennis Hwang, Google’s webmaster, will pick the overall national winner
Prizes: The winning doodle will be hosted on Google’s homepage at http://www.google.co.uk for 24 hours. The winner will also receive a week-long trip with their family to California, USA. (The trip is for 7 nights, for a maximum of four people, including one adult).
It is upto any tech company to award any prize they want to any country.
Absolutely!
And for Indian school kids/citizens to decide if that is a balanced approach.
Nopes. All that Indian school kids or citizens can do is to participate in the competition or oppose it because the prize money was lesser than what Google is offering in other countries.
Your point is fundamentally invalid on two counts:
a) Google is at the giving end, not receiving. It’s greedy of you to ask for anything more than the offering. What if Google had not held this competition in India at all? There are plenty of competitions worldwide, which are not held here but only in first world countries. Would you still raise a hue and cry for those?
It’s not your right to get anything from Google.
b) It’s not a big communist world where everyone is offered the same money/perks for your work. To assume that every country in the world is equal is an incorrect assumption. Google US contributes more than 30% revenues to the parent organization, so it makes sense to grant a better prize money there. Google inc. India is just one of the hundred dev centres they have opened around the world, and India doesn’t generate as much revenue for the Google as UK or US. Why in the world would Google stupidly spend money on a country which accounts for <1% of its total revenues.
It could be equal if it were charity, but again, you are totally out of your rights to ask for Google’s money as if it were your own.
“Google inc. India is just one of the hundred dev centres they have opened around the world, and India doesn’t generate as much revenue for the Google as UK or US. Why in the world would Google stupidly spend money on a country which accounts for <1% of its total revenues."
- That's one of the most crazy comment that I have ever seen.
Heard of emerging markets? Why Google has an edge over Yahoo/MS and futuristically why cos are gearing up to tap Indian market?
I think it is ok, maybe prize money could be slightly increased and scholarship could have been given, but we should not compare with US, we should keep in mind about ‘purchasing power parity’. Because of ‘purchasing power parity’ global companies charges different prices in different country for same product.
Ofcourse, Google, being a global organization take a more ‘global’ view
I guess the qn is more on scholarship…Google India shd have offered scholarship to the kid..(what’er amount).
Comparing Google US office/salary with India seems quite a stupid way to analyze such things.
Companies like IBM/MS have the SAME prize money globally (or they keep it simple by allowing only US citizens to participate)..so it defintely isn’t fair for Google to have a cutdown/cheap prize money in India
Indian Talent has a lesser prize than AAmerican.
Being an American, I am shocked to see how few Indian guys defend such motive.
All of this is marketing campaign and you cant have so much of disparity in prize money.
Rest..Peace
After reading that poorly formed comment, if you’re American then I’m the Queen of England.
Cheerio, guvna!
Alas! The anonymous bugs.
This argument would have made sence if india and america were two equal nations in all aspects.Google as an MNC can decide their own ways of setting the stds of prices based on the country and the business they do in the country.I dont think this is some way of branding the nations.Lets not complain. . .
hey guys!!…i am the winner’s brother and we are satisfied with the prizes Puru has been given….the only thing that is really annoying is that we haven’t received the laptop an the technological grant yet…….Google should try and arrange 4 d laptop at the earlies as 10 days have passed since the results have been announced…
n yeah…..i request google to have “some mercy on the kid”….
@shaurya, it’s like forcibly milking the Google cow which has positive attitude and money.
A lot of bharatratna’s and wives of dead soldiers r yet to get even the livelihood money from the Indian Govt. of India despite rewards been conferred years ago. What do you think of that?
Stop being shameless beggers.
? Bullshit at first impression !
( that is the reason we are getting the outsourced work )
? Article has some sense in second read but still a bullshit !
? IF you think in terms of GLOBAL viewpoint then ALL IT engineers are paid to work for peanuts
? As far as Google India is concern the good thing is that you must lookout at their Google Foundation Programs !
? Google is doing a lot of work for India , in order to bring transparency in government projects and other developmental causes.
? Try to JUDGE Google as Whole not just by one competition !
? Being a POPULAR Indian Blog you might be making a considerable money , WHY don’t “you” SPONSOR something like that contest and become a Christmas Santa!
Looking at all the articles, i see that author has preconceived good will about Yahoo and hates Google.
Writing on a blog where so many people read, one should write impartially stating things, as it is.
@Sanjeev – Not sure whether you are drunk or what’s wrong here – there is not a single mention of Yahoo in this article.
PluGGD.in is a neutral blog and suggest you to take your personal frustration somewhere else.
-Ashish.
I don’t know who is taking out frustration. From the article, it seems other way round.
I am neither frustrated and nor drunk. I am not only referring to this article. I have written article(s)in my comment.
Sounds like outsourcing equivalent of “Catch them young” to me
I fail to understand why one must nitpick at everything. Let’s learn to look at the positive side instead of questioning someone’s intent and behaving like losers.
This is definitely unfair. I’m gonna tweet about this.
Pingback: Is Google discriminating kids from the Third World? « Solo Engine