Grow with Google has wrapped up 2019 by taking the free digital skills program to Perth and Rockingham for the first time.

First up, we ran workshops in Herne Hill at the local Swan Settlers Market on the outskirts of Perth where 100 local business owners and entrepreneurs picked up new skills and tips on things like how to grow their presence online, be found by new customers, and gain insights into their customers’ needs. We also ran sessions for local job seekers, teachers and students.

Caption: Attendees from our afternoon Digital Springboard session taking a quick break from the content 

A big thank you to West Australian Senator Matt O'Sullivan who represented Federal Member for Pearce and Attorney-General Christian Porter in officially opening the event. And to local caterers Little Lamonts, Mr Cannolo, Perth Bells and Juice Station for providing the sustenance throughout the day and local baristas from The Black Moustache Coffee Co. who provided the caffeine hits! 

From there we headed down the highway to Rockingham (aka “Rocko”) for sessions with another 80 business owners - and were joined by local Federal Member for Brand and Shadow Minister for Trade Madeleine King MP.

Caption: Madeleine King MP talks to Rockingham locals about the importance of digital skills 

It was great hearing feedback from locals at both events that they picked up something new - even though they were all at different stages in the digital journey.

A report released by AlphaBeta in September found that Google’s advertising and productivity platforms were helping more than a million Aussie businesses and had helped deliver business benefits of $35 billion so far this year - including supporting 13,300 West Australian jobs through our economic activity.

As we wrap up 2019 and reflect on what we’ve done and where we’ve been, we’re so thrilled to have worked with so many wonderful communities across Australia to learn and share new digital skills that will help people grow their businesses, careers and lives.

And we passed an important milestone, too, with Google now having trained more than half a million Aussies through our travelling digital skills workshops and other STEM outreach and curriculum support we are providing through the education system.

But there’s still much to do! We can’t wait to get back out on the road in 2020 to visit even more communities in all corners of the country, so that we’re supporting future jobs, economic growth and prosperity in Australia.

While the events have wrapped up for 2019, you can still access tips and resources online at http://g.co/GrowAustralia

A big thank you to the communities, business chambers, government agencies, the Walkley Foundation and the Google team who helped make Grow with Google a great success this year. See you in 2020!

Posted by Rebecca Mason, Grow with Google program lead, Google Australia 

Caption: Another 'first!' - Perth saw us welcome our first furry, four-legged friend to one of our digital skills workshops.

Tones and I named first Australian YouTube Artist on the Rise 

Many fans can tell you about the first time they heard an incredible new song or watched a groundbreaking video from a musical newcomer. Some of the most memorable moments with artists happen early.
To support and help more artists get discovered at every phase of their career, last year we launched a new monthly program called Artist on the Rise.
The program promotes a diverse lineup of music’s most important new voices across all genres, connecting them with fans worldwide through in-product promotion and programming, out-of-home, social and fan events at YouTube Spaces. The Artist on the Rise Trending tab also features three songs a week from emerging artists that are making a significant impact on YouTube.
For the first time, an Australian will be added to Artist on the Rise program -- Tones and I -- joining artists like Maggie Rogers, DaBaby, Rosalia and Jessie Reyez. Known for her alternative, roots-pop sound, soulful voice, and kooky, up-beat stage performances, Tones and I has entered the music industry at full force. In just ten months, she has gone from living in her van and busking on the streets of Byron Bay, to selling out global tours, and breaking Australian and global records.

She's grown from an aspiring artist whose YouTube channel had just 8,000 subscribers at the beginning of July this year, to become a star in her own right, with a current tally of 637,000 subscribers. But it’s not just her subscriber count that has taken off. Over this same period, Tones and I’s channel has grown from 1.3 million views to more than 254 million views. Dance Monkey has also spent nine weeks on YouTube’s global Music Charts, and is currently the top song.
Lyor Cohen, Global Head of Music at YouTube, said: “This song is WOW. The video has taken the world by storm and I think we can all now see the way Tones and I shines. I tried to come up with own ‘Dance Monkey’ routine and let's just say no one is begging to see me dance just one more time, and I should probably stick with being a record executive. We are excited to have Tones and I as our first Australian Artist on the Rise and to be a part of what comes next."
To close out and celebrate the HUGE year that Tones and I has had, she’s up for eight gongs at this year’s 2019 ARIA Awards in partnership with YouTube Music. Wishing her the best of luck at the Awards, with 2020 set to be even bigger and better!
To check out more from Tones and I, visit her artist page on YouTube Music, or visit @YouTubeMusic on social, for future updates on YouTube's Artist on the Rise program.

Posted by the YouTube Music team

Access to information is an essential part of any democracy. Today the Museum of Australian Democracy (MoAD) launched its new Truth, Power and a Free Press permanent exhibition, which begins a conversation about media and issues affecting democracies.

The Google News Initiative, along with the ABC, SBS, 7 and Nine have supported this exhibition which brings together stories from respected Australian journalists and objects from Australia’s media history.

One of the major installations of Truth, Power and a Free Press is a bespoke audiovisual installation that uses technology developed by Google’s Creative Lab in partnership with SBS Digital Labs.

The installation shares the complex challenges and motivations of 12 renowned Australian journalists in their own words, including Hedley Thomas, Ghassan Nakhoul, Chris Masters, Hamish MacDonald and Adele Ferguson.

The broader exhibition includes the printing press used by Sir Henry Parkes, Peter Greste’s letters smuggled to his family from an Egyptian prison, the protective vest worn by war photographer Neil Davis and more.

We’re pleased to have the opportunity to support MoAD and Truth, Power and a Free Press, and hope that it helps to inform visitors about the critical role of journalism and press freedom for years to come.

Posted by Nic Hopkins, News Lab Lead, Google Australia and New Zealand

Google headed to Adelaide and Kangaroo Island in South Australia last week to run digital skills workshops for businesses, community organisations, and locals looking to grow their businesses, organisations, careers and education.

It’s the first time the Grow with Google workshops have been held in Adelaide and Kangaroo Island, and it was great to see locals picking up new skills regardless of where they were on the digital journey.

Grow with Google in Adelaide 
First up, more than 200 Adelaide locals joined special training workshops in Glenelg. We were joined by Steve Georganas MP who officially opened the event.

Caption: Grow with Google visited Glenelg in Adelaide 

Local businesses learned how to grow their presence online and gain valuable insights about their customers — and individuals at all stages of the digital journey picked up new skills.

One Adelaide business that has been using digital tools to grow successfully is outdoor camping gear retailer, Snowys. They created an online shop in 2011 to complement their existing physical retail store, and it’s helped the company grow significantly. Today half of their employees work solely on fulfilling online orders.

Learning new STEM skills at Madison Park 
We also visited Madison Park School to help students prepare their FIRST LEGO League (FLL) team for the upcoming regional competition. Together with the FLL team from Pedare Christian College we ran through robotics missions and provided feedback on their innovative solutions to this year’s City Shaper challenge. We also spent time with the older students talking about careers in STEM and answering all their questions about Google and technology.

Caption: Googlers visited Madison Park School to help students prepare for competition.

With support from Schools Plus and Google, Madison Park has introduced a STEM learning program across all year levels, aiming to lift student engagement in STEM and develop teachers’ skills and confidence in incorporating STEM learning in the classroom.

Last year, Madison Park was not only able to participate in the FLL Competition for the first time, but they won the regionals to then earn a place at the Nationals in Sydney later that year! Through Schools Plus, Google is providing STEM education in schools across Australia, reaching more than 1300 students and 480 teachers.

Grow with Google Kangaroo Island 
Then it was on to Kangaroo Island where we ran workshops over two days for sixty local businesses and community organisations. It was great to see the locals picking up new skills they can put to use to grow their businesses and organisations beyond the Island!

Caption: Kangaroo Island locals joined Google experts for digital skills workshops 

A big thank you to South Australian Senator and Shadow Minister for Tourism Don Farrell and State Member for Mawson Leon Bignell for officially opening the event.

A report released by AlphaBeta in September found that Google’s advertising and productivity platforms were helping more than a million Aussie businesses and had helped deliver business benefits of $35 billion so far this year - including supporting 7,400 South Australian jobs through its economic activity.

Grow with Google aims to provide all Australians with access to digital skills training online and in-person, to help them make the most of the Internet. It includes an online learning hub accessible from anywhere, on any device, with hundreds of handy training modules. The next Grow with Google event will be held in Perth on 19 November. Find out more at: http://g.co/GrowPerth.

Posted by Hannah Frank, Public Policy Manager at Google Australia

We were thrilled to welcome forty Indigenous entrepreneurs and businesspeople to our Sydney headquarters today for digital skills workshops designed to help them grow their businesses further.

 The Grow with Google workshop was hosted in partnership with Supply Nation, and was the first one fully dedicated to empowering the Indigenous business community.

At today’s event, businesses learned how to grow their presence online and gain valuable customer insights, and individuals at all stages of the digital journey picked up new skills.

We know there are lots of opportunities for Australian businesses that have a strong online presence, and use the Internet to engage with customers and grow their business. But many aren’t sure how to go about it — so we hosted this event with the community to share digital tips and tools they can put to good use.

Vets on Call is a great example of a business that has been using digital tools to build awareness of their service and engage with customers effectively. Morgan Coleman, a Torres Strait Islander man and owner-founder of the company, created the mobile app which allows users to book veterinarians for home visits.

Google Australia has a Reconciliation Action Plan of which partnering with Indigenous communities to support their economic development and providing access to technology are key components.

Grow with Google aims to create opportunity for all Australians to grow their skills, careers, and businesses with free tools, training, and events. It includes an online learning hub accessible from anywhere, on any device, with hundreds of handy training modules.

A big thank you to Laura Berry, CEO of Supply Nation, and to the local Gadigal people and broader Indigenous business community who made this initiative possible.

Posted by Jean Magalhães, Small Business Marketing Manager, Google Australia

Australia is one of the most advanced public cloud markets in Asia Pacific (APAC) but there’s still plenty of room to grow and benefits to reap.

A new Boston Consulting Group (BCG) report commissioned by Google Cloud examined the public cloud’s economic impact in six APAC markets including Australia, and it reveals that public cloud adoption locally has the potential to contribute:

• A sizeable US$108 billion of GDP between 2019 and 2023—that’s about 1.5% of GDP when annualised and equivalent to over half of the mining industry’s annual contribution to the overall economy 
• Public cloud deployments have the potential to create as many as 26,000 jobs with an additional 47,000 jobs influenced over the next five years. When combined, that’s equivalent to 0.6% of the current workforce. 
• BCG outlines that continued regulatory support and deployment of government applications combined with an increase in the pool of digital talent—the GDP impact could rise by another 20% to US$130 billion with 53,000 jobs created and another 59,000 jobs influenced 

The power of the cloud 
At a firm level, the benefits of the public cloud are numerous; from boosting internal productivity, to creating a robust security environment and reducing the time to market for new products and services.

Large enterprise across a range of sectors including financial services, retail and media and gaming have been quick to adopt the public cloud and are already reaping the benefits. Case in point - ANZ Bank has embraced the public cloud to develop data-driven business insights for its institutional clients, finding that the ability to offer instant insight allows them to expand its services.There is also strong interest growing among traditional industries such as manufacturing and mining.

Public sector is leading by example through its cloud-first policy and improving citizen services through the cloud. For example, Australia Post is improving customer experiences with smart data analytics. BigQuery has given it visibility into every stage of the mail delivery process. Operations managers can now see what’s happening in sorting facilities in real time, helping to identify flow blockages almost instantly. With near real-time data analytics, Australia Post can free up valuable resources, act quicker and provide better service to the millions of Australians that rely on it everyday.

The cloud is also fast emerging as a platform for business to develop AI-driven solutions. Using machine learning through Google Cloud, and its own artificial intelligence-based platform, Brisbane-based medical technology firm Maxwell Plus processes more than 1GB of data per patient — across tens of thousands of patients — to diagnose medical conditions such as cancer and Alzheimer's disease quickly and accurately.

A driver of jobs 
As the public cloud gains momentum it is expected to contribute significantly to employment opportunities in Australia. This includes a combination of non-digital roles such as sales, marketing and human resources, as well as digital jobs such as cloud architects, developers, data and AI scientists. There is also incredible potential for additional jobs to be created as a result of second order effects of key industrial verticals that drive the economy.

With that said, when I speak to customers every day they tell me it’s no longer a question of whether the cloud makes sense, but how quickly they can move and access to skilled talent is critical. That’s why we’re committed to nurturing the next supply of cloud-savvy talent through our regularly Cloud OnBoard events which equip participants to thrive in a cloud-first workplace.

The fundamentals are set for Australia’s public cloud market to drive economic growth and advance digital transformation. Our Google Cloud Region in Sydney is supporting businesses to develop advanced digital capabilities and government agencies in enhancing citizen services - all the while providing these organisations Google Cloud’s world-class security. We look forward to working with Australian businesses and public sector organisations to drive the country’s economic growth and digital transformation.

By Colin Timm, Country Director of Australia and New Zealand