Award for Inclusion Research Program

Accessibility research is critical in its potential and opportunity to advance inclusive technology that can enable and improve access for diverse user populations. Google's mission ("Organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful") emphasizes the importance of accessibility at the company-level. Google works on a broad range of topics in accessibility to ensure that our technology is accessible and empowers people with disabilities to be socially engaged, productive, and independent. We are committed to research that advances the state-of-the-art in usable, useful, inclusive, and accessible technology. Google strives for broad inclusion through support for assistive technologies, and research and development that aids people with vision, hearing, speech, motor, and/or cognitive disabilities.

For our 2021 program, we call for proposals specifically in the areas of:

• Wearable computing and augmentative technology
• Inclusive remote communication and telepresence to aid in collaboration among people with and without disabilities
• Transportation and mobility
• Tools and techniques for cognitive inclusion

Algorithmic fairness is an interdisciplinary research area focused on understanding how the development, use, and impacts of algorithmic systems intersect with varying forms of inequality. Some of the fundamental research topics in this area revolve around critically examining current development practices and understanding how people, and in particular people from historically marginalized groups, interact with, and are impacted by, algorithmic systems.

For our 2021 program, we call for proposals specifically in the areas of:

• Quantitative or qualitative studies or methods that examine how historically marginalized groups are impacted by a particular technology
• Quantitative or qualitative studies or methods that examine datasets and/or methods dataset development (e.g., research that will serve historically marginalized data subjects, dataset labors, and downstream stakeholders of models derived from datasets)
• Novel algorithm or dataset development frameworks that promote responsible development practices

Higher education is the developmental environment for future computer scientists. Biases and discrepancies within higher education computing programs perpetuate into future generations of academia and industry as systemic biases in computing culture, technology, and products persist. Collaboration is responsible for far-reaching advances in computing, such as online communities like Wikipedia, open source software development projects, or teams of information workers in companies. Diverse and inclusive collaborations can create technology and products that are more inclusive of all users.

For our 2021 program, we call for proposals specifically in the areas of:

• Scalable and repeatable initiatives that foster equitable and inclusive undergraduate and graduate computing programs
• Training or curricula that computing faculty/instructors can use to effectively train the next generation of culturally competent leaders in computing
• Collaboration strategies to ensure that technological solutions meet the needs of a diverse set of users
• Scalable and repeatable interventions to help avoid technological solutions that might cause harm to historically marginalized groups
• Mitigating bias among collaborative teams
• Increasing belonging in collaborative teams

Participatory Machine Learning (ML) brings the tradition of participatory design to the specific requirements and processes of building ML and artificial intelligence (AI) systems. We believe a participatory approach that treats ML and AI system developers and their stakeholders as equals in the process of choosing which problems to solve, selecting data for model building, defining the success criteria for solutions, and ensuring solutions meet the needs of all stakeholders in a sustainable manner, is essential for a fair and equitable future. Research in this area will inform how Google and the tech industry can work with communities and policy makers to create AI and ML systems and policies that enable fair, equitable, and sustainable solutions that benefit all stakeholders.

For our 2021 program, we call for proposals specifically in the areas of:

• Increasing participation of stakeholders from historically marginalized groups in the development and deployment of ML and AI systems and policies
• Boundary objects (e.g., open source tools, industry guidelines, simulations and visualizations, art or installations) that bring disparate stakeholder groups together
• New ways to contextualize and examine the applications of ML and AI systems in local cultural and regulatory contexts
• Examining the power dynamics (and their implications) that exist between ML and AI developers and the policy makers and communities affected by what they build.

We welcome researchers from any field that prioritizes participation and co-creation with stakeholders in their work to apply.