Google Inc. has vastly benefited from globalization, so it is natural -- and laudable -- that they would want to give back to the citizens of the world with largesse through their philanthropic arm, Google.org. For all the positive impacts of globalization (cheaper consumer goods, the information revolution, greater transparency of rogue regimes through citizen journalism, a more integrated global economy), there have been drawbacks (the off-shoring of jobs, the spread of infectious diseases, a more integrated global economy). Mark Smolinski is Google's director of the Predict and Prevent Initiative, a global health program that channels tens of millions of Google's dollars and the company's in-house technology expertise -- think Google Maps and Google News -- tackling the problem of infectious disease. Those challenges, which used to be buried in the international section of the newspaper, are now only a plane ride away, as we were reminded by the bird flu pandemic.

HealthMap, for example, maps and distills information about outbreaks of disease from around the world. This open and free resource has been favorably reviewed by The Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association. HealthMap received a $450,000 grant in 2007 from Dr. Smolinski's global public service. Evan Ratliff of Wired profiles Smolinski this month:

"Smolinski faces a daunting landscape. More than 300 new diseases have emerged since 1940, many the result of jumps from wild animal to human. Outbreaks are expected to increase as environmental degradation thrusts humans into ever-closer contact with wildlife and as climate change alters the life cycles of disease vectors ... Meanwhile, older diseases are rapidly crisscrossing the planet. 'West Nile, which has been around in Africa since antiquity, appeared in 1999 in New York, and in three years it spread throughout the country,' Smolinski says. 'Now it is one of our endemic diseases.'

"Yet even though the next West Nile or HIV is just a plane flight away, the global public health system remains focused on responding to diseases after they've spread."

Google.org has given $5 million to InSTEDD (Innovative Support to Emergencies, Diseases and Disasters), another early detection non-profit focusing on humanitarian crises and global health. Google.org has also meted out a $2 million grant to Pratham, to improve the quality of education in India.

[Image: Remixtheory]