• The Economist, Friday, January 18, 2008 10:45 AM

Google philanthropy guru Larry Brilliant laid out his strategy for Google.org, the company's massive philanthropy initiative. It's an interesting one, too, because unlike, say the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Google.org will pursue for-profit ventures in addition to charitable ones. The project is funded by 1 percent of the company's equity, annual profits and employee time.

Dr. Brilliant became head of the project in February 2006. Described as an old hippy whose colourful past includes a stint as doctor of the Grateful Dead, Brilliant also has a history of running Silicon Valley tech firms and solving big-scale social problems with international associations like the World Health Organization.

Finding a direction for a mammoth, directionless project was no small task, although Brilliant has now whittled down over 1,000 ideas to just 11 that focus on the world's "biggest, most imminent, least well resourced problems." He describes the projects as "high-risk, high-return," delegating each of the 11 to different members of his 40-strong team. In broad terms, the projects revolve around fighting climate change, economic development in poor regions and creating warning systems for pandemics and other disasters.

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