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"Google.org, the philanthropic arm of Google, announced it's funding two new tech projects on Wednesday, one to encourage civic innovation and the other to open government data. \nThe larger of the two grants, a $2.1 million gift, was given to the Sunlight Foundation. The Foundation will use the money to grow its local programming, particularly to create consistant standards for open data in all U.S. cities.\nAnother $1.6 million was given to mySociety, a UK charity that builds open source codes for local authorities, governments and corporations. The grant money will be used to accelerate building new civic apps.\nMatthew Stepka, VP of Google.org, told Mashable that these two grants are an extension of Google.org's mission to create and spread technology solutions that can make a positive impact and combat major challenges.\nSEE ALSO: Google Fights to Save 3,054 Languages\n\n\"Both Sunlight Foundation and mySociety have proven track records in using the Internet to open up government data and deliver tools to civic developers,\" Stepka says. \"Their past work shows their success, and the new projects point to their ambition. They're both doing work that's foundational to the sector \u2014 the projects being funded by Google.org are connecting other players in the space and building a network that can allow for more new efforts to flourish.\"\nStepka notes that Google was already working on civic engagement and open data projects \u2014 such as its online election tools, Civic Information API and Kenya Elections Hub \u2014 prior to distributing these grants.\nImage courtesy of Flickr, brionv"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2013/01/16/google-org-sunglight-mysociety/>