Ten Australian charities have been awarded millions of dollars in grant money as part of a scheme to help charities use technology to improve the lives of Australians.
The grants of $500,000 were awarded to four Australian charities selected by a panel of judges.
A further $1.5 million was awarded to six other charities that were finalists in the competition.
One of the winners of the grant was the Australian Indigenous Mentoring Experience (AIME), which planned to use the money to develop an app teaching maths and science concepts to Indigenous students across the country.
The organisation's CEO, Jack Manning Bancroft, said the grant would greatly help to improve the number of Indigenous scientists completing high school.
"For a lot of Indigenous kids out there they kind of shut the door on their maths and science future in year nine and year ten, and close out a lot of careers in the future. So this game is about keeping that imagination open," he said.
More than 300 Australian charities applied for the grants, with 10 finalists sharing in the $3.5 million prize.
The Google Impact Challenge has been carried out in four other countries, but this is the first time Australia has taken part.
Google Australia Spokesman, Shane Treeves, said each of the grant recipients offered distinct and interesting technology concepts.
"The 10 finalists had ideas that were very innovative, scaleable to make a big impact on the communities they're working on, and using technology in a really creative way to make a big social impact," he said.
The Asthma Foundation of NSW, in conjunction with the Woolcock Institute, is one of the organisations receiving a $250-thousand grant.
They plan to create an app measuring air quality, and monitoring the breaths of users to detect the potential signs of an asthma attack.
"The app will use headphones to measure the sound of someone's breathe, and determine from that if their breathing is good or poor or deteriorating," says Asthma Foundation of NSW CEO, Michelle Goldman.
Economist, Tim Harcourt, says the Google Impact Challenge is part of a growing trend of corporate altruism in Australia.
"It hasn't been that common in Australia, it's quite a new thing," he said.
"We don't have the scale of the Gates foundation, or Warren Buffet in terms of wealth and in terms of population, but we're starting to see it now."
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