Tech & Biz

Indian Kid Got 1/20th of what American Kid Got in Google Contest

by swu | November 16, 2009 at 05:16 pm

138 views | 21 Recommendations | 1 comment

A kid in India got only 1/20th of what an American kid got in the same Google doodle design contest. Is Google being a bit too cheap?

Puru Pratap beat other kids in India and got a laptop and $2,100 (US) for his school. Sounds great until we learned what the US contestant got. In the US, the winner of the same contest got a laptop, $15,000 for herself, and $25,000 for her school.

Admittedly, an Indian rupee will buy more in India than the dollar in USA. But if the American child can get $15,000 towards their college education, why should not the Indian child also get a minimum of $2000 towards their education? Why $2100 for the winner’s school in India and $25000 for the same school in USA?

The difference in prize was 19 times:
$40,000 / $2,100 = 19.05

Even if we take the laptop into consideration, the difference is still huge. Assuming the laptop costs $500:
$40,500 / $2,600 = 15.58

I hate to say this, but I think engineers at Google must have done a similar calculation when deciding the prizes.

According to reports published by the World Bank, the GDP per capita for the US and India in 2008 were $46,716 and $2,972 respectively. The difference is 15.72 times:
$46,716 / $2,972 = 15.72

The income gap matched the prize gap actually quite closely.

Maybe it's a rational decision, but still, you can do better, Google.