One of the big reasons why Google is such a successful company is because of the way it drives innovation and how it generates great ideas out at the shortest amount of time possible. This month, as Google celebrates it’s 10th birthday, it unveiled yet another huge project as part of its push to help change the world by helping as many people as possible. Project 10^100, pronounced Project 10 to the 100th, asks any individual from anywhere in the world to submit their ideas until October 20, 2008, for ways to improve life and bring happiness to the largest number of people possible. And as a reward, Google has committed up to $10M to fund the 5 best ideas that come out of the initiative.

So how does it work? You can visit the link above for the complete details of the project. But in summary, Google will choose the 100 best ideas it feels should be included from the submissions. And then it will let users vote on which out of the 100 should be short-listed to the 20 finalists. A panel of judges made up of five to seven individuals who are experts in the required categories will then choose the FIVE ideas that will receive funding. The categories for the project include, but are not limited to, community, energy, environment, health, education, shelter and opportunities for people to better provide for themselves and their families.You can view the complete category list and descriptions for each, HERE.

Google said that the ideas can be big or small, and does not have to be technology-driven either. It just needs to have a very positive impact on the world. One of the examples of such an idea that is helping change the world was from a company that invented the Hippo Water Roller. It enabled millions of people to carry water across long distances using a relatively inexpensive 24-gallon container that could be easily wheeled on the ground. So what used to take a lot of time, not to mention a lot of pain, in moving water from one place to another was totally alleviated, and helped make the lives of thousands much easier.

I’m pretty interested to try and figure out what idea I could have that may actually help change the world. Who knows, maybe you have one too. The great thing about it is that Google enables you to do this now. We all know that sometimes great ideas are set aside because there’s just no way you could do it yourself. So with this initiative, Google tries to help change the world in the way that they can. As their tagline for the project says, goodluck, and “May Those Who Help the Most Win.”