Google has announced the creation of a foundation with the explicit goal of “giving on world poverty and the environment, an unusual move in the world of corporate philanthropy, which usually picks safer causes such as education.”

One of the most interesting aspects of the fund is that it will support for-profit enterprises.

``They're taking the approach of, `Let’s spend a little bit of money to figure out what would be the best way to spend a lot more money,' in the hopes of creating a philanthropic organization that could ``eclipse Google itself in terms of overall world impact.''