by Paul Smith

Technology giant Google and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade will put up millions of dollars in grants for non-profit organisations looking to use innovative technology to increase their impact.

Grants totalling $6.5 million will be on offer to organisations entering the Google Impact Challenge, with online entries opening on Wednesday and winners announced in October.

Google is spearheading the initiative having previously run an Impact Challenge locally in 2014. It is putting up $4.5 million, which will be split by 10 winning entries. Four winners will pick up $750,000 grants, with six other finalists receiving $250,000 each.

DFAT is on board for this year's contest, offering four additional $500,000 grants for projects that use technology to make a social impact internationally. 

Google Australia's director of engineering Alan Noble will be one of the main judges, and said an important part of the prize for winning organisations would be access to mentoring for specialists, including Google's engineers to help deliver the projects.

"Some of the previous winners have continued to do amazing things, and we are anticipating many more entries this time than we got in 2014, due to higher awareness," Mr Noble told The Australian Financial Review.  

"It is a common issue in the non-profit sector that there are fantastic intentions and amazing work, but no access to the technical capabilities that they need ... so getting access to Google engineers is a big thing as they are as rare as hen's teeth, so it is quite valuable."

Mr Noble said the entries could come from any area, ranging from new technology to help domestic violence victims during a crisis or an innovative way to provide scalable health care for Australia's ageing population.

He said technology could help solve some of the world's most pressing challenges, and highlighted ongoing efforts of some of 2014's contest winners to demonstrate the broad scope for entries. 

Previous winners included Fred Hollows' low-cost mobile camera to detect and prevent blindness caused by diabetes and Infoxchange's web app called Ask Izzy, which connects homeless people with social services.

Online entries, which can be submitted here, close on July 13, with finalists announced in October. Google will then run a public vote for the favourite idea and a judging panel will select the other three winners.

Its judging panel includes David Gonski, Lucy Turnbull, Layne Beachley, Melissa Doyle, Alan Noble, and head of Google's global charitable organisation Google.org Jacquelline Fuller.