2013-09-16

Originally published on 1Sun4All.

Solar Impulse reports that the Silicon Valley–based Internet company known as Google (heard of it?) has become Solar Impulse’s official Internet Technology Partner. To commemorate this, the Solar Impulse team will take its Google+ URL (google.com/+solarimpulse) to new heights on the side of their Swiss Solar Impulse airplane. 

The following is an official Solar Impulse news release:

Google and Solar Impulse Enter Into a High Level Partnership



Across America, Larry Page, Google CEO, visits Solar Impulse | André Borschberg, Bertrand Piccard and Larry Page posing in front of Solar Impulse | Moffett Field hangar in Mountain View, California, USA | 13.04.2013 | © Solar Impulse | Ackermann | Rezo.ch

This formal partnership is an important step in bringing Solar Impulse closer to its ultimate goal of flying around the world using only solar energy in 2015.

According to Dr. Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg, Co-Founders of Solar Impulse:

This partnership is a unique occasion to promote mutually shared values like pioneering spirit, innovation, engineering excellence and clean technologies allowing to protect natural resources. With Google on board, our reach with the public, younger generations, media and political and business decision makers will be significantly enhanced.

The partnership comes out of the successful collaboration between Google and Solar Impulse this past summer during the Across America Mission. Solar Impulse will continue to leverage its multimedia and online activities across various Google platforms including YouTube, Google Hangouts, Google+, Google Glass and Google Earth in order to better communicate with its supporters.

Google+ will be Solar Impulse’s preferred social media channel and Google Hangouts broadcasted live during flight missions will bring the public closer to the pilots.

The following is from an earlier post on Solar Impulse.com:

During Larry Page’s visit to Solar Impulse at Moffett Field, California last spring, we could sense his excitement and interest in our endeavor. We began to imagine all the things we could do together. And we’d already done a lot together during our Across America mission. A good part of our success in being able to reach out to the public came from using several key Google platforms. Many of you followed the Google Hangout, which was streamed live with James Cameron, Erik Lindbergh and Elew during our last leg from Washington DC to New York City. It’s not a surprise that so many of you joined us for this flight, as Solar Impulse was featured on Google’s home page, an unprecedented offering and service.

Financially, this is also an important milestone in our program. It marks a new chapter and illustrates the interest raised worldwide by Solar Impulse as we have now a large US company joining our existing Swiss and European Partners.

It’s always the same: when we fly in Europe we are Swiss, but when we fly in the USA, we become global! Yes, the Across America mission last summer was a complete success.

Google Teams Up With The Solar Airplane, Solar Impulse was originally published on: CleanTechnica.

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