Although Google Cloud officially launched a program for non-profit groups, called Data Solutions for Change, at the just-concluded Next conference in San Francisco, that doesn’t mean eligible organizations need to wait for results. Several groups are already up and running in the cloud with Google LLC’s support.

The Foundation for Precision Medicine has been using Google Cloud to drive and develop projects in personalized healthcare. “Now we are able to run our models and entire data sets,” said Ayin Vala (pictured, right), chief data scientist of the Foundation. “In precision medicine that’s very important because you want to get the entire population to make models more accurate.”

Vala spoke with John Furrier (@furrier) and Jeff Frick (@JeffFrick), co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the Google Cloud Next event in San Francisco. He was joined by Carol Carpenter (pictured, left), vice president of product marketing at Google Cloud, and they discussed how the new program provides needed computing resources to non-profits and ways that the cloud has helped precision medicine. (* Disclosure below.)

Groups receive cloud credits

The Google-sponsored program is designed to support non-profits seeking to leverage data analytics tools to support a community cause. Groups can receive need-based Google Cloud credits of up to $5,000 per month for a maximum of six months, while taking advantage of Google’s self-training Qwiklabs and the company’s development support.

“To be able to do what [Vala] is doing requires a lot of computational power to be able to get that precise,” Carpenter said. “One of our key messages at this event is making computing available for everyone.”

The field of precision medicine involves the discovery of patterns among specific populations to create predictive models for treatment and prevention of illness. Tapping major data sets using just an on-premises network became a burden and limited the amount of sharing the Foundation could to with clinical researchers.

“Being on the cloud really helped us collaborate much more smoothly,” Ayin said. “Before, it would take us months to transfer data.”

Google Cloud would like to scale up its Data Solutions for Change initiative and is encouraging applicants. “We welcome all nonprofits to apply,” Carpenter said. “If they have a clear objective and a data problem that they want to solve, we would love to help them.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the Google Cloud Next event. (* Disclosure: Google Cloud sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither Google Cloud nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE