You go, Google

If you haven’t spent any time on Google Earth, you should – and not just to check out your house. It’s a pretty interesting programme, an interactive globe with some cool high resolution satellite imagery.

Recently, however, Google did something rather special with it, which I think everyone with a social or political conscience should check out. Next time you’re on Google Earth, rotate the globe to Africa. You’ll see a section in the centre-east of the continent highlighted in orange – the only such highlighting on the globe.

Curious? Zoom in, and you’ll see it’s the Darfur region of Sudan. Zoom in further to find an incredibly detailed, incredibly interesting and incredibly depressing multi-media experience describing the conflict in Darfur. Locations of razed villages, photos of burning huts, names, dates and eyewitness accounts – it’s all there.

Will it make a difference, help raise the profile of an ongoing genocide that’s largely ignored? Maybe not. But Google gets big kudos in my books for trying. That’s corporate social responsibility at its best.