The Yahoo! Employee Foundation (YEF) is a grassroots, philanthropic organization that brings together the talents, time, and financial resources of Yahoo! employees to serve the needs of communities around the globe.  Yahoos can not only volunteer their time, but they can work with YEF to champion grants for causes they are passionate about.  

Jill Sewill, a Sunnyvale-based Yahoo, wanted to help 200 music students achieve their dream of seeing a live symphony, so YEF - thanks to donations from Yahoos all over the world - made it happen!  

Check out this wonderful Thank You Video from the Washington Manor Middle School Music Boosters, who received a YEF grant to take a field trip to see the San Francisco Symphony.The kids had a great time, and it’s amazing to see the impact that grants can have when they are targeted through engaged Yahoo! Employee Champions!

At Yahoo!, Master Inventor Awards are given to recognize and reward some of the company’s top innovators. The criteria are not just about the number of patents, but also the inventor's contribution to innovation and their capacity and experience in mentorship. We had a chance to interview some of them on their great work and suggestions to junior inventors.

Why is Yahoo! a good place for developers and inventors?
Peter Mika: Yahoo! is a great place for inventors of all kinds. Yahoo! Labs in particular is unique in the industry in that it's renown both for scientific excellence externally and for having a huge impact on Yahoo!'s businesses.

Tarun Bhatia: It’s a great place for developers and engineers. There’s much room for creative solutions. We have many interesting problems with the potential of meaningful impact, large amounts of data, adequate resources, and a unique and fun culture. I love how many disciplines we embrace to solve our business challenges – economics, social sciences, artificial intelligence, distributed computing, etc. Each day is like being back in school, only better.

What are you working on now?
Tarun Bhatia: Right now, I’m trying to see if we can real-time assess how we affect a user with each interaction in a session. This has significant marketplace implications. Imagine how effectively we could delight our users and advertisers if every serve-time decision is consciously informed by this assessment.

What advice do you have for more junior inventors?
Ron Jacoby: Find something you are passionate about.  Work to really understand the current state of technology and business of that market. Find the opportunities that exist. Develop your ideas and plan. And never take No as a final answer; use it as feedback to further develop your ideas and pitch.

Tarun Bhatia: Best advice I received was - write it down. Apart from that, encourage yourself to cover a problem outside your area of focus with a fresh perspective. Think of where else your solutions may apply. Do this often.

Ricardo Baeza -Yates: Do not plan your life. Just do your best and unthinkable opportunities will cross your life path.

Yoelle Maarek: Think simple, think user. Don't think like an engineer or scientist – think about your mom, your kids, would they understand the value of your invention, would they want to use it.

By David Filo, Co-founder of Yahoo!

This past weekend, we celebrated Yahoo!’s 18th birthday. A birthday is a good time to reflect on the experiences that have helped shape you. This one is no different.

That’s why our birthday was the perfect time to bring together Yahoos from around the world for our quarterly Hackday. We created our first Hackday in 2005, bringing some of our most eager minds together in an all-night coding session. I’m proud that this tradition has continued.

Hackday Final Presentation at Sunnyvale                  

Hackdays are special for Yahoos -- as much a part of our history as our birthday itself. Hackers from all over the world come together for 24 hours to create something truly special. The experience is memorable, not only for the eccentricities, but also for the inspiring hacks that Yahoos create. Some hacks have become full-fledged products, like Yahoo! Weather for Android.
 

For our 18th birthday, we decided to turn our Hackday up a notch. We challenged hackers to focus on making our core products more inspiring, entertaining and innovative.

We were blown away by the number of Yahoos, diversity of hacks and creative energy. And, in fact, we broke a hack-to-product record by integrating the winning hack into our existing products within just a few days of its victory. This winning hack intelligently helps users find a web page when they have an incomplete URL for that page. Y! Canada News and Y! Sports blog are already live with this new feature.

 
Hackday Winners with David Filo and Yahoo! Develop Network

We also broke another record -- it was our biggest Hackday in the history of Yahoo!. Yahoos participated from nine offices across six time zones, all the way from Sunnyvale to Singapore, and from Norway to India.

We’re excited to turn our hacks into products, so stay tuned to see what’s in the pipeline.

Happy 18th Birthday, Yahoo!. Here’s to many more ..

The original post is from Yahoo! Yodel Blog

Our Hong Kong office recently became Ocean Park Conservation Foundation’s Online Conservation Partner for 2013.  We sponsored banner inventory on their portal for their annual Conservation Day fundraising, and are mobilizing our strong force of Yahoo! Charity+ members to give 252 man-hours for this meaningful cause.  Marine conservation has been a steady uptrend in Hong Kong in recent years, partly reflected by the phenomenon that more young couples are saying ‘no’ to shark fin soup at wedding banquets. 

The Conservation Day was recently held in January and this year’s theme was Seahorse Conservation. Jenny Li, acting general manager of Yahoo! Hong Kong (first left in the below picture) joined the event’s kick-off ceremony and received a thank you certificate from the Ocean Park Conservation Foundation on stage.

On the same weekend, 24 Yahoo! users joined forces at Ocean Park, delighting children and parents with colorful seahorse body paintings and a mini workshop teaching them how to make seahorse keychains with pipe-cleaners, while sharing with them the basics about seahorse conservation.  An exclusive dolphin encounter at the Park’s background vet center was arranged for the volunteers in return for their great effort.

Cleo Ma, one of the volunteers wrote to us after the event, saying: “Thank you very much for Yahoo!'s arrangement on Jan 12.  The event was very fruitful and I had a lots of fun volunteering at the game booth as well as the dolphins' visit!!  Once again, thanks for the enjoyable event and I look forward to hear from Yahoo! soon.”

This was our first CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) initiative in 2013.  Since its launch in Q2 2011, Yahoo! Charity+ has built up a membership base of over 1,200 members and has mobilized over 100 man-counts of users to participate in a range of CSR activities thus far.  We look forward to continuing our contributions to the well-being of our local community and offering more fun and meaningful experiences for Yahoo! Charity+ members.

SUNNYVALE, Calif. -- Yahoo! (NASDAQ:YHOO) today announced that it has appointed Marissa Mayer as President and Chief Executive Officer and Member of the Board of Directors effective July 17, 2012. The appointment of Ms. Mayer, a leading consumer internet executive, signals a renewed focus on product innovation to drive user experience and advertising revenue for one of the world's largest consumer internet brands, whose leading properties include Yahoo! Finance, Yahoo! Sports, Yahoo! Mobile, Yahoo! Mail, and Yahoo! Search.

Mayer said, "I am honored and delighted to lead Yahoo!, one of the internet's premier destinations for more than 700 million users. I look forward to working with the Company's dedicated employees to bring innovative products, content, and personalized experiences to users and advertisers all around the world."

Most recently, Mayer was responsible for Local, Maps, and Location Services for Google, the company's suite of local and geographical products including Google Maps, Google Earth, Zagat, Street View, and local search, for desktop and mobile. Mayer joined Google in 1999 as its 20th employee and led efforts for many of Google's most recognizable products, including the development of its flagship search product and iconic homepage for over 10 years. Mayer managed some of Google's most successful innovations, launching more than 100 features and products including image, book and product search, toolbar, iGoogle, Google News, and Gmail — creating much of the "look and feel" of the Google user experience.

Yahoo! Co-Founder David Filo said, "Marissa is a well-known, visionary leader in user experience and product design and one of Silicon Valley's most exciting strategists in technology development. I look forward to working with her to enhance Yahoo's product offerings for our over 700 million unique monthly visitors."

"The Board of Directors unanimously agreed that Marissa's unparalleled track record in technology, design, and product execution makes her the right leader for Yahoo! at this time of enormous opportunity," said Fred Amoroso, Chairman of the Board of Directors.

Mayer received her B.S. in Symbolic Systems and her M.S. in Computer Science from Stanford University, specializing in artificial intelligence for both degrees. She is credited as an inventor on several patents in artificial intelligence and interface design.

"Yahoo!'s products will continue to enhance our partnerships with advertisers, technology and media companies, while inspiring and delighting our users. There is a lot to do and I can't wait to get started," Mayer said.

About Yahoo!

Yahoo! is a technology-powered media company, creating deeply personal digital experiences that keep more than half a billion people connected to what matters most to them, across devices and around the globe. Yahoo!'s unique combination of Science + Art + Scale connects advertisers to the consumers who build their businesses. Yahoo! is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. For more information, visit the pressroom (pressroom.yahoo.net) or the company's blog, Yodel Anecdotal (yodel.yahoo.com).

Marissa Mayer Biographical Information

Marissa Mayer was most recently Vice President of Local, Maps, and Location Services at Google where she oversaw product management, engineering, design and strategy for the company's suite of local and geographical products, including Google Maps, Google Earth, Zagat, Street View, and local search, for desktop and mobile. She also curated the Google Doodle program, celebrating special events on Google's homepage around the world.

During her 13 years at Google, Marissa held numerous positions, including engineer, designer, product manager, and executive, and launched more than 100 well-known features and products. She played an instrumental role in Google search, leading the product management effort for more than 10 years, a period during which Google Search grew from a few hundred thousand to well over a billion searches per day. Marissa led the development of some of Google's most successful services including image, book and product search, toolbar, and iGoogle, and defined such pivotal products as Google News and Gmail. She is listed as an inventor on several patents in artificial intelligence and interface design.

Joining as the company's first female engineer in 1999, Marissa played an important role in developing Google's culture. Her contributions included overseeing the look-and-feel of the company's iconic homepage and founding the Associate Product Manager program, which has hired over 300 of the company's future leaders and is considered the industry's ideal standard in transforming new computer science graduates into executive leaders.

Prior to joining Google, Marissa worked at the UBS research lab in Zurich, Switzerland and at SRI International in Menlo Park, California. She graduated with honors from Stanford University with a B.S. in Symbolic Systems and a M.S. in Computer Science. For both degrees, she specialized in artificial intelligence. While at Stanford, she taught computer programming to more than 3000 students and received the Centennial Teaching and Forsythe Awards for her contributions to undergraduate education. In 2008, the Illinois Institute of Technology awarded her an honorary doctorate of engineering.

She has been honored with the Matrix Award by the New York Women in Communications, as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, and as "Woman of the Year" by Glamour magazine. For four years running, Fortune has named her one of the 50 Most Powerful Women in Business, including when at age 33 she was the youngest woman ever included on the list.

Marissa serves on the board of directors of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. She is also on the board of various non-profits, including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the San Francisco Ballet, and the New York City Ballet.

Yahoo! is the trademark and/or registered trademark of Yahoo! Inc. All other names are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

Yahoo!

Dana Lengkeek, 415-994-4008

danal@yahoo-inc.com

Source: Yahoo!
http://pressroom.yahoo.net/pr/ycorp/236553.aspx

• Ten new languages in Asia, including eight new languages in India alone.
• Twelve new languages in Europe, including Serbian, Hungarian, Bulgarian and Croatian.
• Several new markets around the globe, including South Africa, Belgium, Austria and Portugal.