How can Google help the Japanese earthquake victims?Just after the earthquake, we went to the disaster site and found out that the tsunami has wiped out not only people's houses, but also photos and movies that were stored in tapes, albums and computers hard disks.

Thus the memories of the victims have been lost.If they lose their past, it’s difficult to move forward to the future.Because memories give us hope for the future. They let us know who we were in the past, how we were supported, families, friends, home town, and experiences.Our challenge was to 'Recover the Memories' of the victims

A project uniting everyone to bring back the memories lost in the disaster.

First we created a website where the victims can submit memories they want to recover, because this project could not be done by Google alone and needed the victims to initiate requests.Moreover we set up 45 post boxes at 45 refuges within the disaster site, so one can submit their memory in hand writing, if they cannot access the internet.

We then uploaded that to the website.Then we spread the requests all over Japan through newspaper ads, banner ads, and TVCs. We made a system where people from all over Japan can react to the victim’s request by uploading photos and movies onto YouTube and PICASA.We also created a system with street view where people can compare the city before and after the disaster.

People all over Japan answered to the voices of the victims.The website went over 5,000,000PV. More than 20,000 photos and movies where gathered.

This resulted in Google's first-ever integrated campaign to combine analogue post boxes and digital technology.We proved that the power of cyber can move the people and contribute to changing the real world.

This project will keep on going, until all the victims recover their past memories, and gain hope for their future.