Imagine you were a young boy, napping beside your brother on a train. Now imagine that you awoke to find the train car empty and hurtling into the unknown. 26 years ago in India, Saroo Brierley became separated from his family. He was then taken to Australia and adopted.

Brierley longed to return home, but he knew nothing about his origins. Then, one day, he began to explore Google Earth, hoping that pictures online would match those in his memory. It was like searching for a needle in a hay stack, but it worked. Eventually, Google Maps led Brierley to his mother’s front door (you can read about the amazing journey in Vanity Fair). And now Google has made Brierley’s story into the branded short, Homeward Bound. The spot demonstrates Brierley’s belief that “everything we have in the world is at the tap of a button.”



