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Google Announces Plan To Invest $1B In Africa
Google today announced a plan to invest $1 billion over five years to support AfricaāsĀ digital transformation. The investment focuses on enabling fast, affordable internet access for moreĀ Africans, building helpful products, supporting entrepreneurship and small business, and helpingĀ nonprofits to improve lives across Africa.
The announcement was made at Googleās first-everĀ Google for Africa event, held virtually and live-streamed.
It expands Googleās ongoing support for Africaās digital transformation andĀ entrepreneurship. In 2017, Google launched its Grow with Google initiative with a commitment toĀ train 10 million young Africans and small businesses in digital skills.
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Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet, said, āWeāve made huge strides together over the past decade — but thereās more work to do to make the internet accessible, affordable and useful for every African. Today Iām excited to reaffirm our commitment to the continent through an investment of $1B over five years toĀ support Africaās digital transformation to cover a range of initiatives from improvedĀ connectivity to investment in start-ups.ā
To date, Google has trained overĀ 6 million people across 25 African countries, with over 60 per cent of participants experiencing growth inĀ their career and/or business as a result. Google has also supported more than 50 nonprofits acrossĀ Africa with over $16 million of investment and enabled hundreds of millions of Africans to accessĀ internet services for the first time through Android.
Nitin Gajria, Managing Director for Google in Africa addedĀ āI am so inspired by the innovative African tech start-up scene. In the last year, we have seenĀ more investment rounds into tech start-ups than ever before. I am of the firm belief that noĀ one is better placed to solve Africaās biggest problems than Africaās young developers andĀ start-up founders. We look forward to deepening our partnership with, and support for,Ā Africa’s innovators and entrepreneurs.ā
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The planned $1billion investment announced today by Pichai, in a nutshell, includes
- Enabling affordable internet access and building helpful products,
- Building global infrastructure – the subsea cable Equiano will run through SouthĀ Africa, Namibia, Nigeria and St Helena, connecting Africa with Europe,
- A collaboration with Safaricom and other partners to launch Device Financing to enable access to smartphones,
- Plus Codes (a free and open-source addressing system to provide addresses for all) in Kenya, South Africa and others,
- Investments in entrepreneurship and technology through a Black Founders Fund where Google will invest in Black-led startups in Africa,
- Empowering businesses in collaboration with the non-profit organisation Kiva, who Google is providing with $10million in low-interest loans to help small businesses and entrepreneurs in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa to get through the economic hardship created by COVID-19.
- Renewed funding for nonprofits.