Google has just finished hosting a Virtual edition of “Google for India” event today. The 2020 event has a slew of measures including a $10 Billion digitization fund exclusively for India. Moreover, partnerships with the country’s education board (CBSE) training programs, $1 Billion for distance learning and more were announced.
Addressing the $10 Billion (~Rs.75,000 crores) investment in the Digitization fund. Sundar Pichai in his tweet said,
“We are proud to support PM Narendra Modi’s vision for Digital India”.
Through this fund, the company aims to help improve the country’s Digital Economy further. It will accelerate the adoption of digital services in the next five years. Along with it, expand the ease of doing business via services like Google Pay.
For starters, Google for India is an annual event Google usually makes announcements regarding products and services that cater to the regional audience.
Excited to announce #GoogleForIndia Digitisation Fund. Through it, we'll invest Rs 75,000cr or approx US$10B into India over next 5-7 yrs. We'll do this through mix of equity investments, partnerships & operational infrastructure in ecosystem investments: Google CEO @sundarpichai pic.twitter.com/hYT7ZQm9g6
— Prasar Bharati News Services (@PBNS_India) July 13, 2020
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Highlights of Digitization fund
In addition, Pichai also said that the investments will be done in the form of equity investments, partnerships, and operational, infrastructure and ecosystem investments. The focus of the fund will be on four key areas as state below:
- To enable affordable access and information to citizens via respective languages like Hindi, Tamil, Punjabi or any other.
- Build products and services that are relevant to the country’s needs.
- To empower more businesses as they continue to embark on their digital transformation.
- To leverage technologies and AI for social good in areas like Agriculture, Education and Health.
Moreover, Google also said that Android has contributed to 1.6 Million jobs in India according to an ICEA report. It launched a new edutainment series for MSME (Small and Medium businesses) in partnership with Prasar Bharati (via Doordarshan).
The series will focus on how to adopt digital tools and adapt to the current situation using an example for real-life business in a bid to make them go digital. This was followed by a “Teach from Home Hub” project for Teachers and students.
Teach from Home Hub, Distance Learning fund, and more
According to the project, a localised hub will be set up for teachers and students to have seamless connectivity, and thus, offer all study material at one place. Similarly, it was added that an investment of $12 Million on local education platform will help create high-quality content in the country.
Also, partnering with government’s CBSE, Google announced that it will enable 1 million teachers and 22,000 schools across India to “combine classroom approach with online learning”. This will be done using free tools like G Suite, Google Classroom, Youtube, and more” by 2020.
In conclusion, Indian Minister of communications, Electronics and IT, Ravi Shankar Prasad welcomed Google’s move of huge investment. After that, a $1 Million Grant through Global Distancing fund for helping teachers to deliver virtual education for students was also announced.
