Google has announced new tools to help businesses, job
seekers, educational institutions and vulnerable populations to recover
from the impact of the Covid-19 crisis.
The initiatives address the need for funding, training and
services across various sectors, including support for 500,000 small and medium
enterprises (SMEs) and 25,000 teachers.
Among other, Google has set up a digital
hub to provide free tools and resources to businesses and
individuals. Google South Africa country director Alistair Mokoena says the hub
will help 500,000 small businesses get online or improve their digital presence
through Google My Business (GMB), which helps businesses connect with users.
“Small businesses have been hardest hit during this period,”
he says. “Many of them have had to figure out quickly how to pivot their
operations to a ‘digital-first’ approach. Yet, there remains a gap between
those who can access these online opportunities and those who can’t. That’s the
gap we want to bridge with this initiative.”
Asked
whether the initiatives could suffer the same fate as Google’s Woza Online project
that gave 40,000 businesses websites in 2012, only for the plug to be pulled
just over two years later, Goolge spokespersons gave the assurance that that
the resources were “definitely here to stay”. The initiative, they
said, was supported by a “massive team”.
Google is launching a new Marketing
Kit tool to help people to put together marketing kits for their
businesses, along with a Market Finder tool, which includes insights for negotiating a post-Covid
environment. It will help with localisation, international payments and
logistics for African businesses looking to reach new customers around the
world. Using information from their Google
My Business profile, the tool helps businesses
keep customers informed with news, and to create custom posters and social
posts.
In an effort to help job seekers acquire new skills while they
look for opportunities, Google is providing underserved communities and job
seekers with R12.5-million ($750,000) in IT
support scholarships through Google.org across Africa. Job seekers can also access the Grow with Google training portal for help in growing their careers or businesses at their
own pace and through flexible and personalised training courses.
For educational institutions and teachers, Google is working with partners
across Africa, through Google
for Education, to help deploy its suite of education products in schools, aiming at
helping 500,000 students continue learning. To help teachers keep teaching,
Google aims to give 25,000 educators access to free
online training sessions and resources, such as Teach From Anywhere.
Google.org has set aside R50 million ($3 million) in grants to
nonprofits that support education, entrepreneurship and women empowerment
across Africa. R8.3 million ($500,000) of that is going towards a grant
to the Praekelt Foundation (a software development non-profit that builds open-source,
scalable mobile technologies and solutions to improve the health and wellbeing
of underprivileged people) in order to help train micro and small businesses in
South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria.
An additional R8.3 million ($500,000) grant is going to Youth
Employment Services in order to provide
twelve-month employment opportunities and digital skills to young black people
in South Africa.
