Nahimah Ajikanle Nurudeen
Google has said that it focus on the digital skills for Africa was to ensure that the programme impacted young people in positive ways with 1 million milestone already acquired relevant digital skills.
It would be recalled that Google on the 16th of April 2016 pledged to training 1 million Africans on digital skills within a year.
The goal was however, achieved within 11 months and has set itself to train even more Africans in digital skills in the coming year.
Growth Engine & Brand Lead, Sub-Saharan African, Bunmi Banjo hinted that Google has set new in the Digital Skills programme by assisting local communities further in several ways.
According to her, Google will provide offline versions of its online training materials to reach individuals and businesses in low access areas where it is unable to hold physical training sessions.
She said the technology giant firm will provide offline versions of the content in languages like Hausa, Swahili and IsiZulu.
She noted that, “Having 1 million digitally skilled young people in Africa is good for everyone. If young people have the right skills, they’ll build businesses, create jobs and boost economic growth across the continent.
“As we expand this initiative to reach more local areas across the continent, we hope to see more impact in everyday lives of Africans, Banjo added.”
Also, Google Nigeria country Manager Juliet Ehimuan-Chiazor said the Web is a driver of economic growth, and is transforming society as a whole, “people must be equipped, through training and reskilling to make use of the tools, and take advantage of it for entrepreneurship, employment and e-inclusion.
Our goal with this and previous web training initiatives is to enable more people across the continent better understand how to leverage the Web tools for growth – to give them access to better employment and/or the skills to start their own businesses. A digitally skilled Africa is good for everyone – for our economy, for entrepreneurs and individuals. And yes, good for internet companies like Google.”
The Digital Skills programme offers 89 courses through the online https://digitalskills.withgoogle.com/ portal, and Google works with 14 training partners covering more than 20 countries to offer face to face training.
The programme will also be addressing needs for small business owners, who are looking to better understand how to take advantage of the web across Africa. Google will add web-focused skills training for SMEs across Africa as part of this initiative.
