Google has announced its Google for Africa 2022 virtual event which will hold from October 5-7th.
What is the event all about?
The event, is the second instalment of the $1 billion 5-year investment plan launched in October 2021 to support the African Digital Transformation Framework. The investment is set to cover a wide range of initiatives from improving connectivity to investing in African startups.
This year’s event will see 13 keynote speakers from across Africa who will deliver good news to the participants in addition to hosting the following masterclass sessions:
• Accessibility & Inclusion: Building inclusive products.
• AI for Social Good: Bringing the benefits of AI to everyone.
• Google Ads: Advertising with the full Funnel Approach.
• Careers: The path to Google.
• Google Cloud: Introduction to Google Cloud Platform.
• Google Cloud: Digital Transformation with Google Cloud.
• Google Cloud: Big Data, AI and Machine Learning.
• Google Cloud: How to become a Google Cloud Partner.
• Google Cloud: Application modernisation.
• Google Cloud: Infrastructure modernisation.
• Google for Nonprofits: Introduction to Google for Nonprofits.
• Small & Medium Businesses: Learn how to use digital tools to bring your business value to life.
• YouTube: Getting started on Youtube Shorts.
The goal of this investment:
There are four key areas of support that the investment is targeted at. They include:
• Enabling affordable access and building products for every kind of African user.
• Helping businesses with their digital transformation
• Investing in entrepreneurs to spur next-generation technology.
• Support nonprofit organizations working to improve lives across Africa.
Some of Google’s contributions to Africa’s digital transformation so far:
Since launching Google’s first African office in 2007, the technology company has enabled 100 million Africans to access the internet and provided millions of businesses and creators with digital tools.
From 2017 to 2021, it was also able to train 80,000 developers from every country in Africa and support more than 80 startups in raising global venture capital funding. Thus, a total of 6 million people were trained.
In 2018, the company went so far as to build an Artificial Intelligence (AI) Research Center in Accra, Ghana, where it uses AI to map buildings that are difficult to detect using traditional tools and add 200,000 kilometres of roads on Google Maps.
What the organisers are saying:
At the first Google for Africa event last October, the company’s CEO, Sundar Pichai said, “One thing we’ve seen is how technology can be a lifeline, whether you are a parent seeking information to keep your family healthy, a student learning virtually or an entrepreneur connecting with new customers and markets. Being helpful in these moments is at the core of our mission: to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”
“Expanding opportunity through technology is deeply personal to me. That’s because I grew up without much access to it. Every new technology — from the rotary phone to the television — changed my family’s life for the better. That’s why I’m a technology optimist. I believe in how people can harness it for good,” he added.
To register or learn more about the Google for Africa 2022 event, click here.
