When George Floyd died, Big tech companies reacted by committing to support black communities. The commitments followed widespread protests over the death of Floyd.
Many companies across the US started taking a look at their failures to support black communities and what they can do to improve opportunities for black employees and fight anti-black racism.
Today, as part of an announcement to invest $1 billion for Africa's Digital Transformation, Google announced that it will invest in Black-led start-ups in the continent by providing cash awards and hands-on support.
This is in addition to Google’s existing support through the Google for Startups Accelerator Africa, which has helped more than 80 African start-ups with equity-free finance, working space and access to expert advisors over the last three years.
Google also announced the launch of an Africa Investment Fund. Through this fund, the company will invest $50m in start-ups and provide them with access to Google’s employees, network and technologies to help them build meaningful products for their communities.
The planned $1billion investment announced today by Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet, will include enabling affordable internet access and building helpful products, investments in entrepreneurship and technology, empowering businesses as they continue or embark on their digital transformation, and renewed funding for non-profits.
The announcement expands Google’s ongoing support for Africa’s digital transformation and entrepreneurship. In 2017, Google launched its Grow with Google initiative with a commitment to train 10 million young Africans and small businesses in digital skills. To date, Google has trained over 6 million people across 25 African countries, with over 60% of participants experiencing growth in their career and/or business as a result.
Google has also supported more than 50 non-profit organisations across Africa with over $16million of investment and enabled hundreds of millions of Africans to access internet services for the first time through Android.
IOL Tech