What is Google for India Digitization Fund?

Google and Alphabet CEO, Sundar Pichai has made an announcement to accelerate India’s digital economy by investing $10 billion in India over the next 5-7 years through its 'India Digitization Fund'.

In a good piece of news, tech giant Google will invest $10 billion in India over the next 5-7 years through its 'India Digitization Fund'. Google and Alphabet CEO, Sundar Pichai , made this announcement to accelerate India’s digital economy.

Earlier today, Sundar Pichai also interacted with Prime Minister Modi on a wide range of subjects. The main focus of the virtual meeting was to leverage the power of technology to transform the lives of the farmers, youngsters and entrepreneurs in India. Also, Sundar Pichai and Ravi Shankar Prasad, the Union Minister for Electronics and Information Technology will be participating in the sixth annual edition of 'Google for India'. 

The investment under this programme is aimed at four important areas as follows:

1- To enable affordable access and information for every Indian in the language they are familiar with-- Hindi, Tamil, Punjabi, Telugu, Kannada, etc. 

2- To build products that fulfil the unique needs of the Indians. 

3- To empower business as Indians continue to make efforts towards the digital transformation in the country.

4- leveraging technology and AI for social good, in areas like health, education, and agriculture. 

Amid the COVID-19 crisis, Google aims to digitalize all the things in India. It is known that India is the largest device manufacturing country in the world after China and Google is aiming to increase the internet user base. For this purpose, the tech giant is planning to bring low-cost smartphones to India. 

It also aims at improving online education and small businesses in the country. For the education purposes, the company has partnered with CBSE to train over 2 million teachers to adapt the online teaching culture. In addition to this, Google will also provide $1 million to Kaivalya Education Foundation (KEF) from Google.org to help the students get remote education, having less or no resources. 

For improving the business sector, Google has launched 'Grow with Google Small Business' in India. Additionally, the Mountain View company will conduct an edutainment series for small businesses in collaboration with Prasar Bharti. At present, 26 million Small and Medium Businesses are now discoverable on Search and Maps, driving connections with more than 150 million users every month.

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic and surging cases in India, more people are adapting to the digital tools for making payments, conducting meetings, buying groceries, etc. 

Google is committed to bringing the Internet to life for everyone in India. It believes that the more the people have access to tools, services, information and training online, the more they can pursue their ambitions and reach their potential.