Google For India 2020 Highlights: Digitalization fund for India, push for digital education and lot more

Google’s annual event “Google For India” is back. The Search engine giant hosted its sixth annual Google for India today but this time it was only a virtual event live stream on Youtube. Sundar Pichai, CEO, Google and Alphabet and IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad graced the first-ever digital edition of Google for India. During the virtual event, Google made a handful of India centric announcements biggest of them all was a Google for India Digitalization Fund. Here are all the major takeaways from the 6^th Google for India event.

1. Google for India Digitalization Fund

Google has announced a dedicated India digitization fund which will invest around Rs 75,000 crore or $10 billion in the country. The technology giant will be using money from this fund for equity investments, partnerships and operational infrastructure in ecosystem investments.

Google has outlined four focus areas including enabling affordable access to information in the local language, develop new products and services that fulfil India’s needs, take businesses digitally, and AI for social good in health, agriculture and education. Google will invest this money over the next 5 to 7 years.

2. Google leads fight against COVID 19 with G-Pay

Caesar Sengupta, Google Vice President Payments shared how Google helped more than 2 million users with G Pay nearby store spot feature. It enabled offline merchant with online discoverability and see what essential food items are in stock. Google also claimed to have helped 26 million small and medium businesses with digital visibility on Google Search in India.

3. Google Meet free for all till 30 September

Sapna Chadha, Google Senior Country Marketing Director India and Southeast Asia spoke about Google’s initiative in the education space including Teach for Home project. As per her, over 4 lakh educators benefit the from Teach From Home Hub. She also announced that Google Meet with premium features will be available for all till September 30.

4. Google teams-up with CBSE for tech-enabled learning for all

Another major announcement that emerged from today’s Google for India is a partnership between the Search engine giant and CBSE to further push for digital education. Google aims to enable 1 million teachers and 22,000 schools all over the country by the end of 2020. It will be done by using combining classroom approach with online learning” using free tools like G-Suite, Google Classroom, Youtube etc.

5. Google To produce an edutainment series for Prasar Bharati

Google has also announced a partnership with Prasar Bharti to educate small businesses on how to become a part of digital economy. Google will use Doordarshan to telecast an edutainment series on how small businesses can adopt digital tools and adapt to the current situation, using examples of real-life Indian businesses.