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By Chinenye Anuforo and Chinwendu Obienyi, Lagos
In its bid to accelerate the digital transformation of the African continent, Google Africa has reiterated its commitment to powering Africa’s technological ecosystem via its $1 billion commitment investment plan by launching the continent’s first Cloud region.
This was even as Google revealed that as part of its ongoing effort to deliver cheaper and faster connectivity to more people in Africa, its Equiano Subsea Cable which is linked to Togo, Nigeria, Namibia and South Africa, will start operations by the end of 2022.
The Managing Director, Google Africa, Nitin Gajria, disclosed this via Zoom during a press round-table engagement with selected journalists across African Countries, including Nigeria in Lagos on Wednesday.
Whilst expressing excitement, Gajria, noted that the newly launched Cloud region will have Google’s first data region in Africa with interconnecting centres in Kenya and Nigeria, adding that this will help businesses, especially in Nigeria accelerate their transformational ability digitally.
Gajria said, “Last year, we had announced a $1bn commitment towards supporting digital transformation and we stated that it is going to be a 5-year journey and the ongoing effort to deliver cheaper and faster connectivity to more people in Africa, have helped us land with Equiano subsea cable now linked to Togo, Nigeria, Namibia, and South Africa. It will begin operations by the end of 2022. Once operations start, it will have a massive knock-on effect in terms of generating jobs, cost and speed of data as far as the digital economy in Nigeria is concerned.
Another one is the impact of initiatives like the $4 million Google for Startups Black Founders Fund to support 60 African startups, and grants from the Africa Investment Fund to SafeBoda, Carry1st, and Lori Systems. These will have a positive effect on the start-up ecosystem and this will help the market flourish. Thus, there is a need to grow the ecosystem and we need more developers because, without developers, there is no successful technological or start-up ecosystem. This is why we have been investing in developers for the past 7 years and we have seen growth in that area”.
When quizzed on the amount spent so far, he said, “We are well ahead of 20 per cent of time elapsed as regards how much we have committed so far as far as the development of eco-infrastructures is concerned.”
Gajria also noted that the company is collaborating with governments, policymakers, NGOs, telcos, business leaders, creators and media to ensure that the digital transformation of the African continent is accelerated while adding that it is the talent and drive of the individuals in the countries and communities of Africa that will power Africa’s economic growth.
For his part, Director, Google Cloud Africa, Niral Patel, Director of Google Cloud Africa said: Google Africa believes in growing an open and healthy ecosystem of technology solutions to support Africa’s digital transformation goals which will lead to more opportunities for businesses.
He said, “It is part of our company-wide ethos to respect the environment, which is why we operate the cleanest cloud in the industry, supporting sustainable digital transformation,” he added. “Along with the cloud region, we are expanding our network through the Equiano subsea cable and building Dedicated Cloud Interconnect sites in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Lagos and Nairobi. In doing so, we are building full-scale Cloud capability for Africa.”
Earlier this year, Google announced plans to open its first African product development centre in Nairobi to develop and build better products for Africans and the world.
Today, Google announced the launch of voice typing support for nine more African languages in Gboard, the Google keyboard (isiNdebele, isiXhosa, Kinyarwanda, Northern Sotho, Swati, Sesotho, Tswana, Tshivenda and Xitsonga) – while 24 new languages are now supported on Google Translate, including Lingala, which is used by more than 45 million people across Central Africa.
To make Maps more useful, Google also refreshed Street View in Kenya, South Africa, Senegal and Nigeria with nearly three hundred thousand kilometres of imagery.
