Google announces $25 million grant for Global Impact Challenge for Women, Girls

Google on the eve of International Women’s Day hosted its first Google for India event for the year in the country today. At the event, the company announced the culmination of its Internet Saathi initiative that was inaugurated by Alphabet Inc CEO Sundar Pichai at the first Google for India event back in 2015.

Google said that in the six since its launch, the Internet Saathi initiative has trained women across 300,000 villages in the country and benefitted over 30 million women across rural India using the non-stop efforts of over 80,000 women trainers called Internet Saathis.

Apart from this, the company introduced a new Women Will web platform in India. This program is available in English and in Hindi and it is designed especially for women aspiring to explore entrepreneurship. Google said that through a “how to” curriculum on turning an interest into a business, managing an enterprise, and promoting it for growth, the Women Will web platform will provide guidance and support to women who want to convert an existing hobby or talent such as tailoring, beauty services, home tuition and food processing into some income.

The company said that it will work with 2,000 Internet Saathis to help other women gain from this resource and start on their entrepreneurial journey.

In addition to this, Google’s philanthropist’s arm, Google.org announced a $25 million grant as a part of the Global Impact Challenge for Women and Girls. Google said that under this initiative, Google.org will provide $25 million in overall funding to nonprofits and social organizations in India and around the world that are working to advance women and girls' economic empowerment and create pathways to prosperity. Selected Impact Challenge grantees will also receive mentoring from Googlers, Ad Grants, and additional support to bring their ideas to life. The last date to apply for this challenge is April 10.

Additionally, Google today announced a partnership with the NASSCOM Foundation. As a part of this partnership, the company will provide $500,000 in funding to the foundation via Google.org. With this support, the NASSCOM Foundation will reach 100,000 women agri workers with digital and financial literacy training in Chamoli and Rudraprayag in Uttarakhand, Solan and Mandi in Himachal Pradesh, Agra, Bulandshahr and Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh, Chittorgarh and Jaisalmer in Rajasthan, Muzaffarpur in Bihar, and Mewat in Haryana. The foundation will also set up a helpline where women agri workers will be able to call and get further counselling on their entrepreneurship related queries.

NASSCOM Foundation says that once trained, the women farmers will be able to operate smartphones with ease, use social media for their benefit, and find reliable government apps and websites for relevant schemes. They will also be able to save, protect and grow their personal finances and transact digitally. In addition, they will be able to create direct market linkages for both buying raw material and for selling produce and will be able to streamline their operations and logistics.