Sundar Pichai pledges $175 million to help black entrepreneurs

Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai has announced to give over $175 million toward supporting Black business owners, startup founders, job seekers and developers.

The new funds are in addition to YouTube's $100 million fund to amplify Black creators and artists.

"Beyond our products, we know that racial equity is inextricably linked to economic opportunity," Pichai said in a statement late Wednesday.

The new funds include $50 million in financing and grants for small businesses, focused on the Black community, $100 million in funding participation in Black-led capital firms, startups and organizations supporting Black entrepreneurs, $15 million in training and $10 million to help improve the Black community's access to education, equipment and economic opportunities in its developer ecosystem.

"This commitment builds on our recent $125 million Grow with Google Small Business Fund that is helping underserved minority and women-owned small businesses across the US," informed Pichai.

Pichai said the Google is working to improve Black representation at senior levels and committing to a goal to improve leadership representation of underrepresented groups by 30 per cent by 2025.

The company is establishing a new talent liaison within each product and functional area to mentor and advocate for the progression and retention of Googlers from underrepresented groups.

"We're working to create a stronger sense of inclusion and belonging for Googlers in general and our Black community in particular," said Pichai.

The company said it will also establish a range of anti-racism educational programmes that are global in view and able to scale to all Googlers.

"We plan to roll out this training globally by early next year. We'll also integrate diversity, equity, and inclusion into our mandatory manager trainings," informed Pichai.

He also launched Google for Startups Accelerator for Black Founders, a three-month digital accelerator programme for high potential Seed to Series A startups.

"We're also committing nearly $3 million to help close the racial equity gaps in computer science education and increase Black representation in STEM fields," said Pichai.