Google India to bring 50 million women online in one year

Immediately after the powerful 'Reunion' ad campaign for Google Search in India, search engine giant Google has launched a new campaign called 'Helping Women Get Online', an initiative where it hopes to bring 50 million women in India on the internet by 2014.

The initiative will focus on creating awareness about the benefits of internet for women, educate them to use the internet to improve their lives and work with partners to enable easy internet access points for women in the country. In the first stage of the initiative, Google will launch a mass media campaign targeted at women and promote the specially designed website which will host content covering the very basics of internet and special content that is relevant for women in India, available both in Hindi and English. Women will also be able to call a toll free helpline number 1800 41 999 77 to get answers for any queries that they may have about the internet.

[caption id="attachment_1242115" align="alignleft" width="380"] The website will host content covering the very basics of the internet and special content relevant for women in India[/caption]

Yonca Brunini, Global Lead, Tech For Good and VP, Marketing Google, said, "We are very excited to launch this first-of- its- kind campaign in India. At Google, we want to contribute our knowledge and skills to help use technology to address humanity's greatest challenges. I am delighted to share the success of a pilot program that was carried out by us at a village in Bhilwara, Rajasthan. With this project we successfully completed a digital literacy effort of training over 1,00,000 women in Bhilwara and trained them on how to use the basic applications on the internet. Internet as a medium can be extremely empowering for women and this is especially true for women in developing countries like India. We strongly believe that internet can greatly benefit and transform the lives of women in India."

The program will be supported by Intel, HUL and Axis Bank who have committed to drive this initiative through the joint outreach efforts including internet training in their digital literacy efforts. Intel is also launching a mobile app called "Easy Step" for women which would be available on Android playstore.

More from Brands

Debjani Ghosh, Managing Director- Sales and Marketing group, Intel South Asia, said, "As part of our National Digital Literacy Mission, Intel has been working with the government to enhance technology adoption and digital literacy for boosting productivity and impacting livelihoods in a phased manner across the country. We are extremely encouraged by the findings of the first phase of the program where we saw over 52% women participants and it was heartening to see them use the newly acquired knowledge and skills to better support their families. Given the size and diversity of our country, we as an industry, need to do a lot more and hence we feel Google's helping women get online (HWGO) program will help them use technology for a better life."

Hemant Bakshi, Executive Director - Home and Personal Care, Hindustan Unilever, said, "At HUL we give high priority to improving the lives of our consumers. We believe that the host of information a woman can get because of access to the internet can help improve her life in many ways. When Google approached us to partner for this initiative, we were more than keen to do so, and are very positive and hopeful that through this initiative we can bring about a significant change in the lives of women in India."

Google has also partnered with host of different companies who will create and share content relevant for Indian women on the website. These partners include Johnson & Johnson, Indiatimes.com, Healthkart.com and Babyoye.com. IMRB has also come on board as the research partner for the initiative and will help track the impact of the initiative on women in India.