Google aims to train 10 million people in Africa in online skills over the next five years in an effort to make them more employable, its chief executive said last week.
A Google spokeswoman also revealed that the company hopes to train 100,000 software developers in Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa. Sources claim that Google revealed it would offer a combination of in-person and online training.
Google’s pledge marked an expansion of an initiative it launched in April 2016 to train young Africans in digital skills. It announced in March it had reached its initial target of training one million people.
The company is “committing to prepare another 10 million people for jobs of the future in the next five years,” Google Chief Executive Sundar Pichai told a company conference in Lagos, Nigeria.
Pichai also announced that Google’s charitable arm, Google.org, is committing $20 million over the next five years to nonprofits that are working to improve lives across Africa. The tech firm will further give initial grants worth $2.5 million to non-profit African startups to provide free access to learning for 400,000 low-income students in South Africa and Nigeria.
