Google Plans $1bn Investment To Support Digital Transformation In Africa

The investment focuses on enabling fast, affordable internet access for more Africans; building helpful products; supporting entrepreneurship and small business and helping non-profits to improve lives across Africa.

The announcement was made at Google’s first ever Google for Africa event, held virtually and livestreamed. The planned $1billion investment was announced by Sundar Pichai, chief executive officer of Google and Alphabet.

According to Pichai, Google is building global infrastructure to help bring faster internet to more people and lower connectivity costs. The subsea cable Equiano will run through South Africa, Namibia, Nigeria and St Helena and connect the continent with Europe.

Google has collaborated with Kenya’s largest carrier Safaricom to support the launch of the first “Device Financing” plan in Kenya, and will expand this initiative across Africa with partners like Airtel, MTN, Orange, Transsion Holdings and Vodacom, and more. These partnerships will help millions of first-time smartphone users gain access to quality, affordable Android smartphones.

Google is also coming out with Plus Codes, a free and open source addressing system to provide addresses for everyone.

He announced that through a Black Founders Fund, Google will invest in Black-led start-ups in Africa by providing cash awards and hands-on support.

This is in addition to Google’s existing support through the Google for Start-ups Accelerator Africa, which has helped more than 80 African start-ups with equity-free finance, working space and access to expert advisors over the last three years. Google also announced the launch of an Africa Investment Fund.

Through this fund, the company will invest $50 million in start-ups and provide them with access to Google’s employees, network, and technologies to help them build meaningful products for their communities.

In collaboration with the non-profit organisation Kiva, Google is providing $10 million in low-interest loans to help small businesses and entrepreneurs in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa get through the economic hardship created by COVID-19.

Google.org is expanding its commitment to support non-profits working to improve lives across Africa, with $40M to help more partners who are responding to challenges they see first-hand in their communities – innovators like the Airqo team at Makerere University, who use AI and sensors to monitor poor air quality, a leading cause of premature death. Google is providing $3 million in new grant funding to expand this pioneering work from Kampala across 10 cities in 5 countries on the continent.

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