Google India has launched the ‘Helping Women get Online’ campaign. The initiative is aimed at encouraging women in the country use the online medium more effectively.
Google states that lack of easy access to Internet as well as lack of knowledge on how to use the Internet has been one of the biggest barriers for women to get online. At present, India has over 200 million internet users, but only one third of these are women. The initiative will help 50 million additional women get online by end of 2014 by undertaking various projects across India.
Google has launched a mass media campaign and a specially designed website www.hwgo.com as a first step in the initiative. The site will have content covering the very basics of Internet and special content that is relevant for women in India, available both in Hindi and English languages. Women can also access a toll free helpline number 1800 41 999 77 to get answers for any queries that they may have about the Internet. The initiative is being supported by Intel, HUL and Axis Bank. Intel will also launch a mobile app called “Easy Step” for women on the Google playstore.
Yonca Brunini, the VP for Marketing Google that this initiative will benefit numerous women. He stated, “With this project we successfully completed a digital literacy effort of training over 100,000 women in Bhilwara and trained them on how to use the basic applications on the Internet. The learnings from the pilot will help us to work on a framework which we will use to roll out in other parts of India. 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.”
Source-ThinkDigit
