Emma Okonji writes that
the products unveiled by Google last week in Lagos is a welcome
development that will empower Nigerians to address local challenges
Since the inception of Google for
Nigeria event in 2017, Google Nigeria has always come up with
new online
tools on a yearly basis that will empower Nigerians to be more active
online with less stress and much comfort.
The idea behind the yearly Google for
Nigeria event is to showcase new local solutions that are developed from
the scratch for Nigerians. The local solutions seek to address local
challenges in the Nigerian local market.
Last week in Lagos, Google Nigeria had
its third Google for Nigeria event, where it announced new products,
features and other programs designed to empower Nigerians and to address
local challenges in Nigeria.
The products include navigation
instructions in a Nigerian voice for both motorcycle and car driving
modes, new Street View imagery, Gallery Go, Google Go updates, Google
Lens and Bolo, and a Nigerian culinary experience from Google Arts and
Culture. Google also partnered the Nigerian government to make an online
safety curriculum available to all primary and secondary school
students in the country, reaching an estimated 56 million Nigerian
students every year.
Google online products
Google has introduced a dedicated
travel mode in Google Maps to provide directions and navigation for
motorcycles in Nigeria. This will also be available in Benin Republic,
Ghana, Rwanda, Togo and Uganda from the day it was launched in Nigeria.
Google also launched navigation instructions in a Nigerian voice for
both motorcycle and car driving modes. In the next few months, Google
will introduce a new directions experience for Lagos that is optimised
for informal transit, bringing Danfo routes into Google Maps.
To help make it easier to visually
explore places in Nigeria, Google is publishing more panoramic imagery
on Street view. Starting with imagery of Lagos two years ago, today
Google added street view imagery of Abuja, Benin City, Enugu and Ibadan –
with almost 12 thousand kilometers of roads added.
With the growth of Android, more and
more Nigerians have phones that take pictures. But not everyone has
access to reliable, high-speed internet or cloud backup to quickly find a
photo.
Google, however, explained that it
launched Gallery Go – a fast and smart photo gallery designed for users
who don’t have a reliable internet connection. Gallery Go brings many of
the best features of Google Photos on device, to help them find, edit
and manage their photos even when they are offline. The app is only 10MB
to keep the phone light and fast, so that users can spend more time
capturing memories.
Gallery Go is available on Google Play
for devices running Android 8.1 (Oreo) or higher and will come
pre-installed as the gallery app on the Itel S15 and select A55 devices,
which will be available in Nigeria soon. Google launched Google Go last
year, making it easier for people to discover the best of the internet
even on low-RAM smartphones or unstable network connections.
Google also announced updates to make
Google Go even more useful. The Discover feed has been integrated within
Google Go to help people stay in the know with their interests. It
provides an ongoing look at the things they care about, like the latest
content on their football team, people of interest, music and news
stories.
According to Google, from this week,
users would also be able to access the assistant directly from Google Go
in a new Nigerian voice. Using only their voice, they will be able to
ask Google to call their mum, play the latest Burna Boy video, or find
the best Jollof in town.
Google Lens helps people to find out
more about the world around them through their camera and photos. Google
launched Lens inside Google Go, to help people read, translate, and
search the words they see simply by using their camera. Users can open
Lens, point it at a sign, and listen to the words read out loud. If they
don’t speak the language, they can translate it into their own. Google
also launched support for Hausa, Yoruba, and Igbo.
Other solutions
Bolo is a speech-based reading app
that helps kids learn how to read in English language. It encourages
people to read out loud and then provides individual, customised
feedback to help improve their reading capabilities. Google launched
Bolo in India earlier this year and decided to bring it to Nigeria and
Ghana.
The Google Arts and Culture also came up
with a project called ‘Come Chop Bellefull: A Taste of Nigeria’, which
pays tribute to Nigeria’s vibrant and diverse food culture. People
across the world can now explore Nigerian regional cooking and culture
through 2,000 high-resolution images and 30 stories created in
collaboration with The Centenary Project at the Pan-Atlantic University.
Google’s commitment
In 2017 Google committed to train 10
million people in Africa on digital skills over five years. To date,
four million Africans, including Nigerians have been trained. Google has
also trained 15,000 developers and awarded 33,000 scholarships to help
African developers become certified on Android, Web, and Cloud
technologies. 35 startups have graduated through the Launch pad
Accelerator Africa program and, last year, Google awarded $6 million to
36 non-profit organisations across Africa through the Google Impact
Challenge.
Building on this, Google said at the
Google for Nigeria event in Lagos that it would commit an additional $4
million to support youth empowerment, gender equality and agriculture,
alongside piloting new initiatives to power the social impact ecosystem
and promote research on what the future of work looks like for African
youth.
Speaking at this year’s Google for
Nigeria event, Google Nigeria Country Director, Juliet Ehimuan-Chiazor,
said: “Every day, people in Nigeria, Africa and around the world turn to
Google for help. We hope that the products and updates we are
announcing will make Google even more helpful for fueling people’s
hustles and getting things done. We remain committed to bringing the
transformational power of technology to everyone in Nigeria and Africa
as a whole.”
According to her, “Google’s mission is
to organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible
and useful. Through products and platforms like Search, Maps, Gmail,
Android, Google Play, Chrome and YouTube, Google plays a meaningful role
in the daily lives of billions of people and has become one of the most
widely-known companies in the world.”
Google’s impact
Speaking on the impact of Google’s
commitment to address local challenges in Nigeria and Africa, Google’s
Product Manager, Mr. Nitin Kashyap, said as part of its commitment to
Nigeria, the company announced at its first Google for Nigeria event
in 2017 to support startups and entrepreneurs with $3 million in equity
free support and that so far, Google has trained and supported 35
startups from across Africa and 12 of those startups are from Nigeria.
“The impact of what we have done so far,
has proved that it is possible to create jobs through startups and
Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs),” Kashyap said.
Other panelists at the event said
Google in 2017, extended its programme to train one million young
Africans within one year in 2016, for another five years in order to
reach 10 million Africans.
Last year Google announced plans to help
more people in Africa and prepare them for jobs of the future through
its local community-focused Digital Skills Training programmes. In
total, over three million people have now acquired different levels of
digital skills in 29 countries across Africa via face-to-face training
as well as through the online platform, which is available in English,
French and Portuguese. Among the three million trained in digital skills
across Africa, 50 per cent are from Nigeria, and Google has indicated
interest to train more Nigerians through the initiative, the panelists
said.
According to Ehimuan-Chiazor, “This is
our third Google for Nigeria event and at every of such event, it is an
opportunity for us at Google to engage with the industry and let them
know of our commitment to the Nigerian market and the progress we have
been making in innovation specifically for the Nigerian market.”
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