Google in Africa

Contrary to what we may sometimes think or be confronted with, Africa is a continent that is developing at lightning speed and it has enormous growth potential. The changes that Africa is currently experiencing are gigantic. The continent is home to 19 of the world's 20 fastest-growing countries, and its internet economy has the potential to grow to $180 billion by 2025. By that year, more than half of Africa's population will be under the age of 25, fueling the need for economic growth and job opportunities even more.
upMention opened its office in Nairobi, Kenya back in 2006, but Google has also been working for years to shape Africa's digital transformation and increase Africans' access to the internet. Google opened its own office in Africa in 2007.
Google's first step however, was in 2005 with the installation of the Seacom cable to Africa. Since then, Google has been involved in, among other things:

• installation of the state-of-the-art Equiano submarine cable, which improves average internet speed and internet accessibility,
• connect startups with resources and job seekers. In the past three years, Google has helped more than 90 African startups and more than 5,000 small businesses with funding, workspace and access to expert advisors,
• providing digital skills training to more than six million people.

Google and the African future

Last year, CEO Sundar Pichai announced that Google will invest $1 billion in Africa over the next five years, focused on the digital transformation of the continent. For example, Google has its own AI research center in Accra (Ghana), which is used for, among other things, mapping the population and for predicting natural disasters (floods and plagues of locusts), and it is going to open its first Google Cloud region in Africa, with a Cloud interconnect site in Nairobi, the fastest growing city in the world.
Meanwhile, existing Google products are also increasingly taking Africa into account. For example, Google recently added 10 African languages (with 165 million speakers), including Lingala, Bambara, and Oromo, enabling millions of people to access the Internet in their own language.
Of course, there is a great deal of self-interest in this: the more people use the internet, the more advertisements can be sold. But these projects certainly also contribute to shaping the turbulent growth of this continent, to steer it in the right direction and to stimulate it even further. Giving space to creativity and entrepreneurial spirit, and channeling the explosive increase in population, is after all something that benefits us all.