Launches 1000 specially made Internet cycle carts to impart Internet training across villages
“While women are making rapid progress on adoption of Internet in urban areas, women in rural India are getting left behind. Today only 12% of Internet users in rural India are women. We need to come together to address this challenge and empower women in rural India through training and programs that can truly transform their lives. We are delighted to partner with the most respected and well known Tata Trusts who have years of experience in managing programs of this scale. By combining our strengths, I am confident that we can achieve great results and overcome the challenges of providing easy access and digital education to women in rural India,” said Rajan Anandan, VP and Managing Director of Google South East Asia and India, at the launch of a special program called “Internet Saathi” to empower women and their communities in rural India on Friday.
Tata Trusts and Google India have announced this initiative 'to empower women and their communities in rural India' by enabling them to use the Internet and benefit from it in their daily lives. The joint initiativeis aimed at bridging the technology gender divide, which currently puts women in rural India at further risk of getting marginalized in the society as the world around them benefits from getting online. The ‘Internet Saathi’ initiative brings us closer to the Digital India vision of the country.
“Google is a company I admire. Tata Trusts has joined hands with it to help digitalise India,” said Ratan Tata, Chairman, Tata Trusts. “I’m delighted that the Prime Minister has decided to give so much preference and priority to the fact that India will be a digitised nation. Internet will help educate India, will give access to livelihood to many women who do not have a formal livelihood, help reach out commerce to far parts of India,” he added.
The initiative will provide basic training on the usage and benefits of Internet for women through specially designed Internet cycle carts which will be used to visit areas in villages where women can easily access and also learn more from the Internet.
“Tata Trusts strongly believes that innovative use of technology should be at the core of all its interventions that are undertaken for the benefit of the communities. Internet connectivity has become a fundamental need in any society and improves literacy and access to information that is instrumental for socio-economic development. We are glad that this joint initiative with Google will reach out to the rural communities, especially women in our country and we are confident that it will contribute towards their empowerment and also self-sustenance” said R Venkataramanan, Executive Trustee, Tata Trusts.
The initiative will also be supported by Intel who has been a long term partner of Google India’s Helping Women Get Online initiative. “We believe that the vision of Digital India will empower every Indian citizen with equal opportunities irrespective of cast, creed and gender. At Intel we believe that skill development and innovation are imperative for realizing the Digital India vision and we are very proud to collaborate with Google and Tata Trusts on the ‘Helping Women Get Online’ initiative especially as we celebrate the Digital India Week.” said, Debjani Ghosh, Vice President SMG, Managing Director- South Asia, Intel.
Google’s helping women get online is an initiative to create awareness about the benefits of Internet amongst 50 million women in India. Under this initiative, Google conducts various outreach and educational programs. The program includes an awareness module, coupled with hands-on training modules aimed at teaching women how to use the internet, including via mobile devices.