Official Google Africa Blog: February 2021

Africa Blog

Google in Sub-Saharan Africa: news, stories and thoughts

Fostering innovation in Africa, the Middle East and Turkey

Tuesday, February 23, 2021

As part of our continuous effort to support the news industry around the world, we are launching our second Google News Initiative Innovation Challenge in Africa, the Middle East and Turkey. It’s an open call for projects that increase reader engagement and explore new business models to build a stronger future for journalism.

Last year, we selected 21 projects from 13 countries: Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kenya, Lebanon, Morocco, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Turkey, and the UAE. In South Africa, online news publisher Daily Maverick developed a “relevancy engine” for small and medium publishers to help them better understand reader insights and increase relevancy and increase subscriptions. Ringier Africa Digital Publishing in Nigeria was awarded funding to increase personalisation across its platform using a blend of prediction, recommendation and local information pages to increase user engagement. Kenyan awardee Africa Uncensored is aggregating news from members of the public to produce at scale. You can find out more about all of last year's recipients in this Keyword post.

Round 1 recipients Food for Mzansi showing their support

Applications are open from now until April 12. Established publishers, online-only players, news startups, publisher consortia and local industry associations are all eligible to apply. Projects will be evaluated against five criteria: impact on the news ecosystem, innovation, diversity, equity and inclusion; inspiration; and feasibility. The selected projects will be eligible to receive up to $150,000, not to exceed70%of the total project cost. We will not be funding any editorial-only projects, but instead are focusing on projects aimed at increasing reader engagement and exploring new business models.

How to apply
Applications, in English only, must be made online via our website and are open until Monday, April 12 at 23:59 GMT. We will also be holding an online town hall on March 3 at 13.00 GMT with a live presentation and the opportunity to ask questions. (Please note that Google does not take any equity or IP in any projects or submissions.)

We are looking forward to seeing new ideas, projects and big bets come out of the Middle East, Turkey and Africa, a region rich with talent, potential and opportunity. For more information about the challenge, visit g.co/newsinnovation.

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Google

Our commitment to learning and 50+ new education features

Thursday, February 18, 2021

Learning is at the heart of what Google does. Every day more than a billion people come to Google to find answers or discover something new. Our Learning & Education team works to fuel that curiosity and help people build knowledge by connecting them to great learning experiences through our products — whether it's Search or YouTube, Google Classroom or Chromebooks.

After spending more than 20 years building Search, I recently started leading this team and working alongside Avni Shah, a 17-year Google veteran who leads Google for Education. Google for Education is all about bringing the best of Google to education — a goal we’ve been focused on for over 15 years. During the pandemic, people turned to technology more than ever to help them learn and teach from anywhere. While this hasn’t changed our mission, it’s accelerated our desire to do even more with our technology to help.

Over the past year, the education community has inspired us with their creativity and resilience, while always remaining focused on their students. Today, we’d like to share our commitments to this community and a glimpse into some of the 50+ new features across our education products that we hope will support even more learning. To get the full scoop on these announcements, tune in to Learning with Google, our global event streaming in 15 languages where you’ll hear a lot more directly from our team.

First, we want to enable every leader to bring innovation to their schools and universities, and give them the peace of mind that they’re investing in products that are secure and flexible to their needs.

The next era of G Suite for Education, Google Workspace for Education, offers leaders more choice and control.
New tools are coming to Classroom, including advanced analytics to help admins better understand usage and roster sync to save them time setting up classes.
New features coming to Meet give educators more visibility and control, including the ability to set policies for who can join their school’s video calls.
In Chrome OS, we’re debuting more than 40 new Chromebook models built for education, with information on how to choose the right ones for each schools’ unique needs, and 500 new Admin Console policies that will help manage and optimize Chromebook fleets.
For schools looking to understand student needs and scale support across digital and in-person learning, Google Cloud Student Success Services provides a range of options.

Secondly, we’re committed to building technology that empowers every educator. With simple, assistive tools, teachers can focus on what they do best: helping students reach their full potential.

Classroom add-ons, which are coming later this year, let teachers integrate their favorite third-party tools and content directly into the Classroom interface. They’ll also have easier access to engagement tracking to better understand how students interact with class and see who is falling behind.
We’re giving teachers more control over their virtual classrooms with new Google Meet features, including the ability to end meetings for everyone and the option to quickly mute everyone all at once.
We’re building a screen recording tool right into Chrome OS so teachers and students can capture instruction in real-time in the classroom and at-home.

We also strive to equip every student with the tools and skills they need to be successful. This means focusing on inclusivity and accessibility, so we can meet students wherever they are.

Later this year, we’ll add features for uploading pictures of paper assignments as well as making the Classroom Android app work offline so students can download their assignments and complete them without relying on a steady connection.
Emoji reactions in Meet are coming this year, giving students lightweight, non-disruptive ways to engage. Meet will also work better if you have low bandwidth, so students with weaker internet connections can stay on track.
Plus new accessibility features, like color cursors on Chromebooks and Switch access, let students learn with tools that suit their needs.

And finally, we commit to evolve every day through listening to and learning from the experts: the people that use our products. Yesterday’s magic quickly becomes today’s expectation. So as technology advances and improves, we’ll make sure it’s reflected in the tools we build for education.

Despite unforeseen obstacles and unknowns, teaching and learning continued over the past year. That’s all thanks to the heroic efforts of the education community — from teachers and education leaders to students and their families. We look forward to working together to reimagine learning and push the boundaries of what is possible, so that everyone has access to the quality learning experiences they deserve.

Ben Gomes, SVP Learning & Education

Google

Internet Day: Safer with Google

Tuesday, February 9, 2021

At Google, we are committed to providing safe tools and resources to explore the digital world for both families and children. A lot of essential services have been moved online due to quarantine and safe distancing measures under Covid-19. This makes sense. On one hand, it makes things more convenient, and we can do more from our devices. On the other hand, it creates a growing need to step up efforts to help more people stay safe while online. Reports estimate that 346 million people came online for the first time in the last 12 months, and 376 million people have used social media for the first time during the same period. If there has ever been a moment to amplify the online safety efforts, it is now.

This year, as we join the world to celebrate Safer Internet Day with the theme “Together for a better Internet", we’re pleased to announce new programs, in-conjunction with a few organizations, aimed at educating and developing programs to help more people keep safe while browsing the web.

Announcing winners of the Africa Online Safety Fund
As part of Safer Internet Day in 2020, our philanthropic arm, Google.org, announced the $1,000,000 Africa Online Safety Fund to tackle challenges related to hate, extremism, disinformation, and child safety, both online and offline in Africa. The grant was given to Impact Amplifier and the Institute for Strategic Dialogue to create and run an open call and mentorship platform to support innovative ideas by nonprofits and social enterprises around digital literacy and online safety of children, young people and families.

A year on, as we celebrate Safer Internet Day this year, 26 organizations across 9 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa have been selected to receive grants of up to $100,000 to develop and scale projects in this space in this space

The Finalists
Organizations receiving up to $100,000

ChildFund International (Kenya): Taking an ecosystem approach, which includes national research, community, school and media based training, and policy development to prevent online sex trafficking.
Dream Factory Foundation (South Africa): Combining online educational programs through edutainment and train-the-trainer workshops with telehealth counseling services for young people, teachers and parents.
Epuka Ugaidi (Kenya): Building a platform to channel youth creativity (short-films, poetry and music) through workshops, training and an annual competition as a mechanism to counter recruitment by violent extremists.
Hive Creative Guild (Nigeria): Creating a large scale marketing platform, which gamifies online safety information and rewards participants with a variety of goods and services.
Save the Children International, Senegal Country office (Senegal): Facilitating an awareness campaign and working with the media, child protective services, police and security forces to prevent online sexual abuse and exploitation
Teens Can Code (Nigeria): Including online safety education into the coding curriculum for young adults and creating a peer-to-peer helpline to prevent and support victims of cybercrimes.
The Centre for Analytics and Behavioural Change (South Africa): Developing and disseminating content that counters mis/disinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic; and exposes manipulation networks that promote hate.
University of Gondar (Ethiopia): Focusing on female high school students, this project will create online safety teaching materials, train teachers to deliver it and introduce these materials into the high school curriculum.

Organizations receiving up to $10,000

Action et Humanisme (Cote D’Ivoire): Developing an initiative that will equip female sales people, entrepreneurs, civil servants, and young people with the digital financial security skills needed to keep them safe.
Aydia Technology Consultants (Uganda): Providing digital skills and online safety and security training to female politicians and reporters to promote digital inclusion, protect and empower them
EndCode (South Africa): Creating a framework and guidelines for defining age-appropriate online services.
Epower (Nigeria): Developing an interactive gaming application tackling issues like cyberbullying and equipping tackling issues like cyberbullying and equipping children with good online etiquette, helping them stay safe online. helping them stay safe online.
Fundanii (South Africa): Training teachers, students, and integrating online safety into the digital literacy curriculum of a primary school district.
Global Leading Light Initiatives (South Africa): Facilitating student-driven and culturally inclusive internet safety education and awareness activities to empower young people, teachers and parents
Iceaddis (Ethiopia): Building an educational how-to guide on healthy internet habits and social media literacy.
LagosMums (Nigeria): Promoting online safety and digital well-being through training, resource development and short courses for parents, teachers and children.
Lonamac (Kenya): Introducing income generating programs and activities for low-income youth as a mechanism to counteract terrorist recruitment efforts targeting youth.
Media Monitoring Africa (South Africa): Creating and distributing educational online comic strips as a means to teach children how to critically decipher information and discern between credible news and disinformation.
Mzuzu Entrepreneur Hub (Malawi): Training women-led and tech and tech organisations on privacy and the prevention of financial scams.
PAJAN Kenya (Kenya): A communication platform where community members, the public sector and civil society can access resources on fact checking to prevent extremist groups recruitment.
Read Nigeria Book Reading Club (Nigeria): Educating primary and high school students about online safety through a series of online quizzes and essay competitions and offline education for schools and parents.
SheHacks Kenya (Kenya): A platform that uses interactive role playing to teach students and educators on the risks associated with internet usage and how to mitigate them.
Sote Information & Communication Technology (Kenya): Providing physical and online training to high school students, parents and teachers that addresses a broad range of online safety issues.
Tanzania Trans Initiative (Tanzania): Facilitating a radio show and workshops that target the online safety issues that affect women and girls.
Velma Foundation (Nigeria): Establishing a rehabilitation program and ICT hub for juvenile cybercrime offenders,educating and working with the government, young people and companies in addressing online criminal activity and vulnerabilities.
Winam Wezesha Accelerator (Kenya): Creating a community based approach to educational programs, which focus on hate crimes, disinformation and digital literacy for women and children.

Providing free online safety books for 30,000 Students & Schools across Africa
announcedNomthi OdukoyaRead Along app.

Working with governments in Kenya, Nigeria and South AfricaDepartment of Social DevelopmentFilm and Publications BoardWestern Cape Education DepartmentCelebrate Safer Internet day with us by using the Password Manager to save your password with your Google account and Security Checkup These tools are important to help create a positive online experience for everyone. Visit the Safety Centre for more tools and resources on online safety .