Google has announced plans to invest $1 billion in Africa to accelerate the continent’s digital penetration.
This includes grants for businesses, entrepreneurship support and development of infrastructures that can help broaden internet access across the continent.
The African continent presently ranks
lowest in terms of internet connectivity and usage globally. This has made industry watchers to conclude that the continent possesses the highest potential for growth.
An industry trade group estimates that roughly 20 million Africans joined the internet during the Covid-19 pandemic last year, and it is set to double over the next four years.
It has also been predicted that the value of Africa’s e-conomy would reach $180 billion by year 2025. This was disclosed in a joint report by Google and the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation.
Google’s Managing Director for sub-Saharan Africa, Nitin Gajria, disclosed in an interview on the organisation’s plan to improve internet connectivity in Africa, that subsea cables are presently being built to serve the continent. Gajria also disclosed that a lot of work is currently being done to improve inland infrastructures. He expressed further that with the cooperation of the Telcos and other infrastructure providers, all the ongoing collective efforts will soon solve some of the connectivity challenges that the continent is facing.
Gajria further stated that a major challenge which is also the biggest opportunity is that 1.1billion people live in sub-Saharan Africa but only 300 million of them are using the internet, noting that about 800 million people have never experienced the power of the Internet, he expressed expectation that in the next five years, 300 million people on the continent would be connected to the internet.
Gajria also disclosed that new upgrades are set to come up as the idea of creating an internet whereby interactions can be made through voice or products that can work in local languages so as to break the barrier of illiteracy among African digital users is in the works.
