Google India aims to to take 50 million women online by this October. The IT major is readying to pedal its way to over 4,500 villages with its internet cycle, and connect with 5 lakh rural women and communities over the next eighteen months. Rajan Anandan, Managing Director of Google, South-East Asia, spoke to BusinessLine on Google’s massive investment and why the company teamed up with Tata Trusts and Intel on the ‘Internet Saathi’ programme that aims to empower women and their communities across the rural landscape. Edited excerpts:

Helping Women Get Online is an initiative launched by Google in India way back in 2013. Why the delay in tie-up with Tata Trusts?

Yes, we started Helping Women Get Online in 2013. This is a different phase. When we started, it was an overarching campaign and an initiative to empower women by enabling them to use the Internet. We tried to solve the issue. In everything that we did, we found it was moving the needle in urban India, but it was not moving the needle in rural areas.

The growth rate among internet users in urban India clearly shows that women are growing 50 per cent faster, while in rural India, men are growing five times faster. While the growth of female internet users is 27 per cent in rural India, in the case of males it is 57 per cent.

We learnt that later. We didn’t know that in 2013. We wanted to understand why the divide was increasing, and that is when we realised there were a different set of issues in rural India than in urban India.

The way Google works is, we always experiment with things. If it works, then we scale it. And in order to scale, is when we started looking for partners.

What necessitated bringing partners on board?

Tata Trusts is a very large network of non government organisations (NGOs). As Google, we don’t understand rural villages.

Tata Trusts have been working in these rural villages for decades. They bring understanding of rural India, as well as on-the-ground experience and capability.

The exciting thing about Intel is they actually understand computer literacy. How does one make sure a woman in rural India has the right experience, in terms of the Internet? Intel understands that. While Tata Trusts have the feet on the street, and they are the experts, Intel understands computer literacy. And we understand the Internet.

The whole thing is our initiative and it involves a massive investment on our part. There is money and then there is execution capacity. All partners will be investing money and helping us execute. We don’t reveal how much we invest in any project.

Specially-designed internet cycle carts are to be used to visit areas in villages where women can easily access and learn about and from the web. What did you have before the internet cart?

We did massive ATL (above the line) activities to build awareness as well as several on-the-ground activations. We have been using schools and using internet kiosks. We brought many women into such schools. After the school ends we used the computer labs to bring women in and help them.

Over the last 18 months, we trained 1.5 million women and we want to reach 50 million women by October.

Are you looking to bring in more such partners?

Over time we might bring in more partners. Right now, we are focussed on deploying 1,000 carts across 4,500 villages. Over the next 18 months, ideally less than that, we would like to impact the lives of half a million women and then scale it. This (Internet cycle) can easily be scaled up. It is not a complicated device, and can be driven by a woman, who can reach across and teach other women all about the Internet.

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