Toyosi Olajide
Google has announced that its philanthropic arm, Google.org is committing $1 million in charitable funding to support programs helping women entrepreneurs to grow their businesses.
The Head Brand and Reputation, Africa Google, Mojolaoluwa Aderemi-Makinde, says that research shows that 58% of the small and medium-sized business (SMB) Entrepreneurs in Africa are women.
“In spite of this, women-run businesses show on average, 34% lower profits than those run by their male counterparts. They are also likely to receive funding and investment. This is why we are announcing a series of initiatives today, aimed at providing the support women need to grow their businesses,” Aderemi-Makinde disclosed.
She revealed this at a virtual event held recently to mark the International Women’s Day tagged ‘Know Her Name’. The virtual event was organised by Google to project Women entrepreneurs in commemoration of International Women’s Day (IWD) with the 2022 theme ‘Breaking The Bias’.
In addition to the announcement, Google has also announced #LookMeUp, a campaign to showcase women entrepreneurs and tell their stories.
These stories feature women like Vivian Nwakah in Nigeria, who launched Medsah, a pharma supply chain solution to help Nigerians get access to quality pharmaceutical health care services, Mary Mwange, CEO and founder of Data Integrated who is driving innovation in the mobile payments sector in Nairobi, Kenya, and Mosa Mkhize in South Africa, who launched Origins Publishers to provide her children and others like them with books in their home languages.
Aderemi-Makinde also added that “Google is providing free tools to support women entrepreneurs to grow their businesses and has launched an intensive program to drive the discovery of women-owned businesses through Google Business Profiles.”
According to her, these tools include; Google Business Profile, which helps businesses create a free webpage to make them easier to find online, and Primer, an app-based skill-building platform, which allows business owners to access a series of free, custom-designed, bite-sized lessons on the go.
To help women business owners to develop their skills, Google has also dedicated the March cohort of the Hustle Academy to women-owned SMBs. The Hustle Academy, launched last month, is a free, week-long Bootcamp designed to help SMBs build the expertise they need to expand their businesses.