NEW DELHI: Google India country head and vice president Sanjay Gupta kicked off the Google for India event, today. He touched on topics about health, welfare and digital India. Gupta spoke about how Google has helped in connecting more people to India.
The company also announced new initiatives as part of its ongoing efforts towards the response to the Covid2019 pandemic. Talking about the Covid2019 impact on small businesses and creating economic opportunity, Google GM and VP of payments and next billion users Caesar Sengupta said: "Now more than ever, to survive and grow, every Indian business must be a digital business. And we are investing in helping Indian businesses go digital and helping Indian workers learn, grow and find better jobs."
He announced a new initiative with Prasar Bharati, launching an edutainment series on Doordarshan on how small businesses can adopt digital tools and adapt to the current situation, using examples of real-life Indian businesses.
“We are investing in helping Indian businesses go digital and helping Indian workers learn, grow and find better jobs,” Gupta elaborated.
“Digital revolution is redefining what's next and presents an opportunity to build the future of India. As a country, we have made tremendous progress in making the internet more accessible and affordable to people. India now has over 550 million active internet users with over 400 million users accessing the internet on a smartphone,” said Gupta.
Connectivity and access provides a foundation for building products and services that are relevant and helpful. These products and services help solve some of the biggest challenges that our society faces like learning, education, jobs or payments. Solving these challenges has been a focus for Google in India, over the last several years, Gupta emphasised.
At the sixth edition of Google for India, Gupta further stated that India has always been a strategic and important focus for Google. “Today, we are committing ourselves to partner deeply and support India in becoming a truly digital nation by making the internet helpful for a billion Indians and empowering India to become a leading digital economy,” he said.
"Google Pay facilitated the transfer of more than Rs 120 crore through its platform to help the government during the pandemic,” he said, adding that digital payments have facilitated consumers to buy products online even during the lockdown. “With Google, small businesses have also managed to go online quickly and continue their business when physical distancing kept consumers away from stores.”
Going forward, Sengupta also spoke about the spot platform on Google Pay, he shared that the Google Pay Nearby Stores Spot which was introduced in March this year to improve offline merchant discoverability and to help people find shops near them to see what essential food items are in stock, has been used by more than 2 million users. To support people who are looking for work he shared that the Job Spot on Google Pay now allows for remote interviews and remote work listings so that people who are unemployed can secure employment and income more quickly during the Covid2019 pandemic.
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