Google officially launched its first Google Developers Space in Africa in Lagos, the first developers’ digital space, to encourage, mentor and provide enabling environment for more startups in Africa.
TheNewsGuru.com (TNG) reports Google’s Country Director for Nigeria and West Africa, Juliet Ehimuan expressed excitement to continue the journey with African startups and developer communities.
“This space is the next step in our support for developers across the continent. From our commitment to training 100,000 developers across Africa and the launch of developer merchant support in the Google Play store, to making it possible for developers to earn money through the apps they build.
“This space, in addition to housing our Google Launchpad Accelerator Africa programme, will be used for developer training and meetings, innovation, research and startup programs, as well as carrying out our commitment to empowering people through digital skills training,” the Google boss said.
Minister of Communication and Digital Economy, Dr Issa Pantami, who was represented at the launch by Dr Abimbola Alale, Managing Director, Nigerian Communication and Satellite Ltd. (NigComSat), welcomed the development.
He said Google had helped to achieve two out of the eight strategic roadmap plans of the ministry, earlier set up, which included building a digital society, digital literacy, among others.
The Minister said that what Google was doing in the country keyed into the eight strategic road map of the ministry.
“One of such roadmap is digital mass literacy and that is why this place provides such opportunity for Nigerians to train. Another of the roadmap is building a digital society in readiness for digital economy.
“Once youths who constitute 50 per cent of the population are trained through this space, they will grow the digital economy,” the Minister said.
Pantami said that the global economy was growing digitally and that was the reason why Nigeria should be among those countries whose economies would be growing digitally.