Google announced a Sh114 million commitment to fund programs supporting women entrepreneurs as the world marks International Women’s Day.
“Research shows that 58 percent of small Medium-Sized Businesses (SMB) in Africa are women,” said the head brand and reputation, Africa at Google Mojolaoluwa Aderemi Makinde.
She revealed that businesses run by women yield 34 percent profits compared to those run by men.
Similarly, google has launched a campaign dubbed #lookmeup in a bid to showcase women entrepreneurs and tell their stories.
Some of the women who will be featured in the campaign include the founder of MEDSAF as a supply chain for pharmaceutical health care services for Nigerians Vivian Nwakah.
Others are Mary Mwange, the founder of Data Integrated for Innovation in mobile payments and Mosa Mkhize the founder of origin publishers in South Africa to provide children with books in their home languages.
“Google is also 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 profile,” said Makinde.
Some of the tools are business profiles to help businesses that create a free webpage for easier access online and a primer for businesses to access a series of free, custom-designed, bite-sized lessons.
Google has also dedicated the march cohort of the hustle academy to women-based SMBs in a bid to help women business owners develop their skills after the academy was launched last month with a weeklong boot camp to help SMBs build the expertise.
