Google Celebrates Women's Day With A Video Doodle And Live "Women Will" Event

In a Google For India event, Google is celebrating International Women's Day in style. The tech giant is conducting a vent with keynotes from Sundar Pichai, CEO, Google and Alphabet; Ratan Tata, Chairman, Tata Trusts; Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Executive Director, UN Women; Smriti Zubin Irani, Minister of Women and Child Development, Government of India, and many others. These leaders share their vision for solving for gender equity so women can benefit from the opportunities of the digital economy.

The event has been streaming since 10:30 AM IST on YouTube.

Important Updates from Google for Women in India

In the event, Google announced a global impact challenge for girls wherein, it will provide $25 million in grants to non-profit, social enterprises working towards providing equal opportunities for women in India. The initiative aims to help 1 million Indian rural women to become entrepreneurs. It also annoumced that the tech giant will invest another $1 million to help underserved women in India. NASSCOM Foundation will lead the initiative to reach 1 lakh women farmers in India and help increase their income by 30%.

Further, the company has also committed to scale its Sheroes accelarator program abd Business Pages. Under the latter, it will help people identify women-led business on Search and Maps. Further, talking about it Internet Saathi programme, that has completed 6 years, Google has stated that its collaboration with Tata Trusts to promote digital literacy among women within rural communities, now has 80,000 volunteers. The programme has also reached 300,000 villages across India. Further, the programme has affected over 30 million rural women in getting improved connectivity, affordable phones, and better support for India languages on the device. The company said that the Internet Saathi has managed to reduce the gender divide in digital literacy; with 4 out of 10 in rural India are now women.

About the Google Doodle for International Women's Day

The International Women’s Day Google Doodle takes a journey through a series of firsts in women’s history. It highlights female pioneers who have challenged the status quo and paved the way in education, civil rights, science, art, and so much more. From climbing Mt Everest to going on the moon; from artists to scientists, and sportswomen to women voting; Suffragists, academics, gold medalists, entrepreneurs - the video doodle pays homage to these (s)heroes by depicting the hands that have opened the doors for generations of women, the company states in a blog.

The doodle portrays not only women breaking glass ceilings, but also showcases the equity among women of colour as well. The theme “Women Firsts” is a tribute to women everywhere in the world. Watch the full video here. Helene Leroux has illustrated today’s Women's Day Doodle,