Google’s New $10 Bn digitisation fund to benefit early-stage women startups

On Monday, Google announced a Rs 75,000 crore India Digitization Fund, which will concentrate on funding early-stage startups run by women. This was revealed by a top corporate executive of the global search engine giant.

To make internet access more accessible, the company launched a USD 10 billion (about Rs 75,000 crore at the time of this writing) funding round.

Furthermore, through Google IDF, the company bought a 7.73 per cent stake in Jio for USD 4.5 billion and a 1.2 per cent stake in Bharti Airtel for USD 700 million.

“Moving forward, as part of our IDF investments, we will be targeting support for early-stage companies with a particular focus on women-led startups,” Sanjay Gupta, Country Manager & VP, Google India said at Google for India event.

Google New Digitisation Fund to provide greater access to women startup funding

The company revealed several projects powered by artificial intelligence, including speech technology, voice and video search etc.

“With AI, text content can convert to video in an instant…Translations from English to virtually any language are possible at scale. AI can bring quantum leaps in online safety through advanced threat detection,” Gupta said.

Google also announced a collaboration with the Bengaluru-based Indian Institute of Science to collect speech data from 773 districts across India to fine-tune its language translation and search technology.

Furthermore, the search engine giant announced a grant of USD 1 million to set up India’s first responsible AI centre at IIT Madras.

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