Google To Fund Women-Led Start-Ups In India, Says Sundar Pichai

Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google, began his India visit by announcing that the search engine will spend $75 million to support women-led startups in the country. “Strengthening our ongoing resolve to support India’s digital innovators, as part of our India Digitisation Fund investments, we will be targeting support for early stage companies with a particular focus on women-led startups,” read Pichai’s blog during his India visit.

During his India visit, Pichai met Telecom and IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw and spoke at the Google for India 2022 event followed by an interaction with the Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “Thank you for a great meeting today PM @narendramodi. Inspiring to see the rapid pace of technological change under your leadership. Look forward to continuing our strong partnership and supporting India's G20 presidency to advance an open, connected internet that works for all," he tweeted after the meeting.

Thank you for a great meeting today PM @narendramodi. Inspiring to see the rapid pace of technological change under your leadership. Look forward to continuing our strong partnership and supporting India's G20 presidency to advance an open, connected internet that works for all. pic.twitter.com/eEOHvGwbqO

— Sundar Pichai (@sundarpichai) December 19, 2022

Don't Miss: A Love Letter To Tabu: The Enduring Magic She Brings To Her Characters

In his blog, Pichai further mentioned that Google has introduced Indian Digitisation Fund (IDF) amounting to $10 billion (approximately ₹ 75,000 crores) to make India-first innovations and “strengthen India’s digital economy” through it. Regarding the same, Pichai said, “I'm here to see progress being made from our $10 billion, 10-year India Digitization Fund (IDF), and share new ways. We're helping to advance India's digital future at our Google for India event.”

So great to be back in India! At #GoogleForIndia, we introduced a multimodal AI model that covers 100+ Indian languages, ML-powered bilingual search results pages (launching in India first), support for a new center for responsible AI @iitmadras + more. https://t.co/coCT8fbR9X

— Sundar Pichai (@sundarpichai) December 19, 2022

Pichai also announced a set of AI-based product integrations that aims at serving better quality to internet users of Indian languages through a new, evolved, multimodal, bilingual model that supports over 100 Indian languages. “This builds on our vision of an internet experience that is responsive to every Indian's choice of language, be it via text or voice,” said Pichai.

For the same, Google has also partnered with the Indian Institute of Science’s ‘Project Vaani’ in order to collect and transcribe open-source voice data from all 773 districts in India and make it accessible through the Government of India's Bhashini project. The Bhashini project aims to build a National Public Digital Platform for languages to develop services and products for people by leveraging the power of AI and other emerging technologies.

Don't Miss: Ishaan Khatter: From Beyond The Clouds To A Suitable Boy, He Is Here To Stay

Recommended Video

During the meeting with Modi and other ministers, Pichai also shared his view and vision for the Digilocker app. “We’re also working with the National e-Governance Division and Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) to bring Digilocker-verified documents directly onto the Files by Google App for Android users,” he said.