South Africa will become the latest country to join Google Cloud as the tech giant’s first cloud region on the continent. On October 5th, 2022, Google announced plans to follow in the footsteps of competitors by launching its premier African cloud region. Cloud regions in Africa This comes years after major cloud providers Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services established their South African cloud regions in 2019 and 2020, respectively. In addition, earlier this year, Oracle, another competing cloud service, set up its data center in Johannesburg, making Google the
Are companies sticking to their BLM promises? In the wake of George Floyd’s death, many organizations made public pledges to support the anti-racism movement and end systemic racism by committing to workplace diversity. However, how much progress has been made as we look back? Tech giants Google and IBM have decided to reverse the criteria that ensured a diverse range of students would be nominated for their doctoral fellowship programs. Initially, if a school nominated more than two students for Google’s fellowship, the third and fourth students should come from
Google has announced that 60 new startups would join their Black Founders Fund, specifically designed to help support Black founders in Africa. Since launching the program in 2021, Google has invested in 50 startups from nine African countries, creating over 500 jobs and raising over $87 million to help support underrepresented founders. The Black Founders Fund has invested $20 million in funding to help founders across the US, Europe, Africa, and Brazil. The latest cohort will receive up to $100,000 in capital, including access to the best of Google, people, products,
Recording Academy co-president, Valeisha Butterfield Jones, has moved on from her role to join Google’s diversity team, where previously worked as the global head of inclusion. Butterfield Jones has been a part of the Academy for over two years and played a vital role in the organization’s leadership team as a chief diversity officer. She oversaw and managed the business culture, membership, awards, and people. After working alongside Google’s inclusion team, Butterfield Jones is expected to re-join the tech giant in October as VP of partnerships on the diversity team, according
The Google for Startups Latino Founders Fund is a $5 million fund that provides promising U.S. Latinx-led startups non-equity cash awards to help fuel their businesses. Google announced the fund last year as part of its $15 million commitment to economic equity for Latinx people in the U.S. Across the country, 50 founders will each receive $100,000 in cash to help grow their business. They’ll also receive hands-on support from Google employees across the company, $100,000 in Google Cloud credits, and access to therapy to support founders emotionally and professionally.
Timnit Gebru, a widely respected leader in AI ethics research, is known for co-authoring a groundbreaking paper that showed facial recognition to be less accurate at identifying women and people of color, which means its use can end up discriminating against them. Gebru, who recently founded her own firm, an independent artificial intelligence research institute, was awarded $3.7 million in funding after she was fired by Google. And now she’s been cited as a case study by Harvard Business School’s research team in a new paper that details her experiences being ‘silenced’ by
A £3 million cash fund for black founder-led tech businesses has been announced by Google. The Black Founders Fund, running for its second year, will be awarded to innovative European tech startups run by black founders. Recipients will need to demonstrate how they’re using technology to solve everyday problems. In return, they will receive up to $100,000, plus $200,000 in credit to use towards Google’s cloud services and advertising support, and mentoring by industry experts. “The UK is one of the most start-up-friendly environments in the world. Yet, Black start-up founders
Google, working with historians from West Africa, has worked to digitize contemporary art, cultural and historic sites about Mali, and the digital library went live on Google Art & Culture (GAC) earlier this week, making these items available for exploration by the world. The library is available online and via Google and Apple stores apps. Launched in 2011 as a digital platform that collects the treasures, stories, and knowledge of over 2,000 cultural institutions from 80 countries, Google Arts & Culture has been documenting museums and heritage sites from across the world.
Using his experience from working at Google, Anthony Mays says he is hoping to bring others in the door by giving accessible tips, one-on-one mentorship, and interview help. His drive for wanting more diversity within the tech industry came after he had spent his first year at Google as a software engineer in 2013. In that same year – the company publicly released its diversity numbers for the first time. He knew the numbers were likely low, but he didn’t realize just how bad they were. It seems that Silicon Valley has
A former Google employee who resigned in 2015 has publicly criticized his former employer in a Reddit post alleging a “toxic” drinking culture within his team at the time that included sexual assault. Donald King worked as a Google software engineer from 2008 to 2015. King posted publicly on Reddit last week alleging he experienced a toxic drinking culture and sexual assault during those years. Liz Fong-Jones, an Asian engineer who worked at Google at the same time as King, wrote on Twitter that she could “personally corroborate many of
