Google kicked off its certification training programme for digital marketing agencies based in West Africa on Thursday in Lagos.
TheNewsGuru (TNG) reports Google kicked off the programme with up to 400 marketers in Lagos with subsequent Google certification training sessions for digital marketers scheduled in Accra, Ghana on July 18, as well as in Abuja, Nigeria at a date soon to be confirmed.
Google Partners Lead, Nigeria, Tolulope Akinyele, at the training on Thursday in Lagos, said “The participants ranged from digital planners, strategists and account managers, and each was equipped with the tools needed to develop their expertise and capabilities on the Google Ads Platform.
“Subsequent Google certification training sessions for digital marketers are scheduled in Accra, Ghana on July 18, as well as in Abuja, Nigeria at a date soon to be confirmed.
“The boot camp for digital marketers aims to equip participants with the fundamentals of performance and brand marketing, using the Google Ads platform to drive better performance and results for their clients’ portfolios.
“Topics covered include: Shaping a Search Strategy for Your Advertiser: Mobile”, “Measurement principles; Shaping a Video Strategy for Your Advertiser: Video Formats; and Shaping a Search Strategy for Your Advertiser: Creative Excellence, among others.
Akinyele added that with the worldwide digital ad spend predicted to reach more than 375 billion dollars by 2021, digital marketers were positioned at the core of any business that needs to stand out from the clutter in a fast-moving digital world.
She said that digital marketers needed to be equipped to develop cutting-edge strategies to take their client’s businesses to the next level in this post-digital era.
“Eligible agencies will receive Google Ads certification, as well as access to our agency growth programmes,” Akinyele said in a statement.
She noted that in addition to training on the Google Ads solution and platform, digital marketers and agencies would obtain Google certification and access to the Google agency community.
Akinyele said that for agencies, certification means they could demonstrate that Google recognises them as experts.
“The training part-qualifies them to become Google partner agencies and earn the Google partner badge,’’ the Google Partners Lead said.
She urged interested agencies which were unable to attend the programme to go through the certification process online.
Tag: Google
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Google kicks off certification training for digital marketers
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Google targets Nigeria with massive project that will connect Africa with Europe
Internet search giant, Google has introduced Equiano, its new private subsea cable that will connect Africa with Europe, with its first branch expected to land in Nigeria.
TheNewsGuru (TNG) reports Google made the announcement on Friday, stating that once the project is completed, Equiano will start in Western Europe and run along the West Coast of Africa, between Portugal and South Africa.
The new cable is fully funded by Google, making it the third private international cable after Dunant and Curie, and its 14th subsea cable investment globally.
Google said there would be branching units along the way that can be used to extend connectivity to additional African countries, with Google saying, “The first branch is expected to land in Nigeria”.
Google’s private subsea cables all carry the names of historical luminaries, and Equiano, named for Olaudah Equiano, a Nigerian-born writer and abolitionist, who was enslaved as a boy, is no different.
TNG reports Equiano cable is state-of-the-art infrastructure based on space-division multiplexing (SDM) technology, with approximately 20 times more network capacity than the last cable built to serve this region.
“Equiano will be the first subsea cable to incorporate optical switching at the fiber-pair level, rather than the traditional approach of wavelength-level switching. This greatly simplifies the allocation of cable capacity, giving us the flexibility to add and reallocate it in different locations as needed.
“And because Equiano is fully funded by Google, we’re able to expedite our construction timeline and optimize the number of negotiating parties. A contract to build the cable with Alcatel Submarine Networks was signed in Q4 2018, and the first phase of the project, connecting South Africa with Portugal, is expected to be completed in 2021.
“Between 2016 and 2018, Google invested US$47 billion in capex, which includes investment in improving our global infrastructure. Equiano will further enhance the world’s highest capacity and best connected international network.
“We’re excited to bring Equiano online, and look forward to working with licensed partners to bring Equiano’s capacity to even more countries across the African continent,” said Google in a statement.
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Google News Initiative challenge opens for Africa, Middle East, Turkey
Google on Tuesday opened the Google News Initiative (GNI) challenge for media publishers in the Middle East, Africa and Turkey.
The Head of Google News Initiative Innovation, Mr Ludovic Bleacher, made the disclosure at the unveiling of the initiative in Lagos.
The Google News Initiative is a journalism-focused programme that will help publishers earn money and fight fake news.
It will also introduce an open-source tool called Outline, which will make it easier for news organisations to set up secure access to the internet for their journalists.
The official said that the challenge was open for application, adding that it was aimed at injecting new ideas and innovation in the ecosystem.
“The Google News Initiative is our global effort to work with the news industry to help journalism thrive in the digital age.
“The GNI Innovation Challenge is accepting proposals for projects from news organisations of every size to address increasing engagement with readers and/or exploring new business models in any form such as subscriptions, membership programmes, and so on.
“ Traditional publishers, news startups and associations that aim to build innovative digital media projects are all eligible to apply,” he said.
The official said that the projects could be highly experimental, but must have well-defined goals and a significant digital component.
“We have long collaborated with the news industry to drive traffic, increase audience engagement and generate revenue, but there are legitimate questions about how high quality journalism can be sustained in the digital age.
“As part of that, we are proud to open applications for the GNI’s first Innovation Challenge in the Middle East, Africa and Turkey,” he said.
According to him, the challenge is open to every news innovation and will focus on creative projects that demostrate opportunities to increase readers engagement and support the development of new business model.
He said that Google would fund selected projects up to USD $150,000 and would finance up to 70 per cent of the total project cost.
He said that special discretion might be considered by the jury depending on the scale and impact of a collaborative effort.
He said that the application window would close on Sept. 2 , adding that only online applications in English would be considered.
He listed the criteria for the challenge as the impact on the news ecosystem, innovation and use of technology, feasibility and inspiration.
He noted that last year, Google announced the Google News Initiative to help news players in their transition to a digital future.
He said that the GNI was Google’s effort to help news players in their transition to a digital future, focusing on three pillars.
He listed the pillars as elevating and strengthening quality journalism, evolving business models to drive sustainable growth, and empowering news organisations through technological innovation.
He said that Google had in the last two years, trained more than 4,000 journalists across Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa.
He said that for more information, applicants may reach out directly to the GNI Project Team, by emailing meagnichallenge@google.com.
“The GNI Project Team will also be holding an online town hall webinar session to give further information and to answer questions. This will take place on July 3 at 10.a.m GMT, ” he said.
Mr Eugene Okumu, Google Newslab, Sub-Saharan Africa, said that the digital space was encountering a lot of disruption, with fake news being a big element of the publishing space.
According to him, the introduction of the GNI is to ensure that credible information is passed to the readers.
He urged news publishers to leverage Google tools such as search, flourish, Google scholar, reverse image search, trends, historic image and others, to eliminate fake news.
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YouTube, SnapChat, several Google services suffer massive outages
Several Google services and some services hosted on Google’s Cloud service, suffered massive outages on Sunday.
TheNewsGuru (TNG) reports the massive outages was due to apparent problems with Google’s Cloud service.
The internet giants confirmed the development, saying “Our team is continuing to investigate this issue”.
However, Google has said normalcy has been resolved, after its engineering teams completed a first phase of mitigation work and implemented a second phase.
“The network congestion issue in eastern USA, affecting Google Cloud, G Suite, and YouTube has been resolved for all affected users as of 4:00pm US/Pacific,” Google said.
The disruption affected not only Google’s own properties in the G Suite – Drive, Gmail, Hangouts and other applications, it also took down prominent websites that run on the Cloud service on the backend, like Snapchat and Vimeo.
YouTube, Discord and Gmail all experienced outages, as well, in what seemed like over half of the internet experienced total blackout.
“We will conduct an internal investigation of this issue and make appropriate improvements to our systems to help prevent or minimize future recurrence.
“We will provide a detailed report of this incident once we have completed our internal investigation,” the firm said.
The high levels network congestion in the eastern USA, affecting multiple services in Google Cloud, G Suite and YouTube meant that users suffered slow performance or intermittent errors.
Meanwhile, reactions have trailed the outages, which practically left people on the internet with an unexpected amount of time on their hands.
https://twitter.com/madamerosiee/status/1135342475864944640?s=19
https://twitter.com/madamerosiee/status/1135333784444964870?s=19
youtube, snapchat, google pls just come back😔 pic.twitter.com/qLscVywrep
— Isaiaℏ (@isauhh) June 2, 2019
https://twitter.com/kazweida/status/1135340672356048896?s=19
https://twitter.com/oreotommy/status/1135344735181320193?s=19
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Without ‘Ifa’, there wouldn’t have been Google today – Ooni of Ife
The Ooni of Ife, Oba Enitan Ogunwusi, on Wednesday said that the Google originated from the ‘Ifa’ also known as the oracle.The traditional leader said that without ‘Ifa’ , google would not have been created.Ogunwusi said this during the press tour of the tourists sites within the ancient city ahead of the Tourism Innovation and Development Innovation Conference (TIDA) slated for April 24.The theme of the forthcoming conference is : ” Impact of Sustainable Tourism Development and Marketing of Tourism Destinations on Host Communities”.The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that ‘ Odu Ifa’ refers to the verses of the literary corpus that are usually consulted by people who believe in its efficacy before embarking on any project or activity.It is also a West African religion and system of divinationOgunwusi said that ‘Ifa’ as a form divination was all about sourcing for information and knowledge through traditional consultation.The traditional ruler said that the Google could be regarded as the modern way of sourcing for past information and what was likely to happen in the future too.He said that ‘Ifa’ originated several thousands of years ago and is seen as the voice of the almighty God referred to as ” Orisa Oke” which is supreme to other lesser gods.” Without ‘Ifa’, there could never have been the google, so the google is the modern day version of ‘Ifa’ .” ‘Ifa’ is all about information, getting knowledge from the almighty God.“Whenever you search the google for information or knowledge, you are consulting ‘Ifa’; and without ‘Ifa’, there would not have been the google.”He said that ‘Ifa’ was still relevant in contemporary time t saying that was why people were still consulting the oracle for information and solutions to their problems.Ogunwusi explained that if the modern day youths and the educated wanted to know the date of any important event, they would search for it from the Google.‘That is part of the functions that Ifa’ does for its believers and followers;that is the truth but it may sound strange, ” he said.The Ooni who is the custodian of the Youruba culture and tradition called on Nigerians to embrace traditional worships peculiar to their communities.He said that would not stop them from practising other modern religions. -
Google establishes council for responsible AI development
Google has established an Advanced Technology External Advisory Council (ATEAC) to complement its internal governance structure and processes that help implement it’s artificial intelligence (AI) principles.
TheNewsGuru (TNG) reports last June the internet giant announced Google’s AI Principles, an ethical charter to guide the responsible development and use of AI in its research and products.
The council will consider some of Google’s most complex challenges that arise under its AI Principles, like facial recognition and fairness in machine learning, providing diverse perspectives to inform the work of the tech giant.
“We look forward to engaging with ATEAC members regarding these important issues,” said Kent Walker, Google’s SVP, Global Affairs.
TNG reports members of the inaugural Council are Alessandro Acquisti, Bubacarr Bah, De Kai, Dyan Gibbens, Joanna Bryson, Kay Coles James, Luciano Floridi, and William Joseph Burns.
This inaugural founcil will serve over the course of 2019, holding four meetings starting in April.
“We hope this effort will inform both our own work and the broader technology sector. In addition to encouraging members to share generalizable learnings in their ongoing activities, we plan to publish a report summarizing the discussions.
“We recognize that responsible development of AI is a broad area with many stakeholders. In addition to consulting with the experts on ATEAC, we’ll continue to exchange ideas and gather feedback from partners and organizations around the world,” Kent said.
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Google unveils Launchpad Accelerator Africa Class 3
As part of its ongoing efforts to support entrepreneurship on the continent, Google on Tuesday unveiled the Launchpad Accelerator Africa Class three.
The Google’s Head of Startup Success and Services, Launchpad Africa, Mr Fola Olatunji-David, said that the third class would start on April 1 and would involve 12 startups from six African countries.
He listed Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa and Uganda as the countries, adding that of the12 startups, six had female co-founders and nine were either AI-enabled or had AI potential.
“These companies will join other startups in the Launchpad programme, present and past, that are using technology to create a positive impact on key industries in their region.
“We look forward to supporting and connecting them with startup ecosystems around the world,” Olatunji-David said in a statement.
He added that to be accepted into Launchpad Accelerator Africa, applicants must be an early stage technology startup based in Sub-Saharan Africa, targeting the African market, that had already raised seed funding.
Olatunji-David said that Google additionally considers the problem the startup was trying to solve, how it created value for users and how it addressed a real challenge for their home city, country or Africa broadly.
He said that further that Google would look at whether the startup would share what they would learn from the programme for the benefit of other startups in their local ecosystem.
“The startups each will receive: three months intense mentorship and support from Google, as well as Cloud and Firebase Credits. They will attract three weeks all-expense-paid training at Launchpad Accelerator Africa (Lagos and Nairobi).
“Others are access to Google engineers, resources, and mentors, during and after the programme, inclusion in the Launchpad Accelerator Global Community and the network of alumni and mentors,’’ he said.
Olatunji-David said Google’s global accelerator programme, Launchpad Accelerator, had already enrolled seven African startups (Twiga Foods, JUMO and Paystack.
Others are: Delivery Science, Helium Health, Paylater and Aerobotics) also provided them with visibility, best-in-class mentorship and access to Google’s network in Silicon Valley.
He said that 23 startups had already graduated from the first two Launchpad Accelerator Africa classes and the programme had so far helped the participating startups to create jobs and, collectively, raise millions of dollars in funding.
Olatunj-David listed the 12 startups, in alphabetical order, as: 54Gene (Nigeria), Data Integrated Limited (Kenya), Instadiet.me (Egypt), Kwara (Kenya), OkHi (Kenya), PAPS (Senegal) and ScholarX (Nigeria).
Others are: Tambua Health Inc. (Kenya), Voyc.ai (South Africa), WellaHealth (Nigeria), and Zelda Learning (South Africa).
“First announced in July 2017, Launchpad Accelerator Africa forms an important part of Google’s initiatives that support the African entrepreneurial ecosystem and builds on the Launchpad programmes already run in Africa.
“It has successfully connected over 200 African mentors with several hundred African tech startup entrepreneurs through one-week bootcamps in three different African cities over the last two years,’’ he said.
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Google bans 2.3 billion misleading ads
Google has announced banning 2.3 billion misleading ads that violated its advertising policies in 2018 and introduced 31 new policies.
TheNewsGuru (TNG) reports the internet giant announced the ban on Thursday, aiming to make the Web a better place by protecting users from misleading and inappropriate ads.
In its 2018 “Bad Ads Report”, the Internet giant said six million bad ads were banned everyday.
“At Google, we take our responsibility to help create a healthy and sustainable advertising ecosystem that works for everyone, seriously. Our ads are meant to connect users with relevant businesses, products and services; but bad ads ruin the experience.
“We, at Google, have been working towards protecting the users, advertisers and publishers by investing significant technological resources,” Scott Spencer, Director of Sustainable Ads, Google, said in a statement.
Through its “Bad Ads Report”, the tech titan shares key actions and data to keep the ecosystem safe through its policies across platforms.
“This will continue to remain our top priority as bad ads pose a threat to users, Google’s partners, and the sustainability of the open Web itself,” Spencer added.
The company also identified and terminated almost one million bad advertiser accounts, which is nearly double the amount that were terminated in 2017.
Nearly 734,000 publishers and app developers were terminated from the Google ad network and ads were removed completely from nearly 1.5 million apps.
Google also took more granular action by taking ads off nearly 28 million pages that violated the publisher policies.
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Google trains 180 women in ICT, leadership in FCT
An ICT expert, Mrs Hassanah Ibrahim, on Tuesday in Abuja, said that Google, through its “Women Will’’ project, trained 180 women in ICT and leadership skills in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
Ibrahim, who is the Chief Executive Officer, Durian Technology Ltd and the Coordinator for Google Women Will project for FCT, told news men that the “Women Will’ project, an initiative of Google Business Group, was aimed at bringing more women into technology.
She said that Durian Technologies, one of the fastest growing companies that provide quality IT consulting services and innovative solutions to customers, had been collaborating with Google to drive its programmes in the country.
According to her, Google has many community business groups such as the
Google Development Group and the Women Will, under Google business group.She added that the Women Will initiative was to encourage women to make use of technology in their businesses instead of sitting at home doing nothing.
She explained that “we are supposed to organise workshops and training every three months to enlighten women on leadership skills and technology.
“The Women Will initiative started last year after a summit in Singapore and so far, we have conducted three workshops to educate women and girls about the advantages
of using technology to project their businesses..“And during those workshops, we trained 60 women in different topics in ICT and leadership skills and ways they can make use of their skills in technology to get better
in whatever they do.“Sometimes, we ask the women to bring up topics on issues that bother them and we discuss it and take feedback to Google to find a way to support them.’’
The chief executive officer said that the trainings were free as Google aimed to
encourage more women to embrace ICT to grow their businesses.She, however, said that the turnout of women in the trainings was discouraging and called for partnership with the media to
publicise it.She said “we do adverts, posters, put it on Facebook pages and even on Instagram and reach out to so many people and at the end of the day, the turnout is disappointing.
“We put out forms, where over 300 women filled but only about 100 showed up
for training, citing different situations and problems.’’She, therefore, called for more enlightenment through the media “for women to know the massive advantages they can gain from the trainings.’’
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Google House showcases Next Billion Users’ products for Africa
In order to ensure that the Next Billion Users (NBU) of the internet comes from Africa, Google on Tuesday in Lagos, demonstrated the products that users could leverage on.
The event dubbed the NBU House was built by Google to give users a chance to interact with the products it has developed specifically for the Next Billion Users (NBU) of the internet.
The Google Country Director Nigeria, Mrs Juliet Ehimuan-Chiazor while speaking at the event said that Google’s mission had always been to organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.
She said that to ensure that information was universally accessible, Google had developed eight NBU products for the Sub-Saharan Africa.
Ehimuan-Chiazor listed the eight NBU products as: Google Go, Gmail Go, Android Go, Maps Go, YouTube Go, Datally, Files by Google and Google Station.
“Today, Google hosted content creators, developers, media, influencers and educators at a product showcase for the NBU of the internet in Lagos.
“Google’s NBU initiative is a company-wide drive to make its products and features more relevant to the emerging markets, taking into account the access challenges experienced by people in Africa.
“Currently only 36.1 per cent of Africans have access to the internet, according to Internet World Statistics,’’ she said.
Ehimuan-Chiazor said that Google’s NBU Initiative was aimed to further its mission of creating a more inclusive internet by creating products and features that were tailored to the needs of people.
She said that the event was meant to showcase the progress they had made so far by trying to eliminate the challenges and constraints experienced by the NBUs.
She said that to serve them better, Google removed barriers, optimised speed, addressed intermittent connectivity and guided new users, saying that the products helped in solving these challenges.
“The event featured a combination of lightning talks and walk-through demos, visitors to the NBU House had a chance to learn about and experience the eight NBU products Google has announced in Sub Saharan Africa to date.
“Google Go launched in Nigeria in April 2018 is designed specifically to provide a vastly improved and better way to browse the internet.
“It (Google Go) works perfectly on high end smartphones as well as for the next billion users, who are coming online with low end devices with poor connectivity.
“Google Go is available on Android to users in Kenya, South Africa and Nigeria, ” Ehimuan-Chiazor said.
According to her, Gmail Go enables users to be able to access a light, fast and smart inbox that keeps their messages safe and organized, allows them to read email both online and offline and include 15GB of free storage.
“AndroidTM 8.1 (Go Edition): Android Go, also referred to as Android Oreo (Go edition), is the slimmed down version of the Android Operating System released for entry-level phones. It provides data savings, great security and high end performance on low end phones.
“Maps Go is pre-installed on Android Oreo (Go edition) devices.
“The app is designed to run quickly and smoothly on devices with limited memory and allows users to search for and get information about places, get directions and see what’s nearby their location.
“YouTube Go launched in Nigeria in September 2017 is designed to tackle challenges faced by YouTube users in countries like Nigeria, such as data costs and connectivity.
“It enables users to preview videos before they watch them, choose what resolution videos to watch and share videos instantly without using data,” she said.
Ehimuan-Chiazor described Datally as a smart and simple app that helps smartphone users understand, control, and save mobile data.
“Launched in November 2017, Datally enables users to track which apps use the most data; switch their data off at certain times (like bedtime) as well as blocking background app refresh and notifications which use data unnecessarily.
“Files by Google: Launched in December 2017. Files by Google, formerly known as Files Go, is an app that helps smartphone users manage their files and storage space, find files faster and easily share them with others.
“Google Station is a platform that makes it easy for venues, system integrators, businesses and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) with access to fiber to set up, maintain and monetise their Wi-Fi networks.
“Google Station was launched first in Africa in Lagos in July 2018, followed by a second launch in Abuja in December 2018. Other countries will follow in the near future, ” she said.