Google CEO Sundar Pichai addressed media in his first ever India visit after taking the top executive position in the company. The Quint gets you Pichai’s five big promises to India.
1. Women Empowered Connected India
Sundar Pichai has promised that Google will help women from 3,00,000 villages across India get online over the next years. The company has also shared a video on this initiative titled “Internet Saathi”. Google has been working towards getting Indian women online for a while now with new women empowerment campaigns every year.
2. Local Language Support
Google has been known for recognising local languages in the recent past. The company has pushed smartphone makers like LAVA and Intex to integrate Google’s Indic Keyboard on their devices. The Indic keyboard helps the user type in 11 languages.
This will help people connect better through wireless communication.
3. Indian Railway’s Wi-Fi Dream
500 railway stations in India will get WiFi service by 2017. Google is on track to have more than 400 Wi-Fi enabled stations by the end of 2017 and 100 stations by December 2016. This will be world’s biggest public WiFi project.
The pilot project will start at Mumbai Central station from January 2016.
4. Surge in Android Users
Sundar Pichai said that India will soon have more Android users than the US, which is Google’s home market.
He added that Google search has been improved to work better even with low-speed connections and in areas where connections are patchy.
5. Project Loon to Come to India
Project Loon which was announced a couple of years ago will come to India, said Pichai. It is a project Google is working on to bring low-cost connectivity to the world. “We are exploring ways of bringing Project Loon to India, especially in rural areas,” said Pichai.
What is Project Loon?
- A slew of balloons flying high in the air to provide internet connectivity to remote areas or disaster-stricken places.
- With the help of telecom partners, these balloons can transmit 4G LTE connectivity to phones back on earth.
- It’s been used in New Zealand, the US and northeast Brazil till date.
- Google is looking to enter India with the goal to provide internet services to all.
Pichai ended his speech with a word of thanks for India. “This country has given me and Google so much that we hope we can give back much more,” he said.
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