New Delhi: Rakhi Paliwal, 23, an up sarpanch (village deputy) in Rajasthan, studies law, rides a motorcycle and is comfortable surfing the internet. When a wall in a school building in her village in Rajasamund, Rajasthan, collapsed, she sought appointments with various local authorities, but in vain. She then took a picture of the collapsed wall and mailed it along with her application to the district collector.
“In two month’s time, the wall was repaired,” Paliwal said, underlining the various ways in which the internet can be used to solve local problems.
Paliwal was here to participate in the launch of Google India’s new initiative to bring 50 million women online in a year.
India has about 200 million internet users, but only one third of these are women. “This is the lowest gender ratio in the world,” said Rajan Anandan, Managing Director and Vice-President, Sales and Operations, Google India.
Google India’s initiative Helping women get online, with support from Intel, Hindustan Unilever and Axis Bank, was launched here on Wednesday. It will focus on creating awareness about the benefits of the internet for women and will educate them to use the internet to improve their lives and work.
In the first stage, Google said it would launch a mass media campaign targeted at urban women who are ‘internet moms’. The ads will go on air next week. In addition, a Web site www.hwgo.com will host content covering the basics of internet use in Hindi and English as also a toll-free helpline.
Yonca Brunini, global lead, Tech For Good, and Vice-President of Marketing at Google, said, “A pilot programme carried out by us at a village in Bhilwara, Rajasthan was successful in training over 100,000 women on how to use basic internet applications.” She said they would replicate the model in other areas, but admitted that to scale up in India, Google would need to expand to other regional languages.
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