In order to ensure that the Next Billion Users (NBU) of the internet comes from Africa, Google has 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.
Internet power
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.