PANJIM: To promote digital literacy in the state of Goa, the
state government on Tuesday, signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with
internet giant Google.The MoU was signed by Director of IT in Goa, Mr Ameya
Abhyankar and Google’s managing director for South East Asia and India, Mr
Ranjan Anandan, in presence of Chief Minister Mr Laxmikant Parsekar and Chief
Secretary, Mr RK Shrivastava.
Goa state government will soon launch “Internet Safety
Education” for students in Goa in association with Google India. The state
government has also given its approval to include internet safety education as
part of the school’s curriculum of classes 9th to 12th in government schools
across the state. Google has created a curriculum in consultation with experts,
developed and shared modules for intergration in the curriculum. As part of the
programme, Google India has initiated teacher trainings and will soon expand to
cover 460 school, teaching over 80,000 students on how to stay safe when
online.
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Speaking during the signing in ceremony, chief minister
Laxmikant Parsekar, “We are known and recognised as tourist state and officials
of Google mentioned that they used to come to Goa for tourism. But with the
signing of this MoU, they will now come for business and as technical partner
of the Goa government on this issue. With this the state of Goa should now be
known, recognised and accepted as IT state as well. Many of the IT students
from Goa had to go out of the state in search of bread and butter but of late
many of them are returning as they heard that state government is showing keen
interest in developing the IT industry. Also, electronic city will be
sanctioned by the Union government for Goa within a fortnight. Signing MoU with
Google is a milestone and it will mututally benefit both the signing parties.”
Rajan Anandan, Managing Director, Google Southeast Asia and
India said, “We are committed to invest in India’s digital transformation and
bring the inetrnet alive for everyone. We are delighted to support the Goa
government in its vision to be the digitally empowered state. We look forward
to working with the state government to create and enabling environment and
ecosystem to help students, small and medium businesses and entrepreneurs to
realise the full potential of internet and the opportunities it offers.”
The scope of the MoU envisages Google India and the government
of Goa to work in collaboration in following points. (1) Make all government
sites mobile friendly; (2) Introduce programmes to help local small and medium
businesses stay safe online by organising internet safety workshops for SBMs –
driving awareness and helping businesses adopt measures to safeguard themselves
online; (3) Putting the rich culture heritage of Goa on the global map; (4)
Promote digitial literacy among women through Google’s “Internet sathi”
programme; (5) Promote android developer education and (6) supporting the
start-up community by organising roundtable with industry body like CII to
encourage participation from the start-up community in Goa.
Nitin Kunkolienker, vice president, MAIT, who played a
pivotal role in getting Google India and government of Goa to reach to the
signing table told Herald, “We started this exercise two years back with Mr
Manohar Parrikar’s government in Goa and it finally fructified today. It will
surely help Goa is a great way and catapault the state into a next IT hub
soon.”
