PANJIM: To promote digital literacy in the state, the state government on Tuesday, signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Internet giant Google. The MoU was inked 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.
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.”
