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Google Tours the Middle East
Gisel Hiscock of Google
Google, through its European Development Director Gisel Hiscock, has just finished its programme offering specialised training days, so called G-Pals Days, on the West Bank (Ramallah) to support local Palestinian software developers and entrepreneurs. The programme, which took place on March 24th for Software Developers and March 25th for Entrepreneurs, is supported by Palestinian ICT Incubator, the Palestinian IT Association of Companies, the US Palestininan Partnership and USAID from the American People.
In alignment with its core mission, “to organize all the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful” the training is focused on localised tools to spur economic development for Palestinians. We contacted Gisel about the programme.
Tell us about the G-Pals Days?
“Supporting the developer community around the world is vital for the future of the internet: an active developer community means constant innovation and growth of the web. Google is committed long-term to providing tools and platforms that make web development easier and more powerful.
After a meeting in London coordinated by UK Trade & Investment, Google was invited by PICTI and PITA to support local Palestinian software developers and entrepreneurs. Thanks to UPP and USAID, Google is offering specialised training days in the West Bank, which follow a similar format to those we run around the the world.”
What is in it for the local Arabic developers?
“We are offering these training days to developers in order to spur local innovation, which in turn stimulates the global growth of the web. We look forward to interacting with local developers in the region.
Additionally, better local Arabic content online also means a stronger web. Currently, less than 1% of content online is in Arabic. In today’s world, people increasingly turn to the web to help them in their daily lives. However, a user in MENA looking online for local information in their local language may struggle to find the relevant material. Our aim is to provide tools to facilitate the creation of content. We hope that local content owners – especially businesses, whose information is locally relevant – will be able to enrich the web with their Arabic content through web-based tools such as those provided by Google.”
This event has a similar, yet indirect effect, to the programme supported by Sir Ronald Cohen, which we previously reported on – ‘the solving of the Israeli-Palestine Conflict by investing in Palestinian Territory.
Tell us more about the Middle East tour?
“On the planning of an upcoming tour of the Middle East by Googlem i.e. in terms of the rest of our MENA trip I can tell you this: Over the last two years we’ve had a lot of our efforts focused on the Arabic market. We are investing across the region because we believe that we can add real value here – by helping users to access information and by enabling companies to reach their target audience more effectively. From setting up training days for entrepreneurs to developers and localising products we have been actively engaging in the market.
As part of that effort, we have a number of Googlers that are travelling around the region to gain exposure to the talent and technology in MENA which should be very interesting.
Cities that will be visited include Beirut, Doha, Dubai, Amman, Abu Dabi, where meetings with startups, universities, professors, bloggers and venture capitalist will take place.”
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