The USA, California based tech giant Google has announced the launch of its first product development center to be set up in Nairobi, Kenya.
The announcement was made nearly 7 months after the tech giant revealed a 1 billion dollars investment plan in various projects in Africa over the next five years.
The American company said it will hire more than 100 tech experts including software engineers, researchers and designers in the next two years to help solve any difficult and technical challenges.
The center is Google’s second major research and development investment in Africa, after the tech giant set up an AI and research center in Ghana in 2019.
Google joins the growing list of tech giants setting up innovation hubs in Nairobi. Two weeks ago, and shortly after Microsoft launched a research and development center in Nairobi, Visa announced that it had set up its first innovation center to co-create payment and commerce solutions with partners.
“Africa has been at the forefront of innovation, and we believe that we are going to continue to develop and innovate right here from the continent,” said Google’s policy lead for Sub-Saharan Africa Charles Murito during the briefing.
Google said it plans to continue building partnerships, products and services to get more people connected to the internet, support small and medium-sized businesses and non-profit organizations.
“We have 300 million people on the internet in the region [Africa] today. We also know that in the course of the rest of this decade, we’re going to have another half a billion people who will experience internet for the very first time, which is why it is incredibly important that we build products and experiences that are helpful to these people that are going to be experiencing the internet just in Africa,” said Google in Africa managing director, Nitin Gajria.
