Google India and the Andhra Pradesh government signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to support AP chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu’s vision of transforming the state into ‘Digital AP’.
To realise this vision, Google India, in collaboration with the Andhra Pradesh government, will launch a number of initiatives aimed towards bridging the digital divide and enabling skill development, leading to economic growth.
Under the pact, Google India will work with the AP government to get women and small and medium businesses online and help them gain from the internet economy. The highlights of the MoU include helping AP government make their websites mobile-ready and accessible in the local language, promoting internet safety amongst children and government officials, improving and getting more local language content online and collaborating with the AP government to scale initiatives to promote digital literacy amongst women and helping small medium businesses in AP to gain from the Internet economy and going digital.
“We want to become the first state to embrace the Prime Minister’s vision of Digital India and set an example for other states to follow. We are happy to announce a number of initiatives along with Google, that will serve as the foundation in achieving the Digital AP vision,” said N Chandrababu Naidu, the chief minister, after inaugurating an IT and start-up incubation centre in Visakhapatnam.
Speaking on the occasion, Rajan Anandan, Vice-President and Managing Director, Google India, said, “We are delighted to collaborate with the government of Andhra Pradesh and contribute in achieving its vision of becoming a model digital state. Creating awareness about the benefits of Internet and promoting its adoption amongst women, small medium businesses and children can deliver a huge economic impact for the state. Improving accessibility to government websites and scaling the local language web can open up a whole new opportunity for local entrepreneurs and make the Internet more meaningful to non english speaking users.”
Explaining his views, Naidu said, “My vision is that AP should become one of the top three states in the country in the IT and electronics sector. Our government has prepared a comprehensive blueprint on IT, electronics and e-governance “Re-Imagining Andhra Pradesh – role of e-Governance, Electronics and IT”. We have successfully launched a “TRIAD of policies” namely: IT policy, the electronics policy and the innovation and start-ups policy for 2014-2020,” he said.
Besides, the AP government signed memorandum of understandings (MoUs) with Wipro, Google, Tech Mahindra, SAMEER and Tessolve for transforming the state of AP to Digital AP.
The state government also launched the sunrise startups program in the new Technology, Research & Incubation Park (TRIP) in Visakhapatnam.