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Google To Invest $1 Billion in Africa Over Five Years (reuters.com) 39

Posted by msmash from the moving-forward dept.
Google plans to invest $1 billion in Africa over the next five years to ensure access to fast and cheaper internet and will back startups to support the continent's digital transformation, it said on Wednesday. From a report: The unit of U.S. tech company Alphabet made the announcement at a virtual event where it launched an Africa Investment Fund, through which it will invest $50 million in startups, providing them with access to its employees, network and technologies. Nitin Gajria, managing director for Google in Africa told Reuters in a virtual interview that the company would among others, target startups focusing on fintech, e-commerce and local language content. "We are looking at areas that may have some strategic overlap with Google and where Google could potentially add value in partnering with some of these startups," Gajria said. In collaboration with not-for-profit organisation Kiva, Google will also provide $10 million in low interest loans to help small businesses and entrepreneurs in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa so they can get through the economic hardship created by COVID-19.
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Google To Invest $1 Billion in Africa Over Five Years More

Google To Invest $1 Billion in Africa Over Five Years

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  • Oh good (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    A new resource to exploit. The British, Dutch, and USA know quite a bit about that.

    • The hell with the money for internet.

      Spend that money better and give those people a sandwich....something to eat, water...

      I kinda doubt that people whose popping and clicking language that sounds like an old fashioned modem, really need internet help more than basic necessities.

      Then again, maybe it was the noises they mistook for old fashioned connectivity....I dunno.

      • Google promises to invest $1BN over the next five years to exploit/data mine a previously untapped market.

        Awesome.

        Perhaps we could convince Visa, Mastercard, Discover, and Amex to start offering Africans credit cards so they can join the 21st century and buy toilet paper over the internet?

  • The CCP will invest $1 Trillion in Africa over five years.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by thunderclees ( 4507405 )
      The PRC does loans not grants.
      The grants are covered by or in exchange for exclusive access to resources.
      Usually it benefits the PRC more than the host country.
      For example in Nigeria the PRC cut a deal for oil in exchange for infrastructure and employment.
      Before the ink was dry they brought in Chinese workers to man the various projects and bribed the powers that be to keep a lid on it

  • I always thought Technology would be a good fit. (Score:3)

    by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Wednesday October 06, 2021 @11:05AM (#61866483)

    I always thought Technology would be a good fit for Africa. Being a sector which the primary resources it needs is People and Electricity. Africa has a lot of people, who can be easily trained. As well as an abundance of land that is good for Solar power generation.

    • I always thought Technology would be a good fit for Africa.

      Now they can accuse each other of witchcraft using Facebook and Twitter.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      What an absolutely colonialist POV. We need to bring "technology" to Africa. Like "we" (white, upper-class people in the tech industry) need to somehow civilize "them".

      • Re:I always thought Technology would be a good fit (Score:4, Insightful)

        by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Wednesday October 06, 2021 @11:36AM (#61866593)

        Not at all.
        We don't need to civilize them, they are already civilized and have a culture much more relatable to western culture than say Japan or China, and even Russia. It has been the colonialist POV that has been keeping Africa back from joining the world, and competing fairly with technology.

        Africa had been difficult for the old 18th-20th century folks to successfully colonize. Because it is just a hash environment in general, that makes things like large scale farming, and shipping difficult before the advent of vehicles. So the world mostly written them off as just being too uncivil to colonize. Where it was just a location with resources that were difficult to plunder.

        21st century needs, have technology that can allow cultures to prosper in such environments, as well infrastructure such as the Internet often bypasses a lot of these traditional roadblocks. Meaning investing into these areas is a good business decision.

        These reasons are also the same reasons why Texas is having a tech boom as well, and general growth in the Deserts States in the US, where they use to just be no-mans land.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by e3m4n ( 947977 )
          I have always said that if you want to curb China's influence on cheap manufacturing, there are plenty of places on the African continent that would be a good fit. Perhaps its too soon to start making electronics there, but there are plenty of low-tech manufacturing that can be done there that takes advantage of cheap labor. It will bring revenue to impoverished regions improving their quality of life, as well as serve as a strategic deterrence for meddlesome China. Right now China is flying bombers over Ta

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by e3m4n ( 947977 )
          Africa is a huge continent, the worlds second largest, which cannot be summed up into a single environment. In the north its more desert climates like Egypt but toward the center of africa is actually quite tropical to an almost rainforest extent. Once you get south of the sahara divide you hit tropical, subtropical, and temperate climates. At its southern most are its 30degrees south of the equator. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

          • Africa is indeed huge and diverse. And so a Jungle area will not be a good fit for a tech company. Also any country that has a large political instability.

            Just like saying you want to do your Business in North America, which is easier as you have only 3 major countries to deal with Canada, US, and Mexico. But the US has states with a large degree of rules and latitude, and it also has a lot of environments.

      • No, Google needs to expand, it's one of the few continents with great numbers of easily-exploitable residents.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by DarkOx ( 621550 )

      Africa has a lot of people, who can be easily trained.

      Is that you ghost of Jefferson Davis?

  • Because apparently a lot of Nigerian princes have been complaining about slow internet connections.

  • Internet? Stupid (Score:4, Informative)

    by djp2204 ( 713741 ) on Wednesday October 06, 2021 @11:12AM (#61866507)

    Many African countries need schools, clean drinking water, food, and medical care. But those things do not generate profiles for selling advertising

    • This effort reminds me of the time nestle sold junk food to indigenous people in the Amazon https://www.dailymail.co.uk/fe... [dailymail.co.uk]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jwhyche ( 6192 )

      Actually, as it stands you would be correct. But these things, schools in particular, can bring advertising profiles in the future. You educate the current population, help provide a longer, healthier life for the current generation then you bring up another generation that is technologically savy enough that you can exploit them to sell advertising too. Google is investing in its future.

      Now, it this a s good thing or a bad thing, i leave that to your own moral compass.

    • They need and can afford schools a lot more if there are local jobs that require an education, which is what this will accomplish.

    • Whatever became of the life-changing One Laptop Per Child mesh network?

      Shame on anyone that thinks this is anything other than Google investing in market expansion, not charity.

  • African governments will fight this, sadly (Score:4, Informative)

    by joeblog ( 2655375 ) on Wednesday October 06, 2021 @11:12AM (#61866511) Homepage
    As a South African, I really hope Google succeeds. History indicates it won't. AT&T tried to build a cable around Africa over two decades ago, and the project failed because the South African government decided to protect its telco monopoly by refusing landing rights, leaving the country with slow, expensive, and unreliable internet access. I fear no lessons were learnt.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by suss ( 158993 )

      Was it fiber or copper, because you know that copper will likely be pulled from the ground soon after it's been laid... This is happening in western europe too, by the way, the stealing of cables containing copper.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward
        people that are involved with meth need copper
      • Fiber. I'm not talking that long ago. Subsequent to the AT&T debacle, Seacom managed to build a cable, so maybe I'm being too pessimistic.
    • But what about countries that aren't South Africa?
      • Without South Africa, AT&T's plan wasn't economically viable. Nigeria's economy has since grown to about the same size as South Africa's, so maybe Google faces friendlier prospects.
        • It doesn't look like this investment is just about cabled telecoms. In the telecoms arena at least, I was under the impression some African countries bypass cables altogether and do things wireless. So Google's efforts wouldn't make much sense to stick with the old expensive way of doing things.
  • Money is not the only problem.
    African countries have issues with demagoguery and ignorance.
    A lot of effort will go into putting a country right and then the electorate will put a lunatic in power who will process to empty the treasury and run the country into the ground.
    Zimbabwe comes to mind.

  • This was tried before in 1996. It went over QUITE well.

    Bantu Tribesman Uses IBM Global Uplink Network Modem To Crush Nut [theonion.com]

  • Google invests 1 bil$ to become a monopoly in Africa

  • I will really be interested in seeing how this plays out, if we ever know honestly.

    I expect there is a burgeoning middle class that really WANTS and can USE these sort of seed-loans to build a flourishing economy.

    The trouble is that many places there (not all by any means, and less than before for sure) are largely (still) overlaid with a sclerotic kleptocracy of strongmen and functional mafiosos. They aren't generally the comic medal-bedecked dictators of the 60s and 70s, but a more polished, bureaucratic

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