Sundar Pichai pledges to support 1 million women entrepreneurs in rural India

Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai on Monday announced $25 million funds for non-profits and social enterprises around the world including India, in a bid to support the economic empowerment of women.

Pichai also pledged to support one million women entrepreneurs in rural India. In a tweet, he said, “Today at #GoogleForIndia #WomenWill we announced a commitment to support 1M women entrepreneurs in rural India, and a $25M @Googleorg.”

He added, “Impact Challenge for Women & Girls to fund projects addressing systemic barriers to economic equality globally.”

On Sunday, Google for India Women Will event was held where the company’s global Google.org Impact Challenge for Women and Girls was launched. 

Google.org president Jacquelline Fuller in a blog post said, “We’re calling on ideas from nonprofits and social organizations around the world that are working to advance the economic empowerment of women and girls and create pathways to prosperity.”

She added, “Google.org will provide $25 million in overall funding and Impact Challenge grantees will receive mentoring from Googlers, Ad Grants and additional support to bring their ideas to life.”

According to Fuller, women and men remain on unequal footing and the inequalities have only worsened during the pandemic.

She said, “Globally, women are almost two times more likely to lose their jobs as a result of COVID-19, and in the U.S. alone women have lost over 5.4 million jobs, accounting for 55% of all 2020 net job losses. Women are also shouldering a disproportionate amount of unpaid domestic work.”

Fuller added, “These alarming realities require swift and powerful action. We have a collective responsibility to make sure that generations of women and girls from all walks of life can live in a world where they are treated equally and reach their full potential.”