Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai has announced a pledge of $175 million toward supporting Black entrepreneurs, start-up founders, job seekers and developers.
The new funds include $50 million in financing and grants for Black-owned and Black-supporting businesses; $100 million in funding participation in Black-led capital firms, start-ups and organizations supporting Black entrepreneurs; $15 million in training; and $10 million+ to help improve the Black community’s access to education, equipment and economic opportunities in its developer ecosystem.
“This commitment builds on our recent $125 million Grow with Google Small Business Fund that is helping underserved minority and women-owned small businesses across the US,” informed Pichai.
Pichai said Google is working to improve Black representation at senior levels and committing to a goal to improve leadership representation of underrepresented groups by 30 per cent by 2025.
The company is establishing a new talent liaison within each product and functional area to mentor and advocate for the progression and retention of Googlers from underrepresented groups.
“We’re working to create a stronger sense of inclusion and belonging for Googlers in general and our Black+ community in particular,” said Pichai.
The company said it will also establish a range of anti-racism educational programmes that are global in view and able to scale to all Googlers.
“We plan to roll out this training globally by early next year. We’ll also integrate diversity, equity, and inclusion into our mandatory manager trainings,” informed Pichai.
He also launched Google for Startups Accelerator for Black Founders, a three-month digital accelerator programme for high potential Seed to Series A start-ups. They are also committing nearly $3 million to help close the racial equity gaps in computer science education and increase Black+ representation in STEM fields.
In addition to this, Youtube has also created a $100 million fund to amplify Black creators and artists.
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