Google has committed a $1 million grant to initiatives that assist women entrepreneurs in growing their businesses.
In addition to the funding, Google has launched #LookMeUp, a campaign to showcase and tell the stories of female entrepreneurs.
Women like Vivian Nwakah of Nigeria, who founded Medsaf, a pharmaceutical supply chain solution to help Nigerians gain access to quality pharmaceutical health care services, Mary Mwange, CEO and founder of Data Integrated in Nairobi, Kenya, who is driving innovation in the mobile payments sector, and Mosa Mkhize of South Africa, who founded Origins Publishers to provide her children – and others like them – with books in their native languages.
Additionally, Google is providing free tools to help women entrepreneurs build their businesses, as well as a thorough initiative to promote the discovery of women-owned businesses via Google Business Profiles.
Google Business Profile, an app-based skills-building platform that allows business owners to access a series of free, custom-designed, bite-sized lessons on the go, and Primer, an app-based skills-building platform that allows business owners to access a series of free, custom-designed, bite-sized lessons on the go.
Despite the fact that women account for 58 percent of small and medium-sized company (SMB) entrepreneurs in Africa, women-run enterprises earn 34 percent less on average than their male counterparts. They also have a worse chance of receiving money and investment.
