Google announces free communication applications in Africa

Filed under: Business, Web services, Google

Google announces free communication applications in Africa

by Chris Gilmer Mar 19th 2007

Google has announced a partnership with the Rwandan Ministry of Infrastructure, and the Kenya Education Network that will result in the use of Google Apps in Rwanda's educational institutions and government ministries, as well as in Kenya's universities. Both of these African countries will now have access to free communication tools that include email, shared calendars, instant messaging and word processing under
their institutions current domain names.

There are two main packages of the Google Apps that are being provided free of charge. With 20,000 users in Rwanda, The National University of Rwanda, the Kigali Institute for Education and the Kigali Institute for Science and Technology will have Google Apps Education Edition. The countries government ministries using Google Apps Standard Edition. 50,000 students at the University of Nairobi will be the first ones offered the Google Apps for Education in Kenya, with 150,000 additional students signing on at a later date.

Google has just issued a press release stating that this initiative will be helping Google to further organize the world's information, and to make it universally accessible and useful. Google's philanthropic Freudian slip is showing, don'tcha think? Gates can run around throwing money at the worlds problems all he wants, but I bet this secures Google a permanent spot in the hearts of many a socially conscious geek.

Tags: africa, apps, calendar, domain, education, email, gmail, google, google apps, GoogleApps, government, im, kenya, partnership, rwanda, spreadsheets, universities, word

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Zatch said 3:08PM on 3-19-2007

How nice of them...

Anshul said 2:07AM on 3-20-2007

Its a great effort by Google and good news for the world. But u know everything doesnt have to be Google vs. Microsoft especially something like this. There is absolutely no need to discredit Bill Gates for the efforts of the Gates Foundation that does a lot of tremendous philanthropic work all over the world. You might hate Microsoft but please don't let that bleed into every post. Grow up a little ..

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