Google announced today the ‘AI Opportunity Initiative’ for the Middle East & North Africa (MENA) region, its largest AI initiative in the region yet. The initiative aims to provide essential AI skills, research funding, and access to helpful AI products.
Google.org, Google’s philanthropic arm, is planning to contribute $15 million in funding between 2024 and the end of 2027 to organizations across the MENA region to ensure that opportunities AI creates reach everyone.
Recent research indicates a need to accelerate AI and digital literacy to help more people become competitive in an AI-first economy and workforce. According to the Economist Impact, the potential economic impact of AI on MENA’s economic growth will reach around $320 billion by 2030.
“Google’s long-standing investments in the Middle East and North Africa have helped equip people and organizations with the connectivity, innovation, and skilling required to thrive in the global digital economy… Google is working to ensure that people and communities throughout the region have the skills needed to capture the upside of this emerging technology,” stated Ruth Porat, president and chief investment officer for Alphabet and Google, at the Google AI Connect Event.
Empowering 500,000 individuals in two years
The ‘AI Opportunity Initiative’ for MENA will build on Google’s long-standing commitment to the region, where it has trained three million people on core digital skills since 2018. This new initiative aims to further empower half a million individuals within two years with critical AI skills. Google’s AI Opportunity Initiative for MENA will include AI skills building, research, products, and infrastructure.
Google has reiterated its commitment to creating inclusive education and training opportunities for everyone to learn, grow, and contribute to a better economy. Therefore, it is announcing new educational programs and curriculums covering AI and safety skills. A new Arabic language AI-training curriculum under Google’s digital skills program in Arabic ‘Maharat min Google’ and Coursera will equip people with AI skills like prompt engineering.
“With today’s announcement, we are expanding the Maharat min Google program to offer a new AI curriculum in Arabic. Our local nonprofit and university partners will help bring this program to people and communities throughout the region, ensuring that everyone can benefit from the opportunities that AI can deliver,” Porat added.
Grant to Village Capital
Google.org is also providing a grant to Village Capital, a nonprofit organization that unlocks early-stage social and financial capital for entrepreneurs developing solutions to environmental, social, and economic challenges. Village Capital will receive a grant to equip business support organizations (BSOs), enabling them to provide AI upskilling opportunities to underserved workers. The program focuses on reaching women, youth, migrants, and those in rural areas across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, Palestine, Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Lebanon, Bahrain, and Iraq.
“By equipping local business support organizations with the tools, training, and mentorship they need, we are creating a ripple effect that will drive innovation and economic opportunities. This initiative is about unlocking new pathways for underserved populations, enabling them to shape the future with cutting-edge AI skills, says Allie Burns, CEO of Village Capital.
Experience AI program in Arabic
The Experience AI program by the Raspberry Pi Foundation, a global charity empowering young people through computing, and Google DeepMind, will be available in Arabic. Raspberry Pi Foundation will use grant funding from Google.org to train teachers across the MENA region on AI literacy, to equip their students in the region (aged 11-14 yrs) with AI safety skills to better understand and navigate the challenges of AI technologies. In the UAE and Saudi Arabia, this will be run in partnership with Amideast.
“Working together, we look forward to equipping teachers with the skills needed to teach AI confidently, ensuring it’s both engaging and relevant for their students. Through the partnership, we aim to ensure that young people in the UAE and Saudi Arabia develop a foundational understanding of AI technologies and the role that they can play in their lives,” says Philip Colligan, CEO, Raspberry Pi Foundation.
Supporting university AI research
Since 2005, Google has invested over $400 million in academic research globally. In the MENA region, Google will support the development of helpful AI solutions by local universities and startups. A new fund by Google.org will support local university researchers in the region focusing on AI solutions for healthcare, climate change, education, and beyond.
Google.org will also offer a grant to startAD, the startup accelerator powered by Tamkeen and anchored at New York University Abu Dhabi, to identify and develop AI-powered applications that help provide healthcare access for vulnerable populations in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, including senior citizens, disadvantaged youth, and people from low-income backgrounds.
Gemini’s Arabic capabilities
Gemini, Google’s AI-powered personal assistant, launched in Arabic in July 2023 and understands over 16 Arabic dialects. To continue supporting helpful products in Arabic, Google is releasing new features for Gemini in Arabic, including Gems on Gemini in Arabic. Gems allows users to create personalized AI experts for various tasks, including career and learning guidance, brainstorming, editing, and coding support. The feature is available for Gemini Advanced users.
Gemini for Teens is an age-appropriate experience for users under the age of 18, with features like double-check response, which helps evaluate whether there’s content across the web to substantiate Gemini’s responses. Meanwhile, Imagen3 in Arabic enables image generation using Arabic language prompts. Moreover, Gemini Live in Arabic is a free-flowing conversational experience that allows users to chat with Gemini on mobile. The feature is available on Android devices.
PIF-Google partnership
Google also reconfirmed its continued investment in cloud infrastructure in the MENA region to meet customer demands for Cloud services through Google Cloud data regions in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Kuwait.
Google Cloud announced a partnership with the Public Investment Fund (PIF) of Saudi Arabia to expand the existing Dammam Google Cloud region with an AI hub to support global customers. Additionally, the partnership will advance AI research in Arabic-language models and will provide AI and digital upskilling programs to help create highly skilled jobs and opportunities for global businesses to fuel growth through cloud adoption.
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$14.2 billion in economic activity in the UAE and Saudi Arabia
According to research conducted by Public First, Google’s products including Search, Play, YouTube, Cloud and Google’s advertising tools have helped provide $12.8 billion of economic activity in the UAE and Saudi Arabia last year, and are expected to provide a total of $14.2 billion in 2024.
The AI Connect event, held at the Etihad Museum was attended by His Excellency Omar Sultan Al Olama, Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence, Digital Economy & Remote Work Applications, as well as hundreds of people representing government, business leaders, developers and entrepreneurs.
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