Google today announced that it is investing $25 million in a skilling initiative over five years to increase opportunities in Israel’s tech sector for the country’s underrepresented groups, including women, Arab citizens, ultra-orthodox Jews and residents of the geographic periphery. Google will also announce an initiative for the Palestinian tech sector later this week.
The announcement follows the arrival in Israel of Alphabet and Google CFO Ruth Porat. While in Israel she will be meeting with Israeli and Palestinian entrepreneurs and business leaders, policymakers and Google employees. Along with US Ambassador to Israel, Thomas R. Nides, she met today with women and Arab entrepreneurs, engineers and investors to hear about the challenges they have faced integrating into Israel’s tech sector.
The initiative will address these challenges by offering tech skills programs for adults and teens, to help diversify Israel’s workforce. The initiative will support the government’s plan to increase the number of employees in the tech sector, from 10% of Israel’s overall workforce to 15%.
Google’s latest initiative builds upon its existing programs and partnerships that equip underrepresented groups with the skills and tools needed to succeed in tech. This includes Adva, a two-year computer science training program for ultra-Orthodox seminary girls that is run in partnership with Scale-Up Velocity, as well as a program beginning this month to integrate final year Arab engineering students into the tech industry in collaboration with Tsofen. In 2021, Google trained more than 30,000 people from diverse backgrounds in Israel in digital skills. Porat said, “At Google, we believe that to have sustainable economic growth, you must have inclusive growth. By providing members of underrepresented groups with a path into tech, we hope to help create a more diverse workforce, and increase opportunities for a broader group of people. We look forward to deepening our commitment to Israel as we work to support the government’s ongoing efforts in this area.”
Published by Globes, Israel business news – en.globes.co.il – on February 20, 2022.
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd., 2022.
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