Google's Internet Saathi program to expand to 4 new states after reaching 15M women

Google's 'Internet Saathi' programme is set to expand to four new states in its mission to bridge the digital gender divide.

These states include Karnataka, Goa, Uttarakhand, and Telangana. The company said the program will cover over 10,500 villages across these states and they will train around 1000 Saathis as part of this programme.

Launched as a pilot project in 2015 along with Tata Trusts, "Internet Saathi" focuses on educating women to use the Internet who then impart training to other women in their community and neighbouring villages.

Google said that the program has reached over 150,000 villages and benefited over 15 million women in 13 states.

"In the last three years, the programme has not only contributed to improving the digital gender ratio but has become a major force of change in rural India - inspiring millions of women, their families to embrace the change and gain from the Internet in ways that we couldn't even imagine," Sapna Chadha, Director of Marketing, Southeast Asia & India, Google, said in a statement on Monday.

"Keeping the momentum of this initiative, we will be continuing our outreach in the next 150,000 villages to improve digital literacy and create sustainable livelihood opportunities for women in rural India," said Raman Kalyanakrishnan, Head - Strategy, Tata Trusts.

At present, the programme has a network of 48,000 Internet Saathis, who are spread across the villages of Rajasthan, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Assam, West Bengal, Tripura, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Haryana, Tamil Nadu, Uttarakhand, Goa, Karnataka and Telangana.