Google Event 2021: Google Assistant will now support end-to-end vaccinations. Google is hosting its annual ‘Google for India’ event, where it is announcing new product updates focused on the Indian market. The event has started, and Google India’s official YouTube channel has the live stream for the same. Google also has a dedicated site for the event. This is the 7th edition of Google’s India event. Google is partnering with Coursera to launch ‘Google Career Certificates’ in order to help train students in digital skills.
Google is also adding a new feature to the Assistant where it will support end-to-end vaccination registration in the user’s preferred language. Google Search will now show results in more Indian languages, especially when a user searches in their language, instead of showing results in English on top. Google will also show alerts for extreme events in India in partnership with IMD. Google Pay will get the Hinglish option in 2022.
Speakers at the event this year are Prabhakar Raghavan, who is Senior Vice President for Search at Google along with Pandu Nayak who is Google Fellow & Vice President, for Search. Google India Vice-President Sanjay Gupta will also be a speaker on stage. In addition to this, Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan will be speaking at the event along with Rajeev Chandrashekhar, who is Union Minister of State at MeITY.
Google for India is where the company has announced its products as such as the RailWire, which was the company’s free internet project at railway stations. The program was announced back in 2015 and then wrapped up in 2020.
Google announced a new feature in Search that will give users the option to access web pages that are originally written in other languages, and see them in their preferred language. So if a user searches in Hindi, a page written in English will appear in Hindi for them.
The 7th edition of the Google for India event has concluded. Check out key updates from the event below.
Google's Coursera courses will cost between Rs 6,000 to Rs 8,000. It is also partnering with the NASSCOM Foundation and Tech Mahindra for scholarships.
Google Pay is getting a My Shop feature where a small store merchant can showcase the entire inventory from the Google Pay app itself.
Google Pay will also let users speak out the bank account number, instead of typing it when transferring money to one. Users can speak it in Hindi or English and Google will figure out what the number is.
Google Pay has over 15 billion transactions on an annual basis, reveals Ambarish Kenghe, VP for Google Pay. Google Pay now supports the ability to split an expense using the Group feature. This feature will come later. Google Pay is also getting an Hinglish feature in early 2022
Nofar Peled Levi who is Product Manager, Crisis Response & Weather at Google is on stage. She's talking about Google's commitment to being carbon-free by 2030. Google is working on a range of climate-related efforts in India. Google will have alerts for any extreme weather events. For severe weather events, an alert will show up on the Android phone. Google is partnering with IMD to show these alerts.
This program is aimed at using to help benefit women who are pregnant and very often lack access to basic healthcare. With AI, the program can pinpoint are more at risk, and make sure they access the service better. Google has partnered with non-profit Armaan for this program to help get women back into the program and save their lives, especially during pregnancies. In India, one woman dies every twenty minutes during childbirth.
Google is showcasing its Look to Speak is being shown on stage. The app was launched last year. It will now support five more Indian languages .
Google Classroom is getting new features such as the ability to download class work whenever they have internet. Google Search now has Practice problem feature to get access to free learning content.
Ram Papatla, General Manager & India Engineering Lead at Android at Google India, on stage now. He's talking about the partnership with Jio and the JioPhone Next. He says the JioPhone Next has an optimised version of Android, including the Play Store.
Google will also read aloud search results in the user's language. The feature will work with Hindi for now it seems and work with any mobile browser, says the company. The read aloud feature will expand to more languages soon.
Google's Pandu Nayak is on stage. He's a Google Fellow and focused on Search. 'Indian internet users prefer reading content in their local language. But since most information is in English, users are dissatisfied with the results," he says.
Google Search is getting a new feature where users will be able to get their queries answered in their language.
He reveals the number of Indians using voice queries is 2X the global average. Google Assistant will now support end-to-end vaccination appointments. Users will be able to register a person for Covid-19 vaccination using Google Assistant in their language.
Rajeev Chandrashekhar is on stage talking about how the vision of a digital India has helped the country during the pandemic especially. 'We have much to do for India and for the digital economy. Our priority is to improve the nation's connectivity and bring all citizens online. We will deliver global standard cyber laws to enable the consumer and investors who are investing in our economy," he says. "We also believe to have a $1 trillion economy it is important to focus on skilling and training," he adds.
Google is working with Coursera to help provide new courses for students to pick up skills for digital careers such as IT management, UX design, etc. It plans to reach 1 million users with these courses. It also plans to offer scholarships with these courses.
Google's event has started with VP Sanjay Gupta on stage. 'We are an India-first company,' he says.
'Our mission is to make India helpful and safer for a billion Indians 'We are at a critical moment for India. The Internet has become a critical enabler for businesses,' he adds.
In the last 12 months, India has added the highest number of smartphone users, nearly double the pre-pandemic numbers, he adds.
One of the speakers is also Ram Papatla who is General Manager & India Engineering Lead at Android at Google India, so we could see some announcements related to this. YouTube India's Director for Content partnerships Satya Raghavan will also be a speaker at the event.
Let's take a quick look at the key speakers for the Google for India event. The list includes Dharmendra Pradhan Union Minister for Ministry of Education and Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship and Rajeev Chandrashekhar, who is Union Minister of State at Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship.
It also includes Prabhakar Raghavan and Pandu Nayak, who are two Google senior executives focused on Search, so there could be some announcements related to this. Ambarish Kenghe who is Vice President at Google Pay is also a speaker. There's also Aparna Taneja Researcher, AI for Social Good at Google.
Sanjay Gupta who is Vice President at Google India will also be a speaker as is Sapna Chadha, VP marketing at Google India, SEA.