GOOGLE EMPOWERS JOURNALISTS

In a bid to empower  members of the Nigerian media, Google Nigeria, the search engine company globally, has embarked on a three month training for journalists in the country.

At the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), media centre office in Lagos where the training was held, hundreds of journalists from different media organizations converged for the  free new media training.

According to the Business Development Manager, Google Nigeria, Lanre Aina, the training is majorly on sustainability as well as  the desire of the search engine company to empower the media practitioners so that when they are in or out of the picture, the internet ecosystem would be alive.

'People are blogging, people are putting in information and Nigerians are putting up videos. These are important to us,' he said.

Aina also revealed that they intended to demystify some of the products and also empower the members of the Fourth Estate of the Realm during the three months training, saying journalists would be exposed to different Google's products and also have the opportunity to choose different sections of the training relevant to them.

He pointed  out that participants would be taught on how to use Google search in their respective offices, pointing that the company mission in the country was to make internet a part of daily life of every Nigerian. He said to make this happen, they have broken their strategies into three major areas including access, content and sustainability.

Aina maintained that, Nigerians having access to the internet is very important to them, maintaining that the majoritry of Nigerians are yet to be on the internet. He noted that Google wanted to ensure that more Nigerians come online. He explained that they have a programme known as Google university access programme and they have partnered with about eight universities in the country including University of Lagos.

In the area of contents, he noted that the company is working to ensure that they have strategies in place that will get more Nigerian contents online in terms of videos, text and websites, he added that priority will be given to videos.