Google Set to Open First African Product Hub

Google is opening its first-ever product development center in Africa, the company announced in a blog post Tuesday (April 19).

The center, set to be based in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi, comes as Google is working to address the burgeoning base of internet users in Africa, a population set to reach 800 million people by the end of the decade. In addition, the continent will be home to a third of the world’s under-35 population by that time.

To reach its goal, the tech giant is seeking engineers, product managers, user experience designers and researchers to man the new center, said Suzanne Frey, vice president of products, and Nitin Gajria, the managing director of Google Africa.

“Alongside great technical knowledge and a passion for solving hard problems together with others, you’ll need to understand how people across the continent use their phones every day and the challenges they face,” the company wrote. “How might searching for information and accessing entertainment be different in a context where internet connectivity can be challenging and devices and data plans can be expensive?”

Read more: Google Pledges $1B to Boost Internet, Startups in Africa

Last year, Google pledged to invest $1 billion in Africa over the next five years to enhance the continent’s internet connectivity and help startups attain financial backing. The tech giant also joined forces with nonprofit Kiva to offer $10 million in low-interest loans for small businesses in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa.

“Increasingly, we are seeing innovation begin in Africa, and then spread throughout the world,” Google CEO Sundar Pichai said at the time. “For example, people in Africa were among the first to access the internet through a phone rather than a computer.

“And mobile money was ubiquitous in Kenya before it was adopted by the world. This momentum will only increase as 300 million people come online in Africa over the next five years.”

See also: Microsoft To Launch $100M Development Center In Africa

In 2019, Microsoft announced its plans to open its first development center in Africa, aiming to spend $100 million on the project and hiring hundreds of employees to man the endeavor’s initial offices in Kenya and Nigeria.