Helping people to develop skills for a changing world

To support small businesses in lockdown in 2020, Google France and the French Federation of Merchants Association (FFAC) partnered to launch the digital skills support network My Online Storefront (Ma Vitrine en Ligne).

In its first year, the partnership enabled over 30,000 sellers to get online and reach new customers. In year 2, the partnership launched a programme that provided digital skills training to over 7,000 stores.

In April 2022, Google and the Greek Ministry of Tourism announced their partnership to accelerate sustainable growth in Greece’s tourism industry through training and investment for small and medium businesses.

The partnership includes a new training programme, run with the Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC), to help tourism businesses embrace sustainability practices and communicate this to visitors. It also includes $1 million in funding from Google.org to support organisations working with social entrepreneurs boosting sustainability causes and eco-tourism.

Google Belgium has partnered with techhub BeCentral to create a learning space in Brussels, the Google Digital Atelier. Co-founded alongside 60 entrepreneurs, BeCentral provides a hub for startups to learn about technology and grow their small businesses, via events, training, and more.

More than 60,000 people have received digital skills training and coaching at the Google Digital Atelier.

Google is partnering with the German Retail Federation (HDE) to grow the digital capabilities of small and medium-sized retailers through a free-of-charge digital skills focused training programme. Training are organised and delivered by Google experts, while HDE curate and promote the programme among their membership network.

Since launch, over 70,000 retailers have taken part in expert coaching sessions or online training courses.

Since February 2022 Google has partnered with Poland’s leading business school, the SGH Warsaw School of Economics, to create and deliver an intensive 8-week Digital Marketing training programme (+50 hours of training), aimed to help people reskill or start a new career in digital marketing. The programme provides learners with a comprehensive, in-depth understanding of careers in the field and requires no relevant experience.

As of 2022, over 5,000 learners have completed the in-depth programme and passed the final exam.

In 2020, Google kicked off a partnership with nonprofit SheTech to work towards bridging the gender gap in the fields of technology and entrepreneurship, offering a series of in person and online workshops on inclusive leadership, entrepreneurship, and job seeking.

In the first two years of the partnership, over 600 participants have been trained.

Google Career Certificates are available to learners around the world on the Coursera platform.

These professional level career certificates help people to prepare for entry-level jobs in fast-growing, well-paying fields, including data analytics, digital marketing & e-commerce, IT support, project management and UX design. No relevant experience is required.

Google has committed to offering 150,000 scholarships for individuals to complete these certificates free-of-charge in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Vereinte Dienstleistungsgewerkschaft (ver.di) is the second largest trade union in Germany. Together with ver.di and the Düsseldorf and Munich Chambers of Industry and Commerce, Google launched an educational initiative called "Zukunftsoffensive" in 2019. The objective of the initiative is to help people grow their careers and adapt to the changing nature of work through a variety of digital skill training opportunities.

A key element of the partnership is the “Basisbox” platform of on-demand digital training that has reached over 25,000 learners.

In 2020, Google France and Atout France kicked off a partnership to support the recovery of the tourism industry in the wake of the pandemic.

The programme, which is aimed at small and medium businesses, provides training on a number of travel insight tools that allow businesses to market themselves online and gain a deeper understanding of their target audience. The partnership also supports further training to share best practices for increasing online visibility and attracting potential visitors.

In its first year, the partnership trained over 1000 small businesses in the tourism space.

Google has partnered with UNA, the Italian national trade association of communication companies, to help boost the digital communication skills of Italian small and medium businesses.

Through the UNA+ programme, Google and UNA partnered on a series of events that provide Italian small businesses with free-of-charge consultations with digital marketing experts and networking opportunities.

Since 2020, over 2,000 people have received digital marketing training through the partnership.