Government, Google sign MoU to foster recovery, digital transition

Portugal’s government and Google Portugal on Tuesday signed a memorandum of understanding aimed at fostering economic recovery and accelerating the country’s digital transition, with digital skills and employability the main areas envisaged in the document.

“Google Portugal today reinforced its commitment to the Government and the Portuguese to support the digital transition and offer the tools and training that will help in digital skills and employability, accelerating the Portuguese economic recovery,” Google and the Ministry of Economy said in a joint note.

The ‘Gow Portugal With Google’ programme, as it is named, is aligned with the priorities defined by the Government in digital skills, employability, startups and artificial intelligence.

The memorandum, which was signed on Tuesday by the mnister of state, economy and digital transition, Pedro Siza Vieira, and Google Portugal’s regional director, Bernardo Correia, establishes a set of programmes to help accelerate the digital transition.

Among them is one on ‘Jobs in Google Search’, available from Tuesday, that results from a partnership with the state Institute for Employment and Professional Training (IEFP).

“This experience has already linked 10 million people to jobs all over the world,” the note states.

From 6 October, the existing ‘Atelier Digital’ (Digital Workshop), which aims to provide skills in the digital world, is being given a new boost.

“Since 2016, more than 83,000 Portuguese have been trained in digital skills through Atelier Digital – online and face-to-face courses in collaboration with the Coordinating Council of Portuguese Polytechnics,” the joint statement from the ministry and Google says. “Now, the face-to-face version of Atelier Digital has been converted to ‘online’, a webinar with a total of 10 sessions with 10 different polytechnics.

“This year, our goal is to train 32,000 Portuguese in digital skills, 10,000 more than in 2019,” it says.

From 14 October, there is also the ‘Android Training Program’, which is now extended to include training in cloud and machine learning, with new partnerships with universities being created for online events, with the aim of training more than 3,000 programmers in 12 events.

Last year, in a partnership with 11 education institutions, Google held 14 events with a total of 2,000 programmers trained.

The company also plans to launch the tool ‘AI for business check-up’, that is, artificial intelligence aimed at businesses, with a view to improving overall competitiveness.

“The launch of this tool in Portugal will provide companies with personalised recommendations on how they can implement AI in their business,” the statement adds.

In addition, it says, Google has joined Indico Capital Partners to launch the ‘Indico Accelerator Program powered by Google for Startups’ – a programme that is running with the support of StartUp Portugal, and to be completed by June 2021. It includes mentoring, training, masterclasses, support in obtaining funding, recruitment, product and consumer segmentation from Google and Indico.

Google has also launched in partnership with the Portuguese Agency for Foreign Trade and Investment (AICEP) “three free webinars focusing on international expansion and how digital can help companies choose the right market for international expansion.”

The six programmes outlined “are part of … an effort to support Portugal in its economic recovery”, the statement says.

In July, Google made a new commitment to help “10 million people and businesses in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) find jobs, digitise and grow,” it adds.