Women Entrepreneurs of the Web
Without much fanfare, and so far, no press, Google has launched “Women Entrepreneurs on the Web,” a community they have launched and are currently being pilot tested in India to offer women-owned business the equivalent of free web and social media coaching.
Associate Manager, Pooja Srinivas at Google India is one of the women behind the initiative, having registered several domains this month, including WomenEntrepreneursOnTheWeb.com, whose ownership was transferred to Google recently as the site launched. According to their site, the initiative is “aimed at helping women-owned businesses grow their online presence.”
Who is eligible?
Eligibility is open to women-owned businesses in India and requires one of the founders of a company be female in order to be part of the program. The community will teach women various web technology skills for running and expanding their businesses. Google says, “We’ll share tips and techniques on building an online presence, collaborating effectively, engaging with your customers, innovative ways of promoting your organization, tracking the right metrics, and optimizing your online presence.”
Program participants are not required to have any web experience, in fact, the initiative will help women buy a domain, create a website and build an online presence or optimize a current web presence. The program is free to participants accepted into the program and even offers on-site training for companies.
There is no word as to if or when the initiative will come to America, but rest assured, when it does, the snake oil social media sales people will be up in arms while critics will bash the efforts as brainwashing by Google. Google will likely maintain that this is one of many international efforts to attract more offline people to the web.
Click here to visit the “Women Entrepreneurs on the Web” community to learn more.
