[afren] Fwd: [Stakeholders] Fwd: Google Grant Press Release for Nigeria

[Boubakar Barry]

Good news for our Nigerian friends. Congrats!

B.

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Google gives $5 million funds to get more people and information online in
Africa

Google to help digitise archives of Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu and to
facilitate Internet infrastructure in Nigeria tertiary institutions.
March 8th 2011, Johannesburg -- Google has today announced a $1,25 million
grant to the Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory , housed at the Nelson Mandela
Foundation in Johannesburg, that will help to preserve and give
unprecedented digital access to thousands of archival documents,
photographs, and audio-visual materials about the life and times of Nelson
Mandela.

Google’s grant will assist in expanding the online Mandela archive and make
it available to the global audiences, scholars and researchers in the
future. In addition to significant audio-visual materials, the online
multimedia archive will include Mr Mandela’s letters and correspondence with
family, comrades and friends; prison diaries; and notes he made while
leading the negotiations that led to the end of apartheid in South Africa.

A grant of the same size has also been made to the Desmond Tutu Peace Centre
in Cape Town, for the documentation and digitisation of Desmond Tutu’s
archives, and an interactive digital learning centre.

Commenting on the initiative, Luke Mckend, Country Manager for Google South
Africa said, “Google wants to help bring the world’s historical heritage
online, and the Internet offers new ways to preserve and share this
information. Our grants to the Nelson Mandela Centre and to the Desmond Tutu
Peace Centre will facilitate new digital archives for South Africa’s past,
giving the global public an unprecedented opportunity to engage with the
history of some of the most extraordinary leaders of our time. We are also
delighted to be announcing additional grants which will help many more
people across South Africa and Africa access the internet and benefit from
access to information”.

Google today also announced three other grants also made through the Google
Inc.Charitable Giving Fund of Tides Foundation. Amongst the grantees is the
Nigeria ICT Forum . A $500,000 grant has been made to support efforts in
improving access to Internet infrastructure in tertiary education
institutions in Nigeria.

The Nigeria ICT Forum is an initiative of the Nigerian Caucus (a joint
meeting of the Vice-Chancellors and ICT Coordinators) of the six Partnership
Nigerian Universities. Its mandate is to develop ICT-based capacity for
strengthening Research and Higher Education Institutions (HEIs); Facilitate
and nurture collaboration between HEIs to cultivate a favourable policy
environment; develop, utilise and sustain ICT networks, services and shared
resources consistent with institutional roles as focus for development.

Commenting on the grant, the board secretary of the Nigeria ICT Forum , Mr.
Nasir Bello stated: “We are delighted with the grant to Nigerian ICT Forum
which supports our goals to nurture the building of vibrant e-communities
through training, innovation and partnerships . It will support the efforts
in developing the community around shared Internet infrastructure, greatly
reducing cost and therefore barriers to affordable connectivity in tertiary
educational institutions in Nigeria”.

About Google Inc.
Google’s innovative search technologies connect millions of people around
the world with information every day. Founded in 1998 by Stanford Ph.D.
students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google today is a top web property in
all major global markets. Google’s targeted advertising program provides
businesses of all sizes with measurable results, while enhancing the overall
web experience for users. Google is headquartered in Silicon Valley with
offices throughout the Americas, Europe, Africa and Asia. For more
information, visit http://www.google.com/africa and our Google Africa Blog:
google-africa.blogspot.com. You can also follow Google's Africa team on
Twitter: twitter.com/googleafrica

About the Nigeria ICT Forum
Founded in 2005 and owned by Nigerian Research and Education Institutions,
the Nigeria ICT Forum facilitates and nurtures collaborations between Higher
Education Institutions (HEIs). Its mission is to cultivate a favourable
policy environment and enable Nigerian HEIs to develop, utilise and sustain
ICT networks, services and shared resources consistent with institutional
roles as foci for development. The Nigeria ICT Forum hosts the Nigerian
Network Operators Group and the Bandwidth Consortium , and is incubating the
formation of the National Research and Education Network (NREN) and a
broadband strategy framework for Nigeria .




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