2019 Winners & Shortlists

Background.

To address the growing skills gap in the region’s workforce, and to help ensure that opportunities created by technology are available to everyone, we’ve launched Maharat min Google, an initiative to help people get ready for future job opportunities, advance their careers, or grow their businesses. The platform includes over 100 lessons and explanatory videos covering a range of digital marketing skills including search engine marketing, social media, video, e-commerce and more. Many women are contributing to the innovation coming out of the Arab world, yet this region has among the lowest female economic involvement globally. We’ve created a series of short films that follow the journeys of six Arab women who have become entrepreneurs, women’s rights advocates and ground-breaking YouTube creators. They show how technology has helped them overcome obstacles, enabled them to forge their own paths and inspire other women to do the same by learning digital skills.

Describe the creative idea.

To help ensure that opportunities created by technology are available to everyone, we’ve launched Maharat min Google (g.co/Maharat), a platform with over 100 lessons and explanatory videos covering a range of digital marketing skills including search engine marketing, social media, video, e-commerce and more. To help Arabic speakers put those tools to work, we partnered with universities, governments (National Training Academy in Egypt), private-sector businesses (ICDL Arabia & Udacity) and nonprofits (INJAZ, EFE, EF) to help more people take advantage of what the web has to offer. This includes the financial support of several nonprofits to scale in-person digital skills trainings (https://goo.gl/FYwTmJ). To inspire people to use digital skills to realize their goals, we created a set of short docu-style films featuring Arab women who are using technology to reach their goals and empower others (https://goo.gl/vPrBWN).

Describe the strategy.

The initiative has 3 key components: online platform, in-person training partnerships and short docu-style series. Online Platform: Partnered with the Interactive Advertising Bureau - Europe (IAB) to identify the digital and marketing skills needed by employers, based on their input we created a curriculum with over 100 video lessons and explanatory content. Participants who complete the training, receive a certificate from Google and the IAB. In-Person Trainings: Partnered with universities, governments (National Training Academy), private-sector businesses (ICDL Arabia & Udacity) and nonprofits (INJAZ, EFE, EF) to help more people take advantage of what the web has to offer. This includes the financial support of several nonprofits to scale in-person digital skills trainings (https://goo.gl/FYwTmJ). Docu-Style Films: Researched over 40 women including entrepreneurs, activists and content creators from across the Arab world. We later narrowed down the list to 6 unique, influential and groundbreaking women and produced a docu-style film series.

Describe the execution.

Maharat, a new digital skills program, was launched to encourage youth, with a special focus on women, in the region to learn digital skills to help them achieve their personal and professional goals. Women in the Arab world are making great strides by using technology to reach their goals in creativity, entrepreneurship, education, and advocacy. At the same time, MENA has the lowest levels of female economic participation globally. This initiative both celebrates what’s being done by women in the region and inspire others to follow their own dreams, while sharing their stories globally. The films follow the women’s journeys, showing how technology helped them to overcome obstacles and forge their own paths, and inspire other women to learn digital skills through the Maharat program.

List the results.

Since we launched Maharat in April, we trained over 100K individuals, of which almost 50% are female. 15% of job seekers claim to have found a job and attributed that to Maharat min Google and 20% of knowledge seekers claim to have grown in their career because of Maharat min Google. We announced several Google.org financial grants to empower nonprofits to teach digital skills, these grants include: (1) INJAZ Al-Arab will use a $1 million grant to help 100,000 high school and university students—particularly women and underprivileged students in rural areas—expand their digital skills through hands-on training across the region. (2) Emirates Foundation will use a $300 thousand grant from Google.org to equip 5,000 youth in the UAE with digital skills and connect them with employment opportunities. (3) Education for Employment Egypt will use a $350 thousand grant to connect 1,500 youth in Egypt with jobs.