Nigeria Content Online

Google yesterday
announced a $5 million (about N750m) package of grants to institutions
of higher learning in Africa. The gesture is designed to get more
people using the Internet across the continent.

The company, with a
search engine that connects millions of people around the world with
daily information, said in a statement in Lagos yesterday that the
package includes a number of significant individual grants including a
$1.25 million (N187 million) grant to the Nelson Mandela Centre of
Memory and a $500,000 (N75 million) grant to the Nigeria ICT forum,
amongst others.

“The $500,000 grant
has been made to support efforts in improving access to Internet
infrastructure in tertiary education institutions in Nigeria,” the
statement added.

The Nigeria ICT
Forum is an initiative of the Nigerian Caucus (a joint meeting of the
Vice-Chancellors and ICT Coordinators) of six partnering 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.

Lola Masha,
business development manager at Google Nigeria said, “We are thrilled
to be announcing a grant to the Nigeria ICT Forum which will help more
Nigerian students access the internet and benefit from access to
information. We also want to help bring the world’s historical heritage
online, and the internet offers new ways to preserve and share this
information. Our grants for the Mandela and Tutu archives will give the
global public an opportunity to engage with the history of some of the
most extraordinary leaders of our time.” The board secretary of the
Nigeria ICT Forum, Nasir Bello, said, “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.”

The statement by
Google noted that the Nelson Mandela Centre Housed at the Nelson
Mandela Foundation in Johannesburg, 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.” It added that the 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 similar grant
has also been made to the Desmond Tutu Peace Centre in Cape Town, for
the documentation and digitization of Mr Tutu’s archives, and an
interactive digital learning centre.