Google Launches social campaign-Reach ForThe Sky

By 121 News Reporter

Chandigarh 22^nd September:- Google today announced the launch of a new social campaign called "ReachForTheSky", in association with MARD initiative. The joint campaign launchedwww.hwgo.com/reach as part of Google's helping women get online initiative, will look to build support from existing Internet users and encourage more women to learn and use the Internet to excel in their lives. The campaign was launched with a musical work "ChuleinAasmaan", composed by Salim-Sulaiman and performed Live with Farhan Akhtar (singer, writer, performer) and Shraddha Pandit (co- Lyricist) Joining hands with Google's 'Helping Women Get Online' initiative, MARD (started by Farhan Akhtar) stands to inspire change in society, to gather support for women empowerment. The jointly promoted campaign will look to generate awareness around the need to get women online as well as encourage existing users to help get more women online, and spread awareness of Gender Equality and Women Empowerment.

Speaking about the importance of getting more women online, Rajan Anandan, VP & Managing Director, Google India, said, that easy and quick access to information can transform lives. India is on its way to become the second largest Internet population in the world but usage of Internet amongst women in India is lower than most countries in the world. There are 616 million women in India. Close to half of the women are below 25 years age bracket. Empowering the young women population with information and Internet related tools could transform India's future. And I am delighted to share, that for the first time in India, women Internet users growth rate in urban India has exceeded men in the last one year. And we need to build on this start, and join the campaign with MARD to encourage more and more women to come online.

 Talking about the association and the launch of the campaign, Farhan Akhtar, said, that MARD is a progressive movement for a more gender equal world. Our objective is to ask men to re-think their own value system and to be the catalyst for change. There is lack of encouragement for women from their families and friends to use Internet or technology to excel in life and we need to come together to address this issue. Technology is not just the domain of men. Democratizing access to information can empower women in our country and raise their status in our society. I am excited to join this initiative with our partners, to gather support and encourage men to support and help young girls and women in both urban and rural India to learn and use the internet to improve lives.

 Sharing the details of Google's helping women get online campaign,Sandeep Menon, Head of Marketing, Google India, said that our Mission is to help bring 50 million women online in India. In the last 9 months we have undertaken a number of initiatives reaching over 1 million women across 5 states in India, covering 30 cities and 55 small towns. We have reached out to 950 educational institutes spread across these 5 states, imparted basic training to over 45,000 girl students and have trained over 5000 teachers who can continue to educate and inform more girl students. This is a tough task for us and we are constantly learning and adapting to cater to the needs of women in India. We have introduced HWGO Internet Cart, a mobile way of reaching out to women in villages who find it difficult to travel for our training sessions and we will roll it out across rural areas in more states of India.