Education
Google is engaged in racial equity for $175 million focusing on black business.
With an emphasis on funding the Black enterprises and helping Black entrepreneurs, Google is committed to invest over $175 million for racial capital initiatives.
The funding, alongside a number of other commitments and changes to combat black racism and to support black Google employees and their families, was announced on Wednesday by Google Chief Executive Sundar Pichai.
The 175 million dollars pledge is included in Google's "economic development kit." The highest sum is $100 million in grants to black-led risk management companies, start-ups and other black entrepreneurial organisations.
An additional 50 million dollars will be used as funding for "focused on the Black community" small enterprises.
Google claims that 15 million dollars will be geared towards training programmes, which will be run in collaboration, for Black Staff, while 10 million dollars will be dedicated to helping Black Developers in the Google Ecosystem by providing access to 'educulation, equipment and economic opportunities.'
The undertakings follow loosely on from complaints about George Floyd 's death. Many enterprises throughout the United States have started to examine their failure to support black communities and what to do to improve chances for black workers and fight anti-black racism.
Google revealed a $12 million initial pledge earlier this month to combat racial inequity. There have been also contributions from other major tech firms, including Amazon and Facebook. The Apple program called Racial Equity & Justice Initiative was launched last week for a total of 100 million dollars.
In order to support black workers and Black representation, Google also makes some changes within its company.
It committed to adding more black staff to senior management and to increasing by 30 percent in 2025 the inclusion of people in the general leadership group from underrepresented groups.
According to the Google 2020 Diversity Survey, White+ staff occupied 65.9 percent of US and Asian+ leadership positions, representing 29.6 percent. Only 2.6 percent of Black+ 's staff.
Pichai also said Google will do more to improve the recruitment , retention and promotion of people from under-represented groups and work to create for Google's black+ employees a more "strong sense of inclusion and affiliation."
Among the changes is an end to Google's policy that employees are asked to look after unauthorized visitors who walk behind them in the office doors. Pichai says "we realized that this process is bias-prone," so Google is now relying on other security checks.
Google also plans to add and expand its workforce to include additional anti-racism training programs. The organization has recently been criticized by workers who claimed that it has drastically decreased its diversity and inclusion programs, Google claiming that some of the projects that it has completed can not be sufficiently extended to the entire company.
Pichai today also said Google works to expand resources and other advantages for mental health to better support black people and their families.
The announcements follow Google's $12 million "to racially inequitable organizations" pledge revealed at the beginning of this month. Google's YouTube has also announced a $100 million fund to support black makers.
"In our own business, the production of substantive changes begins," Pichai wrote in a note sent to the group. "Renforcement of our racial equity and inclusion commitment will assist Google in building products that will benefit our users and the world."
