Bangalore, November 21, 2013: Only one third of India’s 200 million online users are women, even when the Net has the ability play a very important role in empowering women in India and help them to transform their lives.

Google  has launched ‘Helping women get online’,  an initiative that aims to overcome these barriers and empower women to improve their lives. It hopes to help 50 million additional women to get online by end of 2014 by undertaking a variety of initiatives across India.

 “Lack of easy access to Internet, lack of knowledge on how to use the Internet and its relevance in their daily lives are the biggest barriers for women to get online.We have already seen many cases of women benefiting greatly by using the Internet and we are really delighted to partner with leading brands in the country to join us in this ambitious project.” said Rajan Anandan, MD and VP Sales & Operations for Google India.

Google will launch a mass media campaign targeted at women and promote the specially designed website www.hwgo.com which will host content covering the very basics of Internet and special content that is relevant for women in India, available both in hindi and english. Women will also be able to call a toll free helpline number 1800 41 999 77 to get answers for any queries that they may have about the Internet.

A pilot programme that was carried out at a village in Bhilwara, Rajasthan, successfully completed a digital literacy effort of training over 100,000 women and trained them on how to use the basic applications on the Internet. The programme   is supported by Intel, Hindustan Unilever and Axis Bank who have committed to drive this initiative through the joint outreach efforts including Internet training in their digital literacy efforts. Intel is also launching a mobile app called “Easy Step” for women which would be available on Android playstore.