Africa-Press – Cape verde. Google has committed to partnering with the new first African product development centre that will be based in Nairobi.
This is part of their Google product inclusion initiative in Africa.
The centre is part of Google’s commitment to transforming Africa’s digital economy.
The new product development centre seeks to create transformative products and services for people in Africa and around the world.
Visionary engineers, product managers, UX designers, and researchers will be hired to lay the foundation for significant growth in the coming years.
Google has said the opening of a Product Development Centre in Nairobi and software engineers hired from diverse backgrounds across Africa will enable Google to build products that are helpful and useful to Africans and the world.
This will contribute to product inclusion by allowing local developers to innovate starting with product ideas to actualisation.
Africa, will therefore, have products that reflect their needs.
Google Head of Product Inclusion and Equity Annie Jean-Baptiste said the process will focus on four main pillars, ideation, user research, testing(adversarial machine learning), and marketing.
“As a global company, we look at creating products that reflect our footprint,” she said.
“No longer will our products be made in America for the world but we are cascading that to our other offices to ensure our products reflect the needs on the ground.”
Speaking to journalists, Annie said that Google is looking forward to improving its current products by continually raising the bar on products with a focus on respecting the user.
“To understand our users better, we are committed to building a workforce that is more representative of our users and a workplace that creates a sense of belonging for everyone,” she said.
Special focus will be given to special interest groups and marginalized groups as research has shown that creating products for people with various disabilities helps improve the overall user experience.
“We build our products with equity in mind from the start. Inclusion should not be an afterthought. We want to make sure that underrepresented voices are being heard throughout the product development process,” she added.
This means the provision of input in the early stages of product ideation, prototyping, user research, UX design, and marketing, all the way to launch.
“By doing this, we can create products that perform better and are more relevant and useful globally,” Annie said.
To enhance the suitability of all products, Annie said that Google is now working with internal and external product champions to test all new products before they are released for public consumption.
“Google wants to collaborate. Google is open to discussion, asking for feedback, and truly wants to work with partners to develop product solutions and smart regulation,” she said.
“We’re working collaboratively to build a privacy-first, pro-consumer future that works for everyone. Privacy is good for business. Businesses who put privacy first build better relationships and trust with their customers.”
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