@Mwangi – Thanks for the feedback. I fully agree with you. I am a member of the Google Baraza team. Every country in Africa is distinct. Our focus is to make the Internet and Google services as relevant as possible to users in every country. Recent launches include Gmail in Swahili and Amharic, YouTube in South Africa, Google Search in Wolof, etc. The majority of this work is led out of our offices in Nairobi and across the region through partnerships with local content owners and amazing volunteers who are experts in their languages and communities.

With Google Baraza, the goal is to have answers for Kenya, Uganda, South Africa, Senegal and all other countries. The challenge/opportunity is to build a passionate community of knowledgeable experts from every country who are willing to share their knowledge with others.
With Google Baraza, the goal is to have answers for Kenya, Uganda, South Africa, Senegal and all other countries. The challenge/opportunity is to build a passionate community of knowledgeable experts from every country who are willing to share their knowledge with others.

Each country in Africa is too small of a market to go after all alone. Companies like Google need to go after a continent at the least. Scale matters for them, or it’s just not interesting enough to put resources into. In fact, most of their pushes are global, and not localized. I was surprised to hear that they were doing something like Baraza focused just on Africa.