By Andrea Hargraves 
Google Portugal announced, Tuesday, the distribution of more than 3,000 online training certificate scholarships in partnership with the Portuguese Association for the Development of Communications (APDC) and the Institute for Employment and Professional Training (IEFP). It should be distributed by the end of the year.
Google Portugal Regional Director Bernardo Correa is justifying the initiative based on the company’s commitment to “support economic recovery and promote training for all people” in Portugal.
These trainings are part of the Google Professional Certifications and are available on the Coursera platform and there are four courses: IT Technical Support, Project Management, Data Analysis and the design User experience, ”Bernardo Correa explained in a videoconference with reporters.
Bernardo Correa noted that these courses were created in these areas because it is “high growth and above average pay” which “generally does not require a four-year degree nor does it require any training or previous experience requirements.” The APDC and IEFP will choose the people “most in need of these courses”.
“We don’t want to leave anyone behind in this digital transformation,” said Google’s Regional Director.
He explained, “The idea of these courses is to be at the speed of the trainee, meaning that there is no predetermined time here. The course has about 125 hours and we expect people to do between eight to 10 hours per week,” Bernardo Correa, an advanced, expects about eight months. The normal term would be “to terminate a path of this type.”
The initiative is supported by the Ministry of Labor, Solidarity and Social Security.
“We have one of the most powerful tools in the fight against inequality,” said Labor Minister Anna Mendes Godinho. “Digital is one of the most critical tools at the moment to ensure people are not left out.” “The biggest challenge is how to get the most out of it, and I think this is an example of how to get the most out of it,” he said.
“Digital skills are very essential,” Ruggiero Carabuka, head of the Digital Skills Development Center, stressed, “not only to get more qualified jobs, but above all to get a job.” “Such initiatives are fundamental to people’s lives, and our role here is to search for people and assemble the required machine with IEFP and Google,” Carabuka said at the present time.
In turn, IEFP President, Antonio Valladaas da Silva, expressed his “satisfaction with his ability to participate” in this initiative, in partnership with Google and APDC, stressing that it would allow “strengthening the qualification” of assets, namely the unemployed and digital skills. He stressed that it is “crucial and decisive to face the multiple challenges that the knowledge society poses to us and with the digital transformation of the economy,” meaning “modifying the relationships that this implies.”
Sandra Almeida, Executive Director of the Association for Skills Development in Asia and the Pacific, said that the selection of candidates will include gender equality, ie 50% of men and the other half of women, with “a focus on the unemployed”. Additionally, 50% of the selected candidates will be from Lisbon and Porto and the rest 50% from the rest of the country.
“We will monitor the progress of the candidates on the platform,” the official added, adding that it is expected that 3,000 certificates will be awarded by the end of the year.
Candidates cannot remain inactive on the platform for more than 15 days, or else they will lose their certification. In addition, Google.org, the charitable arm of Google, will allocate more than 200 certificates that will be distributed by the Youth Foundation, with support from INCO, to people in situations of exclusion and vulnerability.
He said that this initiative “is part of an effort to promote social inclusion and digital literacy in Portugal, a project in which we offer these scholarships, and it is part of the commitments of the Memorandum of Understanding” signed between Google and the Portuguese state in October, the Regional Director.