 "Nexus, Google, Sundar Pichai, Phone")
Pichai, along with other top executives from Google Inc. and YouTube, elaborated on the plans the world’s largest search engine and mobile operating systems has for India.
The company will aggressively pitch and start working on Railwire, which is a mega project to equip 500 railway stations across India with a wi-fi network.
"In 2016, over a 100 stations will be covered. The infrastructure and testing at Mumbai Central would start by January," Pichai said, claiming it would be the largest public wifi network in the world with over 10 million users. .
Google is showcasing and pitching its plan to make internet available for all even in rural areas.
"Project Loon will launch balloons in the sky to help reach out to reach rural areas," said Pichai, the India-born chief executive who took over as the top boss of Google in August.
Google said that the company would expand its offfices both in Hyderabad and Bengaluru, adding more engineers in the country.
Pichai also said that Google is working on a special project that will help women in rural India learn how to use the internet. "It is extremely important to help women understand internet in rural areas. We are doing it with Internet Saathi. We are giving women volunteers cycles that would help them reach remote areas and teach women internet. This is being done across 1000 villages," Pichai added. Google plans to reach 300,000 villages, or about 50% of the total villages in India.
He also showcased Google's new mobile phone Android One and said that devices like it would make internet inexpensive for millions of users in India. "We have keyboards available in over 11 languages and translated over a million words inHindi," said Pichai.
Emphasising that Google plans to help grow and expand small businesses in India, Pichai said that over 2 million small businesses have been helped by its Google My Business interface.
"There are over 20 million small businesses in India and our new training program would help 2 million businesses," Pichai said, adding that Google would ramp up its engineering section in the country. The company currently has 1,500 employees and four offices in India.
Pichai will meet Railways Minister Suresh Prabhu and Communications and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad later in the day. In the course of his two-day visit, Pichai will also meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Pranab Mukherjee, with whom a state dinner has also been scheduled for Thursday.
Accompanying him on his India tour are Caesar Sengupta, vice president (product management), Rajan Anadan, VP and managing director, Google South East Asia and India, Jason Titus, vice president (developer product group), and Eyal Manor, vice-president for YouTube.
Google has also invited a host of leading start-ups and major industry representatives from various sectors in India. Representatives from taxi aggregators such as Ola, travel websites Yatra and Makemytrip, automobile major Royal Enfield, and officials from the Union government were also present at the event.
