Google takes digital skills training to South Australia

Google headed to Adelaide and Kangaroo Island in South Australia last week to run digital skills workshops for businesses, community organisations, and locals looking to grow their businesses, organisations, careers and education.

It’s the first time the Grow with Google workshops have been held in Adelaide and Kangaroo Island, and it was great to see locals picking up new skills regardless of where they were on the digital journey.

Grow with Google in Adelaide 

First up, more than 200 Adelaide locals joined special training workshops in Glenelg. We were joined by Steve Georganas MP who officially opened the event.

Local businesses learned how to grow their presence online and gain valuable insights about their customers — and individuals at all stages of the digital journey picked up new skills.

One Adelaide business that has been using digital tools to grow successfully is outdoor camping gear retailer, Snowys. They created an online shop in 2011 to complement their existing physical retail store, and it’s helped the company grow significantly. Today half of their employees work solely on fulfilling online orders.

Learning new STEM skills at Madison Park 

We also visited Madison Park School to help students prepare their FIRST LEGO League (FLL) team for the upcoming regional competition. Together with the FLL team from Pedare Christian College we ran through robotics missions and provided feedback on their innovative solutions to this year’s City Shaper challenge. We also spent time with the older students talking about careers in STEM and answering all their questions about Google and technology.

With support from Schools Plus and Google, Madison Park has introduced a STEM learning program across all year levels, aiming to lift student engagement in STEM and develop teachers’ skills and confidence in incorporating STEM learning in the classroom.

Last year, Madison Park was not only able to participate in the FLL Competition for the first time, but they won the regionals to then earn a place at the Nationals in Sydney later that year! Through Schools Plus, Google is providing STEM education in schools across Australia, reaching more than 1300 students and 480 teachers.

Grow with Google Kangaroo Island 

Then it was on to Kangaroo Island where we ran workshops over two days for sixty local businesses and community organisations. It was great to see the locals picking up new skills they can put to use to grow their businesses and organisations beyond the Island!

A big thank you to South Australian Senator and Shadow Minister for Tourism Don Farrell and State Member for Mawson Leon Bignell for officially opening the event.

A report released by AlphaBeta in September found that Google’s advertising and productivity platforms were helping more than a million Aussie businesses and had helped deliver business benefits of $35 billion so far this year - including supporting 7,400 South Australian jobs through its economic activity.

Grow with Google aims to provide all Australians with access to digital skills training online and in-person, to help them make the most of the Internet. It includes an online learning hub accessible from anywhere, on any device, with hundreds of handy training modules. The next Grow with Google event will be held in Perth on 19 November. Find out more at: http://g.co/GrowPerth.