Supporting LGBTQIA+ entrepreneurs and business owners with digital skills training
More than 100 entrepreneurs and business owners from the LGBTQIA+ community picked up vital new digital skills at a special workshop hosted at our Sydney office this week.
Google experts shared digital tips, tricks and tools to help attendees better connect with customers and grow their businesses — especially during the busy Mardi Gras season. The session covered topics like how to be found online and have a strong presence, how search works, and how to gain better insights into what their customers want.
Google Australia’s Head of Small Business Marketing, Richard Flanagan opens the event.
We are grateful to the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras and Sydney Gay and Lesbian Business Association who we partnered with us for the event — and which coincided with this year’s Sydney Mardi Gras Festival.
Research from Deloitte shows that there is a digital skills gap in Australia — with a divide between future opportunities and the digital skills Australians need to realise these. It found that Aussie small businesses with high digital engagement are 1.5 times more likely to be growing revenue, seven times more likely to be exporting, and eight times more likely to be hiring. Despite this 90 per cent of small businesses aren’t taking the steps needed to realise this potential. The free workshop was designed to help address this gap for the LGBTQIA+ community.
Kate Wickett and Adrian Phoon, Co-Chairs of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras.
We know that digital tools and skills can open up new opportunities for members and businesses of the LGBTQIA+ community. But many people are unsure what to do or where to begin, so we created these ‘Grow with Google’ workshops to help close this gap.
Google Yash Godbole provides advice to a small business owner.
Since 2014, Google has trained more than half a million people across Australia through online and in-person digital skills training, as well as curriculum integrated through school and partner programs.
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 and help close the digital skills divide. It includes an online learning hub accessible from anywhere, on any device, with hundreds of handy training modules.
