Together with partners, including the Chamber of Industry and Commerce for Munich and Upper Bavaria, Google opened the first permanent training center for free training on digital topics in Munich's Arnulfpark last week.
The curriculum of the Future Workshop ranges from digital marketing for small and medium-sized businesses to online fundraising for nonprofit organizations and programming courses for students. Following the first permanent training center in Munich, additional locations are planned in Hamburg and Berlin. Google aims to reach around two million people in Germany with its training programs by 2020.
“Huge demand for know-how in companies”
The program is aimed at employers, employees, and trainees in companies, associations, and universities. Online and in on-site workshops, participants explore topics such as online marketing and communication, web analytics, and design thinking. The Chamber of Industry and Commerce for Munich and Upper Bavaria has incorporated the program into its "Let's do it digitally!". Further offerings for professional use include special courses for non-profit organizations (e.g., online fundraising) and the Google News Lab for journalists. Peter Driessen, Managing Director of the Chamber of Industry and Commerce for Munich and Upper Bavaria, says about the background of the program:
"Small and medium-sized enterprises in Bavaria rated their level of digitalization with an average of minus three in a Chamber of Industry and Commerce survey. Only 7 percent consider themselves fully digitally developed. In contrast, almost 40 percent see themselves in the lower half of the digitalization scale. Companies recognize that they have to catch up digitally. Digital training is therefore the order of the day for our companies. The Google Future Workshop is an optimal addition to meet the huge demand for know-how within companies."
“Digital education is the key”
The learning opportunities for schools include working with the "Calliope mini" microcontroller, the "Roberta robots," and the "Open Roberta Lab" programming interface developed by Fraunhofer IAIS. Teachers and students learn programming in this way. Together with the Stiftung Lesen (Reading Foundation), "Google Expeditions" provides virtual reality headsets for the classes and a control tablet for the teachers. On "virtual school trips," students visit places like the Hamburg Elbphilharmonie, the moon, and the inside of the human body. Dr. Wieland Holfelder, Head of Development at Google Germany and Head of the Development Center in Munich, says:
"Digital education is the key to making everyone in Germany fit for change and keeping our country internationally competitive. We, too, see ourselves as having a responsibility here and want to be part of the solution."
Whether professional or non-professional, everyone is welcome in the workshop, says Holfelder.
