Editor's Review

President Ruto is in the United States fo the US-Africa Leaders' summit. 

President William Ruto on Tuesday, December 13, met Google Senior Vice President for Technology and Society James Manyika in Washington D.C. 

In an update via Twitter, the Head of State mentioned that they agreed on areas of cooperation with the Google team. 

"We commend Google for establishing a product development centre in Kenya that will coordinate its activities within Kenya and the Africa Region. This is an appreciation of the potential of the digital space and Kenya’s skilled human capital.

"The Government’s planned digitisation of its services will provide an area of collaboration with Google," Ruto said. 

President William Ruto and Google Senior Vice President for Technology and Society James Manyika in Washington D.C. 

The meeting comes barely months after Google, in April 2022, opened a product development centre in Nairobi, its first in the continent. 

The centre is Google’s second major research and development investment in Africa, after setting up an AI and research centre in Ghana in 2019. 

According to Google vice president for products Suzanne Frey, the new product development centre will help to create “transformative” products and services for people in Africa and around the world and will offer job opportunities "to visionary engineers, product managers, UX designers and researchers to lay the foundation for significant growth in the coming years”.