Google Extends Universities Support Program to UI

Google Nigeria has announced the launch of ‘Google Apps Supporting Programs’ (GASP) for the University of Ibadan at a ceremony held at the university.

The event was attended by principal officers and the management team of the university and its Information & Communications Technology Services Department, including Professor Isaac F Adewole, Vice Chancellor of the university.

The GASP initiative helps increase usage of the Internet and Google Apps in sub-Saharan African universities.  As a result, all UI students will have now have access to a lifetime email address stu.ui.edu.ng and up to 25 GB of storage space.

The programme provides the Google Apps for Education suite (Email, Calendar, Groups, Docs, sites) and strengthens the existing ICT services of participating universities through a combination of infrastructure grants, technical consulting and training. Through the integration of Google’s tools into university processes and student life, GASP aims to increase productivity and offer cutting-edge world-class collaboration solutions to the academic world.

According to Prof Adewole, deploying Google Apps means that students have access to a platform that offers the best integration and collaborative opportunities. He went on to add that through this deployment, he envisions all students having access to their emails from every part of the campus.”

Ego Obi, Google program manager for Sub-Saharan Africa said: “We are excited and honored to be partnering University of Ibadan - Nigeria’s premier University to launch UI email powered by Google, , one of many Apps in the Google Apps for Education suite.  We hope that this exciting development will foster better communication and collaboration within the university community enabling teaching, learning and research.”  We are quite confident that this tool will help expand the horizon of students, and further establish the university as one of Africa’s top citadels of learning.

She also added, “We want to get more and more Nigerians users online by improving access to the Internet and helping universities like University of Ibadan to take advantage of the Internets many opportunities aligning with its vision to be a world class institution for academic excellence. We look forward to partnering with more local universities, and encourage any interested parties to visit our website.”

So far, Google Apps for Education has been deployed in over 100 universities across sub-Saharan Africa to hundreds of thousands of students and university faculties, including South Africa, Ghana, Senegal, Kenya and Uganda.