Google has announced it will be providing over 7,000 scholarships for its Career Certificates programme in the MENA region, which aims to help support young professionals in four different sectors - IT support, project management, UX design and data analytics.

The scholarships especially target women, young professionals and those whose livelihoods were affected by COVID-19, but are open to all who are interested.

The programme invites students to complete self-paced programmes on the educational platform, Coursera, before receiving certificates to demonstrate qualifications in their respective career fields.

In addition to the tech courses, Google is also offering five applied digital skills courses that are part of the ‘Maharat min Google’ programme. The online courses will help participants with their CV’s, teach them how to best utilise Google to find jobs, and how to manage a project with digital tools— but these courses do not come with a scholarship programme.

Meanwhile, the scholarships for Career Certificates will be distributed via Dubai International Financial Center (DIFC) and the Higher College of Technology in the UAE, General Commission for Audiovisual Media (GCAM) and the Human Resources Development Fund (HRDF) in Saudi Arabia, the Egyptian Banking Institution (EBI) and the University Center for Career Development (UCCD) in Egypt, Amideast in Lebanon, The Agency for Digital Development (ADD) in Morocco, and Gaza Sky Geeks in Palestine.