New Delhi: In a bid to make vaccination easier for all, especially those unfamiliar with using a smartphone, Google India on Thursday announced a pilot of the first-ever Google Assistant-enabled, end-to-end vaccine booking in India which will be available in seven local Indian languages as well as English and Hindi. The search engine giant made the announcement at the Google For India 2021 event and said it has worked closely with COWIN for this integration.
COWIN is the government's portal for COVID-19 vaccination registration and it is owned and operated by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
"We have worked closely with COWIN to enable this integration, where people everywhere will be able to easily book a vaccine appointment in a more guided manner. It will empower them with access to information and healthcare that would otherwise have been out of reach -- a telling example of how technology can bridge gaps in access, and make a tangible difference in people’s lives," the company said in a statement.
The Google Assistant-enabled vaccine booking feature will work in English and other Indian regional languages including Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Tamil, and Telugu, and will begin rolling out in early 2022.
“Across people, businesses, and institutions, the outbreak of COVID-19 has catapulted India’s adoption of digital to unprecedented levels. With the fundamental drivers of digitization now in place, and millions of new users coming online, India’s goal of becoming a truly digital economy is within sight. It is now imperative that we step up our efforts in building products that are even more inclusive of India’s diverse and unique needs,” said Sanjay Gupta, Country Head & Vice President, Google India.
"We look forward to scaling this technology to other services on the web, to help make it simpler for people to get this done on the internet," the company added.
Google India has also announced a slew of new product features and partnerships at the seventh edition of the Google For India event. The search engine giant has announced extended local language and voice support in Search and its digital payments platform, Google Pay.