Grow with Google

Grow with Google was announced on October 12, 2017 by Google CEO Sundar Pichai in Pittsburgh, PA. The initiative was backed by $1 billion in Google.org grants over five years and 1 million volunteer hours committed by Google employees globally. Its mission is to help people develop digital skills to advance their careers and grow their businesses.

The grow.google website serves as the central digital hub for the initiative, providing access to free online courses, career certificates, business tools, and local training resources. The platform operates in 30+ languages with country-specific resources across regions including the US, Europe, Middle East, and Africa.

Pim's role bridged design and engineering — creating scalable templates, implementing the design system, testing UX and accessibility, optimizing file sizes, and ensuring cross-device compatibility.

The grow.google platform presented unique challenges given its global reach and audience diversity. The site needed to:

• Serve 30+ languages across multiple regional variants (US, Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia)
• Remain performant on low-end devices and slow connections, as many target users were in underserved communities
• Maintain a consistent design system while accommodating diverse content types and regional needs
• Meet Google's high standards for accessibility and usability

The Grow with Google initiative has achieved significant measurable outcomes:

• 12+ million Americans trained in digital skills since 2017
• 15+ million people trained across Europe since 2015
• 9,000+ partner organizations including libraries, schools, and nonprofits
• 70%+ of certificate graduates report positive career outcomes within six months
• 150,000 scholarships committed for EMEA region
• 1 million+ Career Certificate graduates (milestone reached by 2024)
• 150+ employer consortium members including Deloitte, Infosys, Etsy, Target, Verizon, and Google
• 40,000+ visitors to the NYC Learning Center in its first five months