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Google Launchpad for Women [Americas] - Generative AI Leader Edition Day 1 – Transcript
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Summary
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- Kate Rivera and Christa McGelry created and launched the Launchpad for women program for Google Cloud customers and partners in 2024.
- Generative AI is a subset of artificial intelligence that leverages machine learning to create new content or stuff, with four primary ways of using it including summarization, generation, discovery, and automation.
- The Gemini agent platform, formerly known as Vertex AI, provides the enterprise fabric for building, deploying, and managing agents and models.
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Hey. Hey. Welcome everyone to Google Launchpad for Women Gen AI leader edition in the Americas. I'm Kate Rivera, global head of cloud learning programs and campaigns at Google Cloud based in Chicago. I am
so truly thrilled to welcome you to day one of our 2-day learning and upskilling event in Genai. Some of you have joined us for a past launchpad for women event where we upskilled thousands of customers in cloud digital leader certification or perhaps you started the Genai leader training previously with us but you weren't able to complete it. If so, welcome back. and some of you are
first timers to the Launchpad for women experience. We enthusiastically welcome all of you. My colleague Christa McGelry and I created and launched this program for our Google Cloud customers and partners in 2024 and we have now upskilled over 72,000 people in 18 largecale events since then. In fact, this fall we've been
hosting four global Genai upskilling events for our customers and partners in APAC in India two days ago in Brazil in Portuguese a few weeks ago and in EMIA later in October and now today for all of the Americas.
And while this gathering is centered around creating a space for female professionals to connect, we warmly welcome all who wish to participate in this two-day event. Once again, we are very very proud to be delivering this Google Cloud training and certification journey in partnership with ROI training. They are 11time Google Cloud training partners of the year. Truly
some of the top trainers in cloud and AI in the market. And we're overjoyed to see so many thousands of our Google Cloud customers and partners with us again today from over 900 different companies and organizations.
And we're particularly elated to bring you this industry first Gen AI certification for non-technical and technical learners alike, the Gen AI leader certification that Google Cloud released last year.
But you may ask why? Why? Why are we offering this nocost training and certification program to so many customers and why on Gen AI? Three reasons. We want many more of our customers and partners, women and men, to embrace AI, not fear it or shy away from it. Which company or government organization out there does not want to
innovate? Which one does not want to digitally transform? This means we all need new skills. As the World Economic Forum stated in its April 2025 report, AI is fundamentally changing work. The time is now for strategic upskilling.
two, in particular for the many women here today, recent Harvard Business School research states that quote, "Women are adopting AI tools at a 25% lower rate than men on average, despite the fact that it seems the benefits of AI would apply equally to men and women." That Harvard researcher Rembrand Coning states that quote businesses
could miss out on major productivity gains if women continue to shun Genai and women might fall behind in building valuable skills they need to succeed. That could widen the persistent gender gap in wages and career opportunities.
End quote. We at Google Cloud are compelled to take steps towards greater parity in AI. Third and finally to certify thousands more of our customers and partners in Google Cloud and in this case specifically inspire all of you here to get certified as Gen AI leaders. In fact, recent Ipsos research shows that
Google Cloud certifications are powerful catalysts for career growth. Eight out of 10, yes, 80% of learners confirm that earning a cloud certification equips them with the in- demand skills that open doors to new opportunities and accelerate path to promotion.
In fact, just last Friday, a Launchpad alum who earned her Genai certification last year through this program reached out to me on LinkedIn. She DM'd me to say thank you and that it turned out to be a real stepping stone for her. She said she's a finance person at her company and she ended up leading her finance team. She said not an engineer among us to win first place in the first
ever agent AON at her company. a large multinational one. And now several other teams have reached out to learn from her and collaborate with her, which she said feels surreal for her to be now a go-to person. And she told me that she would never have even thought of entering, let alone winning that before earning that Genai leader certification from
Launchpad for women. I love that story. All right. So, this this is about every individual at every level in every part of the business and each of our Google Cloud customers and partners interested in learning about Genai and earning that foundational Genai leader certification.
And let me tell you, there is power in taking that first step in educating and upskilling yourself to have a seat at the table to help drive responsible adoption of AI at your organization and to lead that digital transformation project and help reshape your company's future.
So today and tomorrow and the next three weeks of this journey as you prepare to take your certification exam are your opportunities. Take it seriously. My advice is to dedicate the time, listen and take notes. I promise if you truly commit to learning these two days and study those notes, you will absolutely
be prepared to take and pass the Genai leader certification exam. In fact, I sat here just like you and took my own notes during our Launchpad for women edition last September and then I studied those notes for probably five or six more hours and that was it. And I passed the exam last year. So, you can do it too. Many of you may be thinking though, wow, it's been years since I've
taken an exam and woo, this sounds like a lot. How will I ever do it? As Amelia Heheart, the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean said, "The most effective way to do it is to do it."
And as many a professional athlete has said, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. So, let's begin doing it today and let's all plan to take our shot at becoming Gen AI certified.
It is now my honor to introduce one of our amazing executive sponsors, Monnique Picu, Chief Strategic Partnership Officer at Google Cloud. Mon'nique, please take it away.
Hello. Hello. Hello. And thank you so much, Kate. Um, welcome. We are super thrilled to have so many thousands of you are our customers and partners with us. As Kate said, my name is Monnique Picu and I am the chief strategic partnership officer here at Google and I am so lucky and privileged to really work with a team of Googlers who keep our technical infrastructure up and running globally. Now, why do you need
two welcomes? Because you're just that important to us. We really want you to be enabled. And this program is designed to empower our cloud customers and partners to really harness the power of Genai within your organizations with your environment. Um, and it's important to note that uh this is more than a training program. This is a movement.