As a part of its Digital Unlocked campaign aimed at digitally empowering small and medium businesses (SMBs) in the country, Google India on Wednesday announced the winners of SMB Heroes 2017.

SMB Heroes, an initiative launched earlier this year, is aimed at recognising businesses that have embraced technology to power their growth.

Farida Gupta was recognised under Business Impact Through Digital, Shantanu Pathak and Aditya Kulkarni for Impacting Change Through Digital, and Arpita Ganesh for the Woman Business Leader categories respectively.

“India’s story of internet adoption continues to have a transformational impact on how people are consuming information and connecting with others,” Rajan Anandan, vice-president, India and South-East Asia, Google, told reporters here.

“However, India’s 51 million strong SMB community is not where they should be. We are committed to removing the barriers to adoption and providing them with training and tools to accelerate their growth,” he added.

According to a study conducted by Google and KPMG earlier this year, SMBs lack the understanding regarding benefits of digital technologies and skills.

Recognising these gaps, Google launched the Digital Unlocked programme to provide training to these SMBs with essential digital skills.

The tech giant had also launched Primer mobile app to teach digital marketing skills in an easy and interactive way.

The app has been downloaded over two million times.

Google had also launched Websites with Google My Business — a free tool for SMBs to create mobile optimised websites in 10 different Indian languages.

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