Cuba signs four memoranda of understanding with Google
HAVANA, Oct. 4th EFE) .- Four Cuban state entities signed memorandums of understanding with Google on Internet content, reported on Thursday state media of the island, which is immersed in a process of computerization to overcome its technological backwardness.
The University of Information Sciences, the Infomed platform, the Ministry of Culture and the Office of the Historian of the City of Havana were the four institutions that signed the pre-agreements with the technological giant at the end of September.
They did it before the meeting held on September 25 by Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel, with representatives of Google and other US technology companies in the New York office of the firm that operates the world’s largest search engine, the paper said. pro-government Granma.
The four pre-agreements will serve “to take advantage of Google’s platform with Cuban content,” explained the state media, without offering more details.
The Island is immersed in a process of computerization to overcome its technological backwardness
This type of protocol documents usually serves to provide a legal framework for collaboration between institutions, which then allows signing agreements for specific actions.
With the exception of Infomed (the health network portal), the Cuban institutions that signed the memoranda of understanding with Google had already signed agreements with US technology companies during the détente phase between the two countries that occurred in the second mandate of the US president Barack Obama.
The new contact between Cuba and Google responds, according to experts, to Havana’s willingness to circumvent the economic and technological limitations imposed by the US embargo, reinforced by the Donald Trump Administration, and advance in the late computerization process from the country.
Cuba is one of the few countries in the world where there is no mobile internet service, a delay that the Government has promised to correct with the installation of 3G infrastructures, which will begin to operate predictably before the end of the year.
The company offered three years ago to the authorities of the Island to expand Internet access in Cuba, but the proposal did not prosper due to the reluctance of the hard wing of the ruling Communist Party.
Google has been one of the technological giants that has maintained interest in entering the Cuban telecommunications sector since the announcement of the bilateral thaw (December 2014), although until now its presence is very limited.
