AUN Google Ambassadors, Mr. Chijioke Ndubisi and Mr. Chibuzo Nwankpo, have ‘Gone Google’ at the Google Student Ambassador Program summit in Nairobi, Kenya, held between June 11 and 14.

The Google Summit, said to be the first of its kind, featured 170 students from 100 universities from 12 African countries at the Oshwal Center in the Kenyan capital. Google designed the event to focus on equipping its student ambassadors to be Google tool-savvy.

The student ambassadors, who are being trained to skillfully serve as links between Google and their universities, learned about Google Apps–Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, Google Groups, and Google Sites–and how they can be used to boost the search engine’s role when it comes to creating a Google-driven learning environment.

On the Kenya summit, Mr. Nwankpo said, “This experience made me understand that you must be completely sold out emotionally and mentally to whatever you intend to do if you want to have a world-class impact.”

Supporting programs like Google Apps for Education were used at the summit to teach Google ambassadors, how to set-up e-mail servers and Google accounts for their universities, for ease of future use.

They were also trained on Google Apps features and their use to improve education on university campuses around Africa.

“After the Google Summit, I can boldly say that I have grown in my understanding of what it takes to excel in the IT industry as an individual, and how best companies ought to function,” said Mr. Nwankpo. “Google did not only teach us how to use their tools, but they also shared world-class corporate values that make them what they are today.”

Ambassadors were also taught the ins and outs of Google Plus, the new kid on the block in social media, with training on multi-user video conferencing, sharing, targeting, and the organization of contacts.

Ndubisi and Nwankpo were selected as Google Ambassadors after the Google team visited AUN in September 2011.

The Ambassador Program, coordinated by Ms. Olatawura Ladipo-Ajayi under Google’s University Programs, is part of the internet giant’s efforts to support higher education in Africa.

Chibuzor making a presentation