Google says a new series of emojis recently unveiled by the search company will celebrate gender and ethnic diversity.
According to Google, these new set of emoji are one of several efforts the company is making to better represent women in technology. They are also hoped to connect girls with the education and resources they need to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and math education (STEM).
The tech company says that over 90 per cent of the online population uses emoji while chatting or commenting, and while the list of emojis is growing, diversity has not been a part of the same.
Another such effort to promote girls in ICT is “Made with Code” that helps girls pursue and express their passions using computer science, according to the technology company.
More than 90 percent of the world’s online population use emoji, Google says, pointing out that a huge range of emoji are currently in existence, but there aren’t a lot that highlight the diversity of women’s careers, or empower young girls.
[quote font=”georgia” font_size=”22″ font_style=”italic” align=”left” arrow=”yes”]The tech company says that over 90 per cent of the online population uses emoji while chatting or commenting, and while the list of emojis is growing, diversity has not been a part of the same.[/quote]Having observed that the existing emoji representing women aren’t exactly, well, representative of the women folk, the Google team set out to work to address the challenge.
The Google team proposed a set of new emoji to the Unicode Technical Committee that represent a wider range of professions for women, as well as men, and reflect the pivotal roles that women play in the world and since then, they have worked closely with members of the Unicode Emoji Subcommittee to bring the proposal to life.
Today, the Unicode Emoji Subcommittee has added 11 new professional emoji, in both male and female options and with all the skin tones which is more than 100 new emoji to choose from, Google says, adding that Unicode is also adding male and female versions to 33 existing emoji.
An example of this according to Google is that users will be able to pick both a female runner emoji and a male runner emoji, or a man or woman getting a haircut.
Google explains that these additions can also be included in future versions of Android and other platforms because Unicode helps make sure that people with different phones can send and receive the same emoji.