Intel Launches ‘She Will Connect’ to Close the Technology Divide Among Women in Africa

Intel Corp has launched She Will Connect, an initiative to expand digital literacy skills to young women in developing countries.

She Will Connect will begin in Africa, where the gender gap is the greatest and aim to reach 5 million women and reduce the gender gap by 50 percent.

Intel in January did a report dubbed  “Women and the Web” which revealed that there is an enormous Internet gender gap in the developing world and issued a call to action for stakeholders to double the number of women and girls online in developing countries in three years.

According to Shelly Esque, VP Intel’s Corporate Affairs Group and president of the Intel Foundation, “The Internet has transformed the lives of billions of people. It functions as a gateway to ideas, resources and opportunities that never could have been realized before, but our research shows that girls and women are being left behind. We believe that closing the Internet gender gap has tremendous potential to empower women and enrich their lives as well as all the lives they touch.”

She Will Connect demonstrates Intel’s commitment to this action by not only providing digital literacy skills to girls and women, but also by pushing the concept of digital literacy forward through new, innovative and scalable models.

In conjunction with She Will Connect, Intel pledged a 2013 Clinton Global Initiative Commitment to Action and is celebrating the United Nations’ second International Day of the Girl on October 11. The theme for this year’s International Day of the Girl emphasizes the importance of girls’ education worldwide.
“When we think about what the world is going to look like in the coming 20 years, we have to do more to make sure that women as well as men, girls as well as boys are empowered to use new technology to further their own aspirations,” said Secretary Hillary Clinton at the Clinton Global Initiative 2013 annual meeting last week.

 

She Will Connect will use an online gaming platform to innovate the delivery of digital literacy content through an interactive, engaging approach for smartphones and tablets in a game-infused environment. With the gaming platform, learning can take place in a mediated environment, individually, across devices and in the context of a peer network.

Apart from the online gaming platform, Intel and World Pulse are also working together to integrate World Pulse’s digital empowerment training into existing digital literacy programs and connect women to a safe and supportive peer network. This platform will help women exchange ideas, find support and mentorship, and obtain relevant content tailored for women.

 

Beyond Africa, Intel has a goal to reach 1 million women in India with Intel’s Easy Steps digital literacy training program in 2014. In Latin America, Intel is partnering with several governments and organizations providing digital literacy training with a special focus on fostering entrepreneurial skills in Columbia, Mexico and Peru.