DIGI Girls

Problem: Very few adolescent girls understand digital technology and are not able to participate effectively in education or find appropriate work, thus hampering their economic well-being. Slum-based young girls have very little or no access to digital training.

Solution: Provide customized digital training to girls who are in secondary schools so that they learn various aspects of digital technology including accessing internet and use of common softwares

Impact: Digital training will increase skills among young girls, thus providing them access to educational opportunities as well as be better positioned to get higher paying jobs with local businesses

Millions of slum-based children have no access to internet and do not have any kind of digital training.  Slums in India are large and represent the population with lowest incomes in the country.  The government of India has made provision for free education for children from poorer communities.  However, the access to quality education is limited.  Access to technology is also limited for these children.  In order for children to have better access to quality education, they need to have good understanding of digital technology and need access to internet. In order to get employment after completing secondary education, they need good understanding of digital technology and how to use softwares that are used by local businesses.  Without digital technology skills, most of these girls will end up in jobs with very low pay.  The proposed initiative is a pilot project that will benefit 1500 girls in residing in the slums of Kolkatta, West Bengal, India.  The model and lessons of this initiative can used to scale up the project to cover larger number of girls in India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, & Ethiopia.  

The solution includes the following components:

(i) Develop a standard training package on digital technology for young girls who are completing secondary schools.  Girls in class IX and X will be the target population.

(ii) Organize training after school hours for the girls which will be provided by experts in digital training.  The training will be provided over a period of 6 to 9 months.

(iii) Provide computers and access to internet to the young girls 

(iv)  As the slums do not have any physical facility for such training, one to two vans will be converted into classrooms so that when the van arrives in a particular location, girls can use the facility to have hands-on training on digital technology

(v) each van will cover several areas as the girls are located in different areas of the slums.  A schedule will be prepared which will show which location and when the training will take place in slum location.

(vi) A communication strategy will be developed and launched so that local government and businesses can be made aware of this initiative for their support and knowledge

(vii) a communication strategy will be launched so that larger India companies can be made aware of this program for future funding.

The solution will serve young girls of slum areas of Kolkatta, West Bengal in India.  Approximately 1500 girls will be part of this initiative.  The digital literacy and digital knowledge will help girls to use IT technology for education as well as for jobs.  A Kolkatta-based digital company will develop the education materials and plan the implementation with support from a US-based firm.  The girls will learn about internet, internet research, common software such as word, excel, etc., digital platforms, social media platforms, social media strategy, digital marketing, digital branding, etc. They will gain skills and ability to produce text, images, audio and designs using technology.   These skills will be useful for those who want to continue their education beyond secondary schools.  It will also be useful for those who want to start own on-line business with support from local businesses or even find employment with local businesses.  Most local businesses use digital technology and require people with digital skills.  Many of these girls have great ideas about what they want to do with the life and they need to be exposed to the ideas that internet offers, whether in education, business, or employment.  They need to ideas to exploit social media platforms for their own economic well-being.

The solution is intended to align with the following objective of the challenge.  It is a bold initiative to integrate low income people in digital economy.  Our target population is young girls in slum population so that they can integrate themselves in digital economy, thus helping several thousands families for economic well-being.

• Equip everyone, regardless of age, gender, education, location, or ability, with culturally relevant digital literacy skills to enable participation in the digital economy.

Our initiative will contribute to building an inclusive digital economy so that the young girls can lead a dignified and productive life and will have access reliable infrastructure, devices, and affordable data plans.  They can also have access to commerce, credit lines, safety nets, and saving mechanisms.  Young people are our best hope to fast track economic well-being of poor people.  The pilot project has the potential to be scaled up throughout India and other countries which have large slum population in Asia and Africa.  It is a bottom-up approach to transforming the lives of the poorest of the poor by giving them an opportunity to integrate with fast changing digital economy and digital commerce.

The main motivation is to uplift young people especially girls in slum areas by providing them opportunities for economic activities by opening up their knowledge about digital economy.  Girls in slum areas are the most deprived and do not have the same opportunities as boys.  Many young girls are forced into marriage as parents can not provide for their accommodation and food.  Most initiatives focus on access to education or income generating projects for slum girls.  And those initiatives, while good and useful, are not transformative.  The digital knowledge and digital training will be transformative by leveling the field for these poor girls with other better off girls in the society.  Access to social platforms and digital platforms will fast track knowledge and participation in digital economy. The Kolkatta-based digital company has the right expertise and experience in digital technology to provide training and guidance to the girls of slum population.  This is a pilot initiative because no other organization has taken a systematic approach to  digital training and digital literacy for young girls of slum population.