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ITU to partner with Smart Woman gender empowerment and education platform
Smartphone-based platform targets gender empowerment through harnessing
global ‘mobile miracle’
Geneva, 17 March, 2013 – ITU has announced it will become an
official partner and supporting agency of the Smart Woman mobile-based learning
programme. The programme was one of several presentations featured at the first
meeting of the Broadband
Commission for Digital Development Working Group on Gender in Mexico City
yesterday, as part of the 7th meeting of the Commission.
Designed initially for ‘2G’ cellular phones and now scaled up to leverage
more advanced smartphone devices and tablets, SmartWoman is targeted at low- to
middle-income urban and high-income rural women business owners. It offers
learning in communication skills, banking, financial, health, and family
work/life balance issues.
“This project, which is already operational in a number of developing
economies including Nigeria and Indonesia and which will soon be launched in
Kenya, Colombia and Mexico, has already proved its ability to change lives,
delivering targeted educational messages in local languages to women, to help
them improve their entrepreneurial skills, access to healthcare and financial
management information, and general life skills. ITU is very proud to join other
high-profile partners to support and promote this project, and hope our joint
efforts can bring vital information and learning to millions more woman
worldwide,” said ITU Dr Hamadoun I. Touré.
The SmartWoman platform has been developed by US-based social enterprise
ChangeCorp. It was created to pioneer mobile learning content that has both a
social purpose and a commercial benefit, to help people achieve knowledge and
empowerment.
“We believe that The SmartWoman Project eliminates the cost and access
barriers to entry for women receiving educational content through a sponsor-type
programme,” said Louise Guido, CEO of ChangeCorp. “Women helping women is not
new; but women supporting women through mobile is innovative and game changing.
Not only that, but connecting a mobile community of women around the world is
unprecedented – achievable only through the reach of mobile technology.”
Other SmartWoman partners include Alcatel-Lucent, United Office for
Partnerships, Happy Hearts Fund, Wayuu Taya Foundation and many corporate and
NGOs around the world.
The new partnership builds on ITU’s extensive work in the gender and
technology space, including a partnership with NGO Telecentre.org which has
already trained over 625,000 women worldwide and is on track to train one
million by the 2015 MDG target date; the Tech Needs Girls campaign to promote
ICT careers to young women; the annual Girls in ICT Day, which promotes ICT
training and opportunities to school-age girls; and new initiatives to collect
gender-disaggregated statistics on the state of ICT access worldwide.
Download a presentation on the SmartWoman platform:
www.change-corp.com
Photos can be viewed and downloaded from Flickr at:
http://bit.ly/K5rJsS
Louise Guido video interview on the ITU YouTube Channel: http://bit.ly/ZNnwwX
Broadcast-quality footage can be previewed and downloaded from ITU’s Virtual
Video Newsroom at:
www.itu.int/en/newsroom/Pages/videos.aspx
Video can be viewed on ITU's YouTube Channel at:
http://bit.ly/Z37E8A
For more information on the Broadband Commission, visit:
www.broadbandcommission.org
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www.itu.int/twitter
For more information, please contact:
Sarah Parkes
Chief, Media Relations and Public Information
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