This blog is part of the WomenConnect Challenge Blog Series: Introducing Strategies for Closing the Gender Digital Divide. USAID’s WomenConnect Challenge (WCC) is a global call for solutions to improve women’s participation in everyday life by meaningfully changing the ways women access and use technology. In the first round of the Challenge, WCC awarded nine grants to organizations working to identify and change the social and economic circumstances that keep women offline and under-empowered. Through close partnership with local awardee teams and community members, WCC has identified five proven strategies for closing the gender digital divide and increasing women’s empowerment. This blog explores one strategy at length.

“I’m not smart enough to do this… I’ll break it… I'm too dumb to use a phone… It’s not for me.”

Development practitioners and researchers presenting in the “WomenConnect Challenge Steps to Success” webinar series explained that self-deprecating statements such as these are commonplace when women are invited to utilize digital technologies for the first time.