Gender Norms, Caste Dictate Digital Access In India, Finds Oxfam Report
Access to digital technology in India is largely dependent on a person’s gender, caste, religion and economic status, Oxfam’s ‘India Inequality Report 2022: Digital Divide’ has found with its reach limited to mostly male, urban, upper caste and upper-class households and individuals.
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Giving Thanks to ICT4D Donors that Changed Digital Development
Today in the USA it is the Thanksgiving holiday, which historically was a day we gave thanks for a bountiful summer harvest and successful preparations for winter. These days it’s associated with too much food, shopping, and (American) football.
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Disconnected: How Digital India Is Leaving Women Behind
A Delhi-based graduate, Riya was reluctant to avail banking services on her phone because she said people her age are not aware of these services and she was not comfortable using such applications. She bought her first smartphone only in 2020 when she joined Urban Company as a service provider.
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Mumbai Diary: Friday Dossier
It’s hard to believe that Zaheer Zulfqar Choudhary, 19, and Ansari Mateen, 20, are amateur rappers. Recently, the duo from the slums of Govandi brought the house down at their first public set in Delhi, during a festive meet organised by Digital Empowerment Foundation and A-CODE to celebrate art for social justice and digital inclusion.
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Collaborating, Listening, Iterating: Early Lessons from the Digital Equity Accelerator
Last year, HP announced an audacious goal to accelerate digital equity for 150 million people by 2030. Even before embarking on this commitment, the team knew that success would take collaboration and openness to continuous testing and learning.
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Champions of a Better Tomorrow– Five pioneer social innovators are finalists of the prestigious Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award India 2022
The Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship and Jubilant Bhartia Foundation announced the finalists of the 13th Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award 2022.
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Meet Fauziya Nasim, A Network Engineer Bringing Internet To Remote Villages
Fauziya Nasim, in the true sense, is a wanderer who aims to do the larger good for the less privileged people. Nasim, by profession, is a wireless network engineer and trainer who goes to the remotest part of the country and help people learn technology and provide access to the internet.
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Digital Empowerment Foundation
Raising awareness about people’s rights and entitlements: giving them the voice to demand better governance; better delivery of government services; better protection of their basic human rights using digital literacy and digital tools.
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“We are the digital designers fighting information poverty”
The Legatum Center at MIT has been conducting research on Innovation-driven enterprises (IDE) that are unlocking significant business and societal value by solving systemic problems that conventional business models have not been able to solve. In that research, Legatum Center included the Digital Empowerment Foundation as an example of IDE’s. Following is a compilation from the interviews with Osama Manzar, founder and director of Digital Empowerment Foundation, by Valeria Budinich and Adeeb Qasem from LC on April 6, 2021 and April 16, 2021.
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A Conversation Between Ashoka Fellowship and Osama Manzar
It’s interesting that we must share and narrate this story with so many friends throughout time. It is hard to begin with describing who I am, especially when there has been an evolution of thinking and applying and a growth of consciousness over time. One is never the same person they were yesterday, and they will never be the same person tomorrow, in a mixed manner. It could be good or bad. But interestingly, people are very kind when you are evolving under twenty or under thirty years of age, people are still kind, they don’t blame you and tend to take it easy and refrain from judging.
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An Article by Social Work India on the Digital Empowerment Foundation’s Effort to Bridge the Digital Divide
“Getting into the world of internet was like losing your way as a traveller. I had nothing to do with computers. But I could see the internet as a change maker. So while I saw internet as a big opportunity, it was obvious that we were not prepared to embrace it. And thus began Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF) in December 2002. There was no office, no staff, except my spouse and me.” The words of Osama Manzar indicated his journey…
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How Digital Empowerment Foundation is using technology for COVID-19 relief in India
Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF) was started in 2002 with the aim of connecting “unreached and underserved communities of India in an effort to to bring them out of digital darkness and equip them with access to information.” The organization has responded instantaneously to the pandemic, providing digital relief to various communities across India.
An Article About the Founder & Director of DEF Osama Manzar by Civil Society Magazine
As India goes digital, equality in access becomes crucial. It is what makes the difference between giving people the benefits of growth or letting them fall behind. It was with this thought that Osama Manzar founded the Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF) in 2002 and has since worked with craftsmen and microenterprises to help them reach markets and customers. DEF has through annual awards encouraged digital initiatives that have promoted inclusion and helped shape an ecosystem in which technology is used to serve the marginalised.
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