An Overview of UN Initiatives and Policies on Artificial Intelligence
This article is a part of a special series of articles on women’s role in the digital development of India.
In rural India, women have never been just caregivers—they have always been the backbone of their communities, the ‘silenced’ architects of the rural economy. Women-led micro-enterprises make up 20% of all MSMEs, employing 22–27 million people. Yet, an overwhelming 82% remain trapped in informality (NITI Aayog, 2023). Their businesses struggle—not due to a lack of ambition, but because the system refuses them access to formal credit, policy support, and essential business development services such as financial advising, technology, and marketing (World Bank, 2024). Recognizing these gaps, the Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF) is working to rewrite this injustice—arming rural women with digital skills, financial literacy, and entrepreneurial training. Through programs like Udyamini, Digital Sarthak, and Digikargha, DEF is not just enabling women to run businesses; it is standing with them to become independent entrepreneurs, leaders, and catalysts of change in their communities.
Women as social entrepreneurs do more than running businesses. Their enterprises are not just about profit; they are social interventions, rooted in empathy, resilience, and the deeply ingrained ability to prioritize collective well-being. Research shows that women entrepreneurs consistently outperform men in acquiring customers and delivering value, even when controlling aspects like caste and religion. Their culturally assigned roles of care and empathy are not constraints; they are strengths. Women-led businesses focus on customer needs in ways that male-led enterprises often overlook, particularly when serving other women (Chatterjee et al. 2024).
For generations, rural women have been economic actors, though often invisible ones. Yet they remain stuck in subsistence-level businesses. Udyamini is breaking such cycles, equipping them with the tools to scale, master digital finance, and access online markets. Operating across 12 districts in Assam and six in West Bengal, in partnership with seven social organizations, the strategic cascading model of Udayamini is on a mission to train 20,000 Rural Women Entrepreneurs (RWEs), who will further train two entrepreneurs—ultimately reaching pool of 40,000 RWEs and indirectly impacting 400,000 community members by expanding access to digital and financial services.
For many rural women, technology remains a gatekeeper, barring them from economic mobility. Digital Sarthak is dismantling such gatekeeping, replacing hesitation with confidence by equipping women with the skills to use smartphones, conduct online transactions, and navigate e-commerce. The program will train women entrepreneurs, strengthen women-led Community Development Organizations, and establish Digital Resource Centres. They will create a profound ripple effect as 300,000 individuals will gain access to digital tools, and 100,000 will receive financial literacy training. The impact goes even further: studies show that men exposed to women-led enterprises in co-ed entrepreneurial environments adopt more socially conscious and consumer-oriented business practices, challenging traditional gender norms in market interactions.
India’s craftswomen have long been the silent custodians of heritage—hand-weaving, embroidering, and shaping pottery—only to see their labor undervalued and their voices unheard. DigiKargha aims to disrupt such problem, bridging tradition and technology through digital interventions in nine artisan clusters, training 10,000 men and women artisans in digital literacy, 1,000 youth in digital design, and digitally archiving 100 traditional songs. By eliminating exploitative middlemen and connecting craftswomen directly to global markets, DigiKargha ensures fair wages and a sustainable future for these artisans.
The reach of these projects is not economic alone—it’s deeply personal. An economically self-sufficient woman invests her earnings in education for her children, increases home stability, and defies generational barriers. Economic empowerment is not just about earning—it is about rewriting what is possible.
Rural women are not waiting to be empowered; they are already leading, fighting, and proving their worth in ways the world too often fails to see. Programs like Udayamini, Digital Sarthak, and DigiKargha are acts of defiance against exclusion, against the quiet erasure of women’s labor and aspirations. As a man, I do not speak for these women on Women’s Day, nor should we, but we can acknowledge the systems that have long denied them their rightful place.
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