Digital as a catalyst for women’s empowerment

As access to meaningful digital connectivity increases globally, in many regions women’s ability to engage with digital tools continues to be shaped by barriers such as relevance of offerings, affordability, literacy, capability, and social norms. Quicksand and Stby are working on a project that explores these nuances in women’s digital engagement to identify personas that reflect women’s digital access and usage patterns. In this work we are supported by YUX, who have anchored field activities in all the countries that this work is being conducted in - Kenya, Nigeria and Senegal. They have also partnered with Decodis, who have led a separate data collection effort in all the countries and informed the outputs of this work. 

The Digital Persona’s project has been funded and supported by the Gates Foundation and builds on the household segmentation work conducted by the Pathways Project in Kenya, Nigeria and Senegal. Using a novel design-driven approach, Pathways provides woman-centered data, evidence, and tools that uncover underlying vulnerabilities to poor health outcomes shaped by households’ social, economic, cultural, and environmental conditions.