By Emeka Aginam

The recent visit made by Marne Dunn, the Digital Empowerment Director for Community Education at Intel to Lagos, Nigeria, no doubt is closing gender digital divide, making the role of women in the economic development of a country very significant.

Following her visit, Dunn brought further awareness to the Intel She Will Connect app at a hands-on-session where leading NGO and media personnel could learn ways to adopt the tool to reach more girls, especially in rural areas, to educate them on digital literacy.

Marne Dunn is known for her strong passion to close the gender digital divide, and she continues to inspire people to lifelong learning.

She currently leads the Intel She Will Connect Program which is a Corporate Affairs initiative of Intel aimed at closing the gender digital divide and enabling women through technology. With a goal to lead her team over the next 3 years to reach 5 Million women and to create lasting change in communities by enabling 10,000 women by the end of 2020, Marne and her team will leverage the Intel She Will Connect App.

As part of this drive, Marne’s recent visit to Lagos, Nigeria was dedicated to the Intel® She Will Connect app which is a highly useful tool that connects more women and girls with the internet. These participants learn to use mobile devices and PCs to empower themselves, while remaining safe.

Girls can learn to use technology to access the Internet, set up email accounts, research health and wellness topics, practice Internet safety on social media platforms like Facebook, while also getting inspirational stories of women who have benefited greatly by connecting to the internet.

Using the Intel She Will Connect App

The She Will Connect App is a simple easy to use app that comes with four categories: Inspire, Learn, Connect and Explore.

Inspire: To help users to understand why they should use the internet, and also share inspiring stories of women using the internet.

Learn: To help users learn how to computer and mobile device basics, as well as using a keyboard, using touch features, connecting to Wi-Fi, understanding Data Usage and Cost, protecting your devices.

Connect: To help users learn how to create an account, send email, use Social Media, like creating a facebook account, sharing information, and downloading content, like Mobile Apps.

Explore: It opens users to the endless possibility available on the internet. The device helps users to learn to explore the internet for information like learning how to start a business, Finding access to education, health and info, as well as reading local and global news, and also read about the inspiring lives of many women on My Digital Journey.

Challenges of bridging the technological divide in Nigeria.

A report from the ITU World Telecommunication/ICT indicator database states that globally, there are more men than women using the internet. We have 37% of women online compared to 41% of men across the globe. This means 1.3billion women and 1.5billion men.

In the developing world, which includes Nigeria, this means about 826million female internet users and 483 million male internet users. In essence, the gender divide is more prominent in the developing countries, where 16% less women than men use the internet.

While there are several challenges that women and girls face in bridging the gender gaps in technology, most prevalent ones include education, infrastructure, skills, financial resources, and power and decision making.

The internet can open up opportunities and close some of these gaps—there are increasing online courses on the internet for women who want to educate themselves to acquire new skills, learn how to start a business, access funding organisations or even learn the basics of decision making in business.

With a population of 162.5 million people in Nigeria, with 49% female, access and control of the technology in relations to opportunities is a challenge.

Benefits of the apps

The number of women without access to internet access is slowly being bridged by efforts like the Intel She Will Connect App. Currently, the Intel® She Will Connect Program has successfully connected over 40,000 females to the internet, and the Awareness app will open even more possibility for more girls to become digitally literate

The app will offer women and girls the opportunity to be empowered, enjoy access to health and educational information, and benefit from capacity building.

With the app, more women and girls can enhance their social and economic knowledge, and in the long run this would empower, increase productivity and in the long run reduce poverty.