By Osama Manzar Founder Director Digital Empowerment Foundation In the digital age, where copious amounts of free information are available in public domain, the menace of misinformation, propaganda and personal attacks is bound to exist. It is certainly not new in the world of social media. In the last few months, however, social media has…
Mohini, a resident of Saidanpur, Uttar Pradesh, is a housewife. Due to her husband’s busy schedule she was unable to get regular checkups during her pregnancy. Pooja Devi, one of the DEF’s Soochnapreneurs, with her smartphone and internet met her and the first thing she did was to link her to the maternity benefit program…
Conducting workshops and creating awareness on menstruation has always been challenging especially in rural areas. This situation exists not only due to the lack of information on menstrual hygiene but also of the stigma associated with it. This time, the solution proposed by DEF’s Smartpur initiative was to build the capacity of 50 trainers on…
By Sarah Farooqui Mitigating ways to reduce the digital divide is imperative to ensure that the full potential of digital technologies is exploited by all. Case 1: August 20th, At least 27% students do not have access to smartphones, laptops for online classes: NCERT survey. Approximately 27 per cent of the students mentioned the non-availability…
The Martalli Grama Panchayat in Kollegal, Karnataka had been facing connectivity issues. They were also unable to finish any documentation work regarding MNREGA, thereby bringing a halt to the lives of many workers under the scheme. They reached out to our Smartpur team in Kollegal – Palanimedu Spoke Center- for internet services and assistance. Our…
The Research and Advocacy department of Digital Empowerment Foundation produced a report on ‘Improving Livelihoods of Rural Weavers through Digital Training’ based on training provided by DEF and Commonwealth of Learning to 2000 weavers and artisans across 8 states – Andhra Pradesh (Prakasam), Karnataka (Chamrajanagar), Madhya Pradesh (Ashok Nagar), Odisha (Bargarh, Cuttack), Rajasthan (Barmer), Tamil…
By Abner Manzar About five kilometres from Tamil Nadu’s Musiri, a famous weaver cluster, is a small village in the district of Trichy called Manamedu. At its heart is a computer centre equipped with everything required to digitally enable the community’s weavers. An initiative of Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF) and Mphasis, the center is a…
Champe Khan was struggling to sustain himself and his elderly parents living in Baytu, in Rajasthan’s Barmer district. A differently-abled person from a poor family, Khan had been facing discrimination and other hardships all his life. He had been unable to avail the government’s Disability Pension due to lack of awareness and documents. DEF’s Samarth…
A farmer from Murpa in Jharkhand, Rajkapur Mahto bought a smartphone thinking his life would become easy. Post the purchase he realised that his illiteracy acted as a huge wall between him and the benefits he had imagined to reap. Soon he connected with our Samarth SoochnaPreneur (SSP) and got to know about Google Assistant,…
DEF’s implementation of STEM for Girls classes has witnessed support and love from not just students but also their families. Sarayu is a student of 8th standard in a school in Telangana’s Yerrupalem area. She, along with her sister Sayura, is enrolled with the program. The entire family follows the class, especially their father Srinivas,…
