Digi Telecommunications Sdn Bhd announced its support of the GSMA Connected Women Commitment initiative at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2016 happening right now in Barcelona (Spain).
As part of the commitment, Digi said it will increase the proportion of women in their mobile internet customer base in Malaysia from 42% to 47% by 2020. According to Digi, some 48.5% of the Malaysian population are women, and 6 million of these women have yet to access the Internet.
The Telco is among the first GSMA operator members to have made a commitment to work hand-in-hand with GSMA and global mobile operators to reduce the mobile gender gap by connecting millions more women in low- and middle-income countries by 2020.
Digi alongside other worldwide mobile operators will seek to increase the proportion of female customers to support the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. This builds on the 15 million women already benefiting from female-focused services offered by the GSMA’s Connected Women operator partners.
Albern Murty, Digi’s Chief Executive Officer said, “Digi is happy to partner with the GSMA in a collective effort to bring mobile connectivity to more women globally. In Malaysia, six million women have yet to access the internet, and bridging the digital gender gap will help ensure these women can be active participants and contributors in the digital economy. We hope to see every Malaysian woman connected and empowered because we believe these efforts will cause a socio-economic ripple effect for the betterment of families, communities and society at large. In support of the GSMA’s Connected Women initiative, we commit to increasing the proportion of women in our mobile internet customer base in Malaysia from 42 per cent to 47 per cent by 2020.”
Aligned with these efforts to connect more women digitally, Digi recently introduced its Digi Wanita Era Digital (DigiWED) programme to bring the benefits of the Internet to more Malaysian women. This new programme is a nationwide outreach to drive greater Internet adoption and basic Internet literacy among women to enable their involvement in the digital economy.
Digi said the main thrust of WED is a series of educational meet-ups that will be conducted at 1Malaysia Internet Centres (1MIC) and National Council of Women’s Organisations (NCWO) affiliates’ offices around the country. These meet-ups will introduce women to basic, safe usage of smart devices and the Internet for communicating, sharing, browsing, and entertainment, as well as give them good reasons to use the internet. In the near future, Digi will look to expand the programme to help women take their business online and actively participate in the digital economy.
