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                                 In this issue:

UNESCO Mobile Learning Week 2014
Ending gender-based violence through mobile
 
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Gender and Mobile/Learning Newsletter
Volume 3, Issue 1

UNESCO Mobile Learning Week 2014: session on women’s literacy through mobile
 

From February 17th to 21st, UNESCO’s annual Mobile Learning Week will take place at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris, France. This year’s theme is teachers, and how mobile technologies can help teachers teach more effectively and contribute to their professional development.
 
On 19th February, representatives from UNESCO, Nokia and Worldreader will be presenting on a UNESCO project and publication on advancing female literacy through mobile technology.
 
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GSMA mWomen awards Innovation Fund grants to NGOs in India
 
The GSMA mWomen team has awarded two Innovation Fund grants to two Indian NGOs – Accion International, and the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA).

SEWA works with low-income self-employed female workers who work in rural agriculture. Accion International works with Airtel Money India and Swadhaar FinServ to implement mobile microfinance services for women. Accion will use the fund in part to support the educational stages of registration for new mobile money customers, and develop peer-learning programmes. This is important in helping to improve resource-poor women’s participation in mobile microfinance initiatives -  previous research has shown that female mobile users tend to need more support, especially in the initial stages of adoption and use of services, and often the best way to do this is through women’s groups.
 
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ICT experts from the US promote female ICT initiatives in Rwanda
 
On February 3rd, twenty tech experts from US companies such as Twitter, Intel, Cisco and Symantec took part in a Women and Technology event in Kigali to promote Rwandan women’s role in ICT and inspire more women to get involved. The event also launched the Techgirls Mentorship Programme, a programme designed to close the gender gap in STEM subjects, and provide female schoolchildren with positive female role models working in ICT and related fields.
 
The Rwandan government has recently placed considerable emphasis on female empowerment, entrepreneurship and social and economic transformation – and use of ICT is seen as a key tool in this as it moves towards a knowledge-based economy.
 
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How the mobile revolution can help end gender-based violence
In this article, Christopher Burns from USAID looks at the myriad solutions that have been developed using mobile devices to combat gender-based violence (GBV) – which are mostly services that alert friends and family using SMS, automated phone calls, emails and social networks such as Facebook. Some successful examples include SafeCity India, Harass Map in Egypt and Women Under Siege in Syria.
 
He believes we have the tools to end GBV, but now need new engagement models to derive benefits from the technologies, as well as more user-centred design and strategies to address the coverage gap in parts of Africa.
 
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Save the date: Changing Lives through Mobile workshop
ChangeCorp, Oxygen 8 and the United Nations Office for Partnerships are partnering at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona for a workshop on mobile learning products that create social good – including initiatives for women. 
 
The Changing Lives through Mobile seminar will be held on February 25th at 6.30pm. Two of the four sessions will look at women, mobile and broadband – with panelists from ChangeCorp, Oxygen 8 and Qualcomm. 
 
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Mobile learning for gender equality
 
This presentation builds a case for how, and why, to use mobile devices as an instrument to help facilitate gender equality, with I-Call as a specific use case. 

 
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Why mobile matters for women's empowerment

This piece from the Huffington Post looks at how mobile devices fit into the picture of women's empowerment, particularly in the USA. The author argues that mobile content and strategy is key. 
 
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Women on the move: the mobile phone as a gender technology 
 
This academic article examines mobility and how mobile technologies are socially shaped by gender. The author contends that mobile phones even the playing field in mobile technology use between men and women.
 
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The next issue of the Gender & Mobile/Learning Newsletter is scheduled to be published in April 2014. We welcome your contributions!
This newsletter was created, compiled and edited by Ronda Zelezny-Green and Alexandra Tyers. 

Please bring any mistakes or omissions to the attention of the editors. Revisions will be addressed in the subsequent issue.

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