Case Study Details - The EDISON Alliance - Digital Skills for Business to Bridge the Gender Digital Divide

With eyes firmly set on the future, Rwanda has made significant progress and expansion in digitally-enabled initiatives. However, large gaps remain in embedding basic digital skills, particularly for young women essential for livelihood creation. According to the Rwanda Ministry of ICT and Innovation (MINICT) computer literacy at a national level is as low as 8.4% for even the most basic digital services and applications, and 94% of women do not know how to use a computer. In order to work towards Rwanda’s vision of the future, Digital Opportunity Trust Rwanda (DOT Rwanda), is proud to offer scalable and replicable Digital Skills for Business program aimed at increasing digital literacy, driving digital adoption, entrepreneurship, and technology-enabled social innovations to foster community growth and bridge the gender digital divide amongst young women (18-35) who are owners of formal and informal businesses across urban and rural geographies in Rwanda.

Impact / Outcome

183 young women entrepreneurs received training and upskilling from 15 DOT trained Digital Champions, and 10 Women Researchers led the needs assessments for the projects; 77% increase of skills across all levels of ICT skills and abilities ranging from sending emails, using e-government services, social media, to selling a product/service online; 44% increase in smartphone ownership and 15% increase in adopting e-wallets; 46% increase in daily use of mobile money transactions – 53% of which was used for purchasing and making payments; 80% reported a high level of awareness on the importance of digital safety and security.

Funding sources

Fully Private

Key Metrics

Increase women ICT knowledge, identify and leverage growing digital ecosystems, and integrate new digital tools to improve their business outcomes