Panelists: Ilda Ladeira, U of Cape Town, Divya Ramachandra, UC Berkeley, Nithya Sambasivan, UC Irvine, and Julie Weber, U of Michigan
An important agenda in the developmental discourse is the empowerment of women. They are viewed as powerful vehicles of socio-economic development. They are gateways to the broader community -- they serve as support structures for family units, and disseminate across extended social units. They are financially and socially responsible, oftentimes taking on the role of a sole bread-winner in their families. Therefore, empowering women has profound ripple effects on the people, practices, and spaces surrounding them. The field of Information Communications Technologies for Development (ICTD) especially creates avenues to directly impact the society.

We will especially focus on two areas – women as researchers and women as target audiences. Each of the panellists has directly interacted with women in urban and rural lower-income settings, in addressing their needs through technologies. Our areas of expertise include designing and developing mobile applications for female health workers in rural areas of the state of Orissa, information-sharing and communication technologies between women of two urban slums in Bangalore, and skill-building and training technologies for female domestic workers in Bangalore. These contexts and audiences, and our positions as women researchers present unique opportunities for computer science applications. As women researchers, we enjoy smoother entry into our target audiences’ lives, and access to certain facets of their lives that are typically un-exhibited. We will discuss the challenges, advantages, and disadvantages of our unique positions and audiences.