AI for equality: Bridging the innovation gap

Summary

This discussion featured Cherie Blair, founder of the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women, in conversation with Doreen Bogdan-Martin, Secretary General of the ITU, focusing on how artificial intelligence can bridge innovation gaps and promote women’s economic empowerment. Blair expressed enthusiasm about AI’s potential to enable women’s entrepreneurship and level the playing field, particularly in low and middle-income countries, while acknowledging the risks of perpetuating gender-based stereotypes within AI systems. Her foundation has reached 300,000 women since 2008, with surveys showing that 40% of women entrepreneurs are already using AI for customer access, marketing, and business processes, while 70% want to learn more about these technologies.

The conversation highlighted significant barriers preventing women from accessing digital technologies, including affordability issues, language barriers, and safety concerns. Blair emphasized that 70% of women entrepreneurs surveyed had experienced gender-based harassment on their business websites, with 10% stopping their online presence entirely due to harassment. She stressed the need for tech companies to consider pricing in local currencies, develop tools in local languages, and address the $30 billion market opportunity that women entrepreneurs represent. The discussion also covered the foundation’s ambitious goal to reach one million women entrepreneurs by 2030 through partnerships with governments, NGOs, and organizations like the ITU.

Blair concluded by calling for positive masculinity in the AI sector and greater awareness of gender assumptions in technology development. The conversation underscored the critical importance of making AI and digital technologies more accessible, safe, and relevant for women to achieve sustainable and inclusive growth globally.

Keypoints

**Major Discussion Points:**

– **AI’s dual potential for women’s empowerment**: AI can significantly enable women’s economic empowerment and entrepreneurship through improved customer access, marketing capabilities, and streamlined business processes, but it can also perpetuate gender stereotypes and undermine opportunities if not developed inclusively.

– **Barriers to women’s digital participation**: Key obstacles include affordability issues, language barriers (need for local language support), safety concerns including widespread online harassment (70% of surveyed women experienced gender-based harassment on business sites), and persistent gender stereotypes that discourage women from engaging with technology.

– **Scaling impact through partnerships**: The Cherie Blair Foundation’s goal to reach one million women entrepreneurs by 2030 through collaborative efforts with governments, NGOs, and organizations like ITU, moving beyond individual organizational capacity to achieve systemic change.

– **Gender-responsive approach to technology design**: The need to communicate with women in language they understand, use relevant examples, create accessible bite-sized learning opportunities that accommodate women’s time constraints, and actively combat implicit biases in business and technology training.

– **Market opportunity and inclusive development**: Recognition of a $30 billion untapped market of women entrepreneurs interested in AI, with 70% expressing desire to learn more, representing both a development opportunity and significant business potential for tech companies.

**Overall Purpose:**

The discussion aimed to explore how artificial intelligence and technology can bridge the innovation gap for women, particularly in low and middle-income countries, while addressing barriers that prevent women from fully participating in the digital economy and entrepreneurship.

**Overall Tone:**

The conversation maintained a consistently optimistic yet realistic tone throughout. Both speakers demonstrated enthusiasm about technology’s potential while candidly acknowledging significant challenges. The tone was collaborative and solution-oriented, with both participants sharing expertise and expressing commitment to partnership. There was no notable shift in tone – it remained professional, encouraging, and focused on actionable insights from start to finish.

Speakers

– **Moderator**: Role/Title: Event moderator; Area of expertise: Not specified

– **Doreen Bogdan Martin**: Role/Title: Secretary General of the ITU (International Telecommunication Union); Area of expertise: Telecommunications, digital technology, international organizations

– **Cherie Blair**: Role/Title: Founder of Cherie Blair Foundation for Women; Area of expertise: Women’s empowerment, entrepreneurship, technology for development, legal background (implied)

Additional speakers:

– **Mark Benioff**: Role/Title: Not specified in detail, but mentioned as having participated in a previous session; Area of expertise: Technology, artificial intelligence, business (based on context of discussion about MSMEs and startups)

# Discussion Report: AI, Women’s Empowerment, and Digital Inclusion

## Executive Summary

This discussion featured Cherie Blair, founder of the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women, and Doreen Bogdan-Martin, Secretary General of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), examining how artificial intelligence can promote women’s economic empowerment globally. The conversation explored AI’s transformative potential for women entrepreneurs, particularly in low and middle-income countries, while addressing significant barriers that prevent women from fully participating in the digital economy.

Blair brought practical experience from her foundation’s work since 2008, having reached 300,000 women globally through various programs. Bogdan-Martin contributed the perspective of international telecommunications policy and governance, emphasizing broader connectivity challenges and collaborative approaches to digital inclusion.

## Key Discussion Themes

### AI’s Potential for Women’s Economic Empowerment

Blair presented evidence from surveys conducted with the World Bank and Intuit of 3,000 women entrepreneurs, showing that 40% are already using AI for customer access, marketing, and business processes, while 70% express interest in learning more about these technologies. She characterized this as representing a “$30 billion market opportunity” for technology companies.

Blair noted AI’s dual nature: “It can also undermine women’s empowerment. It can also undermine the opportunities for women entrepreneurs by continuing to work with gender-based stereotypes, which can be amalgamated within AI itself.”

Bogdan-Martin emphasized that AI will be “a game changer for small and medium enterprises,” noting its potential to help smaller players compete with larger enterprises. She also mentioned that this discussion built on earlier conversations, including Mark Benioff’s session on AI and small to medium enterprises.

Blair highlighted a specific application where AI can help provide finance to unbanked women through alternative data analysis, offering new pathways to access capital for women entrepreneurs who lack traditional credit histories.

### Barriers to Women’s Digital Participation

The speakers identified multiple interconnected barriers preventing women from accessing digital technologies:

**Digital Gender Gap**: Bogdan-Martin noted that “2.6 billion people have never connected to the internet, with a persistent digital gender gap that’s growing in least developed countries.”

**Systemic Disadvantages**: Blair outlined challenges including “less education, less access to skills, less access to finance, and gender stereotypes about technology.” She also pointed out that surveys show girls have less free time than boys because “girls are expected to help with childcare and housework.”

**Affordability**: Blair noted that products priced in dollars create accessibility issues for people in Africa, and that “families often share one phone where males get priority usage.”

**Language Barriers**: Many tools aren’t available in local languages, with Blair pointing out missed opportunities such as Bengali speakers representing a large market.

**Online Safety**: Blair presented concerning statistics showing that “70% had seen some kind of gender based harassment” on their business websites, with “20, 25% had received sex explicit messages or images.” She emphasized this harassment occurs on business platforms where women are “trying to sell you a service or a good,” not on dating or adult sites. Blair also mentioned concerns about META’s announcement that “they would do less moderation,” potentially exposing women to increased harassment risk.

### Gender-Responsive Technology Design

Blair made a key observation about masculine assumptions in business and technology: “When we’re talking about getting women and girls involved, stop talking to them in men. Let’s start talking to women in a language that women understand… business was designed by men for men. And there are lots of implicit biases in that, which don’t actually speak to women, which actually put women off.”

This led to discussion of practical design approaches. Blair described her foundation’s development of the Her Venture App, which she characterized as “like Duolingo for business skills” with “10 to 15 minutes” sessions designed for “time-poor women in bite-sized, accessible formats.” She provided specific examples of when women could use it, recognizing that women often have less free time due to childcare and household responsibilities.

### Partnership and Collaboration

Both speakers emphasized that achieving meaningful impact requires collaborative efforts. Blair articulated her foundation’s “goal to reach one million women entrepreneurs by 2030 through partnerships,” acknowledging that this scale cannot be achieved by any single organization working alone.

Blair mentioned specific partnership examples, including Nigeria’s goal to reach 10 million women and her foundation’s plan to sign an MOU “tomorrow” with the Nigerian Gender Ministry. Bogdan-Martin expressed commitment to “continued partnership between organizations like ITU and the Cherie Blair Foundation to empower women globally.”

## Key Insights and Observations

Several significant insights emerged from the discussion:

**AI’s Dual Nature**: The recognition that AI can both empower and undermine women’s opportunities, particularly through embedded gender stereotypes, established a framework for balanced analysis beyond simple technological optimism.

**Business Design Assumptions**: Blair’s observation about business being “designed by men for men” challenged assumptions about gender neutrality in business and technology systems, shifting focus from women’s deficiencies to systemic barriers.

**Economic Impact of Online Safety**: The connection between harassment and business participation demonstrated that online safety is not just a social issue but a critical economic development concern.

**Market Opportunity**: The quantification of women’s AI interest as a $30 billion market opportunity reframed inclusion from solely a social justice issue to a business strategy.

## Practical Outcomes and Future Directions

The discussion generated several concrete commitments:

– The Cherie Blair Foundation’s goal to reach one million women entrepreneurs by 2030 through partnerships

– Continued collaboration between ITU and the Cherie Blair Foundation

– Development and promotion of the Her Venture App as a practical tool for women’s business skills development

– Specific partnership agreements, including the mentioned MOU with Nigeria’s Gender Ministry

Blair concluded by calling for AI to be “a force for positive masculinity,” suggesting that addressing gender equality in technology requires positive engagement across all genders rather than adversarial approaches.

## Unresolved Challenges

Despite identifying significant opportunities, several challenges remained unaddressed:

– Specific mechanisms for reducing online harassment and improving platform safety

– Detailed implementation strategies for capturing the identified market opportunities

– Concrete approaches for addressing affordability and language barriers

– Systematic methods for changing embedded gender stereotypes in AI systems

– Specific interventions to address the growing digital gender gap in least developed countries

## Conclusion

This discussion provided a comprehensive examination of the intersection between AI, women’s empowerment, and digital inclusion. The speakers successfully connected social justice imperatives with business opportunities while identifying both systemic barriers and practical solutions. The emphasis on partnerships and inclusive design provides a framework for coordinated action, though significant implementation challenges remain to be addressed through continued collaboration across sectors.

Moderator: What we’re going to do next is see how we can remain resilient at a time when equality is more important than ever. And so our next conversation is going to be all about bridging the innovation gap. And then shortly after that, we have an incredibly fun innovation factory where we’re going to be inviting startups to pitch their ideas in two minutes and then endure three minutes of questioning for some very influential judges. And then after that, we will crown a winner. But first of all, we’ve got a fantastic conversation. We’re going to welcome the founder of Cherie Blair Foundation for Women, Cherie Blair, in conversation with the Secretary General of the ITU. You all know that that’s the brilliant Doreen Bogdan Martin. So please enjoy this. And I can’t wait to hear more from this chat. Thank you.

Doreen Bogdan Martin: Cherie Blair Foundation for Women, ITU So good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to you, Cherie. I’m so excited to be privileged to be having this conversation with you.

Cherie Blair: I’m excited to be here.

Doreen Bogdan Martin: Thank you.

Cherie Blair: Look at this place, it’s buzzing. It’s amazing.

Doreen Bogdan Martin: Actually, Cherie and I were chatting before about the first time that we met, and it was some years ago at UNESCO, where she came to talk about what was happening in her foundation. And so today, we’re going to hear a little more from Cherie about what’s new since then. You’ve been around, I think, with the foundation since 2008. You have touched the lives of tens of thousands of women and girls. 300,000, ladies and gentlemen. Let’s give her a round of applause for 300,000. So Cherie, maybe starting with the first question as we get into our conversation, if you can share with us, we’re all here to talk about AI for good, your thoughts on how artificial intelligence, the technologies linked to AI and education, how can they help to be able to level that playing field to enable sustainable and inclusive growth, especially for women and girls?

Cherie Blair: Well, I have to say I’m a bit of a techie enthusiast. So when I set up the foundation in 2008, I was thinking of… I wasn’t thinking of AI, but I was definitely thinking about how technology can enable you to take things to scale, to spread information more widely. And since then, in the years, nearly 20 years since then, I have seen for myself how that really makes a difference. So I want to say, first of all, I’m very positive about what AI can contribute, because it’s just taking technology to that next level. So it really can enable women’s economic empowerment and entrepreneurship. And it can really make a difference in low and middle-income countries, which is fantastic. But there’s also… There’s always a but. It can also undermine women’s empowerment. It can also undermine the opportunities for women entrepreneurs by continuing to work with gender-based stereotypes, which can be amalgamated within AI itself. So it’s very important at every stage that we have a mixed perspective, particularly a female perspective, but not just a female perspective, that AI really can achieve the good. I mean, we have done surveys of our women that we work with, and, you know, they already want to use AI. Nearly 40% of them are using AI. And they can do all sorts of things. First of all, help with customer access, help with marketing. So many of the women we talk to can use AI to provide a good English description on their website that makes sense about what they’re doing, which may be better than they could do themselves. That’s an amazing thing. Of course, it also has a great role in streamlining business processes, which means that smaller players can compete with larger players, which would never have happened before AI made that accessible. But the reality is, in the middle-income countries, women often are less well-educated than men. They have less access to skills. They absolutely have less access to finance. Every time I ask a woman entrepreneur what one of their biggest problems is, it’s being taken seriously as an entrepreneur and getting access to finance. And also, of course, the whole gender stereotype, which basically says, you know, girls and women, they’re just not very good at tech, which, of course, is not true, but nevertheless can often put off a lot of women even trying. So 20% of the women we surveyed last year, we surveyed 3,000 women, thanks to the World Bank and Intuit, women entrepreneurs that we were working with, and asked them about their use of AI. And 40% were using it, but 20% said, oh, it’s not for us, I don’t know what to do about that. 70%, however, of women entrepreneurs said, we’d really like to know more. So there’s a real opportunity there. That’s not just an opportunity for development, an opportunity for good, it’s actually an opportunity for the tech companies as a market. There’s a market there, we assess, $30 billion worth of market that’s just there, ripe for the taking, if we can reach out to women and make them feel comfortable and understand that AI is for them.

Doreen Bogdan Martin: Right, it’s that if that we have to focus on. We had a previous session this afternoon with Mark Benioff, and he was sharing some of his thoughts about how artificial intelligence was going to change things and have an impact, and he actually focused on MSMEs, startups, and how it would really be a game changer for small and medium enterprises. And that’s something that you’re very focused on.

Cherie Blair: What is very interesting is, actually, it can really make a difference talking about that finance piece, because we are seeing that actually, this is a whole way of opening up micro loans to women and men who are unbanked, who have no credit history. So traditional banking, traditional means of providing finance, aren’t interested in them. But using AI, we can actually see, they can use alternative data to work out whether or not this is a good risk. And by the way, all the research shows that generally speaking, if you lend a development dollar, to

Doreen Bogdan Martin: change that balance, to get more women to be interested in these fields and try to correct those perceptions and biases?

Cherie Blair: Well, I think what we need to do, first of all, is to actually speak. When we’re talking about getting women and girls involved, stop talking to them in men. Let’s start talking to women in a language that women understand. Let’s actually start using examples and giving examples of how it works for women. We found this more generally in our business training, because we do business training. So you think, well, business training is gender neutral. Yeah, business training in one way is gender neutral, but remember, business was designed by men for men. And there are lots of implicit biases in that, which don’t actually speak to women, which actually put women off. And I think there’s a lesson there for technology as well. I mean, you know, you work with girls. So you know that so many of the examples in the textbooks, they are about things that maybe boys are more interested in than girls. Or they’re about the examples assume that it’s about a man doing something. You know, we need to change the language. I know there’s been a lot of work on that, but we still need to do more. So talking the language, making sure that we are an open, welcoming door to women is really, really important and that we’re doing things that are relevant. I think the other thing for women and girls, it’s not just women, by the way, it is girls too, because we find even young girls, when you do a survey between the free time that girls have and the free time boys have, the boys always have more free time because the girls in general, I’m afraid, are expected to do more help with the childcare, help with the housework. So you need to do things which can attract time poor women and bear that in mind. It needs to be accessible. It needs to be in bite-sized pieces, and that’s what we’ve developed, and we have a training app called Her Venture App, and it’s like Duolingo for business skills, and we deliberately have targeted that, firstly, with a woman-centered approach, so the examples are all about women entrepreneurs, but also in bite-sized pieces, 10 to 15 minutes, which actually you can do when you’re sitting there waiting to pick up your child from school, or you can do because you’ve got one client in your hairdressing business and another one’s not coming for the next minute. You need to think about how time poor women are.

Doreen Bogdan Martin: Yeah. So tell us a little bit more about your, I think the target is a million, a million women by 2030. Tell us a little bit about that exciting initiative.

Cherie Blair: Well, as you say, we’ve reached 300,000 women, which in one way is great, and yet in another way is just a drop in the ocean, and when we look at the sustainable development goals and we look at which are on target and which are not on target, guess what? Global Goal 5, equality for women and girls, nowhere near the target. Global Goal 8, which is about good employment prospects, also nowhere near the target. So what are we going to do to try and turn that around? So we have set ourselves a goal of reaching a million women entrepreneurs in low and middle income countries by 2030, not just by ourselves, but by working with other organizations, whether they’re other NGOs, whether it’s governments, whether it’s organizations like ITU, which is particularly, if I may say so, since you’ve taken over, has really focused on this. So how can we together ensure that we reach the maximum number of women possible? And frankly, a million, if we really did this properly, a million is easily achievable. You know, when I think of where we work in Nigeria, in South Africa, there are amazing women entrepreneurs there, and they have hundreds of millions of people. It would be very easy indeed to reach a million women. And tomorrow I’m signing an MOU with the Nigerian Gender Ministry, and their goal is to reach 10 million.

Doreen Bogdan Martin: Excellent.

Cherie Blair: So, you know, if we can be a part of that, we are achieving something, because I really believe this is something we can do together. This isn’t about what my organization can do, it’s what my organization can do working with your organization.

Doreen Bogdan Martin: Terrific, terrific. Well, let’s step back a second and share your thoughts about what do you think is preventing women? So we have this digital divide. We spoke before this morning about the fact that there are 2.6 billion people that have never, ever connected to the internet. So we have this digital divide. Within that divide, we have, we would call it a stubborn gap. We have this digital gender gap, and it just doesn’t go away. And actually in least developed countries, the gap is getting bigger. So do you have thoughts about like what are the barriers that are keeping women from being connected, that are keeping women from using digital technologies when it comes to their businesses? Do you have further thoughts on that?

Cherie Blair: Well, I have a number of thoughts on that, actually. But I mean, one of the things, of course, is affordability. And that, of course, is not just keeping women out, it’s keeping men out, too. But affordability is a big issue, because the more expensive it is, then the more likely it is, for example, in a family, and your research has shown this, isn’t it? If a family can only afford one phone, guess who gets the most use of it? Well, there’s a boy, there’s a girl, there’s a male in the family and then the female has to sort of piggyback on that. But when we surveyed them, we did this survey with World Bank and Intuit, as I said, this year, 3,000 women. When we asked them about affordability, the other thing they said was that, you know, so many of the products are priced in dollars. Now I’m sure many of you here know that in Africa dollars is a very precious resource and it’s not available to people on low income. So, you know, can’t the industry start thinking about whether you can do pricing in local currency, which actually makes it easier for poor people to at least get a chance of using this. And given the size of the market, there are economies of scale from that. And then it’s about languages. We’re lucky, I’m lucky, in many places in the world, when there are a lot of tribal languages, English is the default language. But nevertheless, for the literate and semi-literate and illiterate, local languages are important. What can we do now, especially with AI, to develop programs and tools in local languages? And sometimes I think in the tech industry, we think languages and we think English, we think French, you know, but then somebody said to me, you know, we’re going to go in more obscure languages like Bengali. And I said, you do realize how many millions of people in the world speak Bengali? I mean, it is not a small market. It’s just a question of the perspective. So local languages, I think, are really important. And I do think we have to look at this whole question of gender stereotyping and gender based inequalities and actively do something to combat that. It was very interesting in our research about one of the things that women entrepreneurs said about why they were deterred or why they stopped perhaps using digital technology in general was about safety. Because the truth is, the Internet is not a safe place for many, many women. And that’s whether you’re in a low or middle income country or in a high income country. And if you’re a businesswoman and you’re putting yourself out, it’s partly about promoting yourself. And sadly, some men seem to think that if you are wanting to sell something to them, they might be entitled to something extra and that you’re therefore available for those approaches. So when we asked women had they had any harassment on their business sites, 70% of them had seen some kind of gender based harassment on their website. 10% of them had had so much harassment that they’d actually stopped using their websites. So this is not just a minor, minor problem. And I think 20, 25% of them had received gender explicit, not gender, sex explicit messages or images. And I’m not talking about dating websites. I’m certainly not talking about pornography websites. I’m talking about a business that’s trying to sell you a service or a good. And yet still, some people think that’s an opportunity. You know, this is, we need to do more. And sadly, there’s been a bit of a backlash about doing more. Our research showed that when we asked the women what were their, what sort of technology were they using, guess what, Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, they were the most popular. Now, our research was showing that gender based violence, gender based harassment was coming through. When we did the research last year, since then, META has said they’re not going to do so much moderation anymore. It’s an unintended consequence. I’m sure it’s unintended consequence of that. They’re going to put more women off from using their programs and that they’re also exposing more women to more risk of harassment. So we really need to think about this because it’s a really big issue for women across the world. And it’s a huge market that if you’re not addressing, you’re not developing.

Doreen Bogdan Martin: Yeah. Well, while we have AI for Good this week, we also have the World Summit on the Information Society plus 20 forum that’s running in parallel. And I think the issues linked to online safety, harassment, bullying, that’s very much a focus of shaping a digital future that is safe and trusted for all men, women, boys, girls. So I think those are very, very important points. And I guess, Cherie, the last question, because I know time is short, just to get some quick thoughts. How can we, the AI generation, we’ve been thinking about AI for Good, the AI generation. How can we collectively ensure that technology and tech innovation actually benefits everyone everywhere?

Cherie Blair: Well, I think, first of all, just being aware that there is an issue and asking ourselves about the assumptions that we’re making. I would love to see AI being a force for positive masculinity. I think too often what we’re seeing is AI being regarded as something which is, to my mind anyway, negative masculinity. The bullying, the harassment, the Andrew Tate’s of this world. And yet I know so many men who actually aren’t like that at all. And, you know, I believe those men are also working in this sector and their voices need to be heard. They need to come involved and challenge this idea that there is only, you know, this masculine, you know, what is really being a good man? Isn’t being a good man, being a good father, being a good partner? Or is it just someone who’s kind of strutting off and saying, just do as I say? I think you know the answer to that, or at least what I think the answer to that is.

Doreen Bogdan Martin: Well, I think we’re out of time. Ladies and gentlemen, let’s give a round of applause for Cherie Blair. It’s been wonderful to chat with you. I’m amazed at the great work that you’re doing and I hope that we can continue to partner to help empower and enable women around the world.

Cherie Blair: Absolutely, because together, I think somebody else said this, we can.

Moderator: Yes, thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much to Cherie Blair in conversation with Doreen Bogdan-Martin.

Agreement points

AI’s transformative potential for small and medium enterprises

Speakers

– Cherie Blair
– Doreen Bogdan Martin

Arguments

AI can help smaller players compete with larger players through accessible technology solutions

AI will be a game changer for small and medium enterprises, which aligns with women’s entrepreneurship needs

Summary

Both speakers agree that AI represents a significant opportunity for smaller businesses to compete more effectively with larger enterprises, with particular relevance for women entrepreneurs who often operate smaller-scale businesses.

Topics

Economic | Digital business models | Development

Importance of partnerships for achieving scale in women’s empowerment

Speakers

– Cherie Blair
– Doreen Bogdan Martin

Arguments

Achieving impact requires collaboration between organizations rather than working in isolation

The foundation’s goal to reach one million women entrepreneurs by 2030 through partnerships with organizations, governments, and NGOs

Continued partnership between organizations like ITU and the Cherie Blair Foundation can help empower women globally

Summary

Both speakers emphasize that meaningful progress in women’s empowerment requires collaborative efforts across organizations, governments, and NGOs rather than isolated initiatives.

Topics

Development | Capacity development | Gender rights online

Online safety as a critical issue for digital inclusion

Speakers

– Cherie Blair
– Doreen Bogdan Martin

Arguments

The internet is not a safe place for many women, which deters their participation in digital business activities

70% of women entrepreneurs experienced gender-based harassment on their business websites, with 10% stopping website use due to harassment

Online safety and harassment are key focus areas for shaping a safe and trusted digital future

Summary

Both speakers recognize that online harassment and safety concerns represent significant barriers to women’s digital participation and require focused attention in policy and platform design.

Topics

Gender rights online | Child safety online | Human rights principles

Digital gender gap as a persistent and growing problem

Speakers

– Cherie Blair
– Doreen Bogdan Martin

Arguments

Affordability is a major barrier, with families often sharing one phone where males get priority usage

Women face barriers including less education, less access to skills, less access to finance, and gender stereotypes about technology

2.6 billion people have never connected to the internet, with a persistent digital gender gap that’s growing in least developed countries

Summary

Both speakers acknowledge that the digital gender gap is a stubborn problem that is actually worsening in some regions, driven by multiple interconnected barriers including economic, educational, and social factors.

Topics

Digital access | Gender rights online | Development

Similar viewpoints

Both speakers view AI as having significant positive potential for women’s economic empowerment, particularly through its ability to democratize business tools and level the playing field for smaller enterprises.

Speakers

– Cherie Blair
– Doreen Bogdan Martin

Arguments

AI can enable women’s economic empowerment and entrepreneurship, particularly in low and middle-income countries, by helping with customer access, marketing, and streamlining business processes

AI will be a game changer for small and medium enterprises, which aligns with women’s entrepreneurship needs

Topics

Economic | Development | Gender rights online

Both speakers emphasize the need for intentional, inclusive design approaches that consider women’s specific needs, constraints, and perspectives rather than assuming gender-neutral solutions will work for everyone.

Speakers

– Cherie Blair
– Doreen Bogdan Martin

Arguments

Need to communicate with women in language they understand, using examples relevant to women rather than defaulting to male-centered approaches

Training and tools should be designed for time-poor women in bite-sized, accessible formats

Collective awareness and challenging assumptions are needed to ensure technology benefits everyone everywhere

Topics

Gender rights online | Online education | Development

Unexpected consensus

Market opportunity in addressing women’s digital inclusion

Speakers

– Cherie Blair
– Doreen Bogdan Martin

Arguments

There’s a $30 billion market opportunity if tech companies can reach out to women effectively

40% of surveyed women entrepreneurs are already using AI, while 20% feel it’s not for them, but 70% want to know more

Explanation

The consensus on framing women’s digital inclusion as a significant business opportunity rather than just a social good represents an unexpected convergence of social justice and market-driven arguments, suggesting that addressing gender gaps can be both profitable and ethical.

Topics

Economic | Gender rights online | Digital business models

Role of positive masculinity in technology

Speakers

– Cherie Blair
– Doreen Bogdan Martin

Arguments

AI should be a force for positive masculinity, challenging negative stereotypes and harassment

Online safety and harassment are key focus areas for shaping a safe and trusted digital future

Explanation

The unexpected consensus on the need to actively promote positive masculinity in technology spaces shows recognition that addressing gender issues requires engaging men as allies rather than treating it solely as a women’s issue.

Topics

Gender rights online | Human rights principles | Content policy

Overall assessment

Summary

The speakers demonstrate strong consensus across multiple dimensions: AI’s potential for women’s economic empowerment, the critical importance of partnerships for scale, the urgent need to address online safety concerns, and recognition of the persistent digital gender gap. They also share similar viewpoints on inclusive design approaches and the business case for women’s digital inclusion.

Consensus level

High level of consensus with significant implications for policy and practice. The alignment between a women’s rights advocate and a technology policy leader suggests that there is broad recognition of both the challenges and opportunities in women’s digital participation. This consensus provides a strong foundation for coordinated action across sectors, combining social justice imperatives with economic incentives to drive meaningful change in digital inclusion efforts.

Different viewpoints

Unexpected differences

Overall assessment

Summary

The conversation shows remarkable alignment between speakers with no direct disagreements identified. The speakers consistently support each other’s points and build upon shared themes around women’s empowerment, digital inclusion, and the need for collaborative approaches.

Disagreement level

Very low disagreement level. The discussion represents a collaborative dialogue rather than a debate, with speakers reinforcing each other’s arguments and expressing mutual support for partnership approaches. This high level of agreement suggests strong consensus within the international development and digital rights community on these issues, though it may also indicate that more challenging or controversial aspects of AI governance and women’s empowerment were not deeply explored in this particular forum.

Partial agreements

Similar viewpoints

Both speakers view AI as having significant positive potential for women’s economic empowerment, particularly through its ability to democratize business tools and level the playing field for smaller enterprises.

Speakers

– Cherie Blair
– Doreen Bogdan Martin

Arguments

AI can enable women’s economic empowerment and entrepreneurship, particularly in low and middle-income countries, by helping with customer access, marketing, and streamlining business processes

AI will be a game changer for small and medium enterprises, which aligns with women’s entrepreneurship needs

Topics

Economic | Development | Gender rights online

Both speakers emphasize the need for intentional, inclusive design approaches that consider women’s specific needs, constraints, and perspectives rather than assuming gender-neutral solutions will work for everyone.

Speakers

– Cherie Blair
– Doreen Bogdan Martin

Arguments

Need to communicate with women in language they understand, using examples relevant to women rather than defaulting to male-centered approaches

Training and tools should be designed for time-poor women in bite-sized, accessible formats

Collective awareness and challenging assumptions are needed to ensure technology benefits everyone everywhere

Topics

Gender rights online | Online education | Development

Key takeaways

AI has significant potential to empower women entrepreneurs, particularly in low and middle-income countries, by helping with customer access, marketing, and streamlining business processes

There is substantial market opportunity ($30 billion) and demand among women entrepreneurs for AI tools, with 40% already using AI and 70% wanting to learn more

Major barriers preventing women’s digital participation include affordability, language limitations, gender stereotypes, and safety concerns including widespread online harassment

Gender-based online harassment is a critical issue affecting 70% of women entrepreneurs on business platforms, with 10% stopping website use due to harassment

Inclusive technology development requires woman-centered approaches, local language support, accessible pricing in local currencies, and bite-sized training formats for time-poor women

Achieving scale in women’s empowerment requires collaborative partnerships between organizations, governments, and NGOs rather than isolated efforts

The digital gender gap remains stubborn and is actually growing in least developed countries despite overall connectivity improvements

Resolutions and action items

Cherie Blair Foundation aims to reach one million women entrepreneurs by 2030 through partnerships

Signing of MOU with Nigerian Gender Ministry (mentioned for the following day after the discussion)

Continued partnership between ITU and Cherie Blair Foundation to empower women globally

Development and promotion of the Her Venture App as a ‘Duolingo for business skills’ with woman-centered, bite-sized training modules

Unresolved issues

How to effectively address the $30 billion market opportunity for women in AI without specific implementation strategies

Concrete solutions for reducing online harassment and improving safety for women entrepreneurs on digital platforms

Specific mechanisms for making technology more affordable and accessible in local currencies

How to scale local language support for AI tools and platforms beyond major languages

Strategies for changing gender stereotypes and promoting ‘positive masculinity’ in the tech sector

Detailed approaches for bridging the growing digital gender gap in least developed countries

Suggested compromises

Tech companies should consider pricing products in local currencies rather than dollars to improve accessibility for low-income users

Industry should balance moderation policies to maintain safety while avoiding over-restriction that might limit women’s participation

Training and technology tools should be designed in bite-sized, accessible formats that accommodate women’s time constraints rather than traditional lengthy formats

It can also undermine women’s empowerment. It can also undermine the opportunities for women entrepreneurs by continuing to work with gender-based stereotypes, which can be amalgamated within AI itself. So it’s very important at every stage that we have a mixed perspective, particularly a female perspective, but not just a female perspective, that AI really can achieve the good.

Speaker

Cherie Blair

Reason

This comment is insightful because it presents a nuanced view of AI’s potential, acknowledging both its promise and its dangers. Rather than taking a purely optimistic stance, Blair recognizes that AI systems can perpetuate and amplify existing biases, making the technology potentially harmful to the very groups it could help. The emphasis on needing diverse perspectives in AI development is particularly thought-provoking as it suggests systemic solutions.

Impact

This comment established the balanced framework for the entire discussion, moving it beyond simple tech enthusiasm to a more sophisticated analysis of AI’s dual nature. It set up the conversation to explore both opportunities and barriers, creating space for deeper examination of structural issues.

When we’re talking about getting women and girls involved, stop talking to them in men. Let’s start talking to women in a language that women understand… business was designed by men for men. And there are lots of implicit biases in that, which don’t actually speak to women, which actually put women off.

Speaker

Cherie Blair

Reason

This observation is particularly thought-provoking because it challenges the assumption that business and technology are gender-neutral fields. Blair reveals how seemingly neutral systems actually embed masculine perspectives and approaches, making them less accessible to women. This insight goes beyond surface-level solutions to identify fundamental structural barriers.

Impact

This comment shifted the conversation from focusing on women’s deficiencies or lack of interest to examining how systems themselves create barriers. It led to practical discussions about redesigning approaches, such as the bite-sized learning modules in their app, and influenced the conversation toward systemic solutions rather than individual fixes.

When we asked women had they had any harassment on their business sites, 70% of them had seen some kind of gender based harassment on their website. 10% of them had had so much harassment that they’d actually stopped using their websites… I’m talking about a business that’s trying to sell you a service or a good.

Speaker

Cherie Blair

Reason

This comment is deeply insightful because it reveals a hidden barrier that significantly impacts women’s economic participation in the digital economy. The specific statistics make the problem concrete and undeniable, while the clarification that this occurs on business websites (not dating or adult sites) underscores how pervasive the problem is. It connects online safety directly to economic empowerment.

Impact

This revelation dramatically shifted the conversation’s tone and scope, introducing online safety as a critical economic issue rather than just a social concern. It prompted discussion about platform responsibility and policy implications, and connected the conversation to broader regulatory and industry accountability themes.

I would love to see AI being a force for positive masculinity. I think too often what we’re seeing is AI being regarded as something which is, to my mind anyway, negative masculinity… And yet I know so many men who actually aren’t like that at all… their voices need to be heard.

Speaker

Cherie Blair

Reason

This comment is thought-provoking because it reframes the gender and technology discussion in an unexpected way. Instead of positioning men as the problem, Blair calls for positive male engagement and challenges toxic masculine stereotypes in tech culture. This approach is sophisticated because it recognizes that gender equality requires positive engagement from all genders, not just women’s advancement.

Impact

This comment provided a unifying conclusion to the discussion, moving beyond women-versus-men framing to a more collaborative vision. It elevated the conversation from addressing women’s barriers to reimagining how technology culture could be more inclusive and positive for everyone, ending on a constructive and forward-looking note.

There’s a market there, we assess, $30 billion worth of market that’s just there, ripe for the taking, if we can reach out to women and make them feel comfortable and understand that AI is for them.

Speaker

Cherie Blair

Reason

This comment is strategically insightful because it reframes women’s inclusion from a moral imperative to a business opportunity. By quantifying the market value, Blair speaks directly to business interests and makes a compelling case that addressing gender gaps isn’t just about doing good—it’s about capturing significant economic value.

Impact

This comment shifted the conversation’s appeal from purely social justice concerns to business strategy, potentially making the arguments more compelling to industry stakeholders. It demonstrated how social good and business interests can align, strengthening the case for action across different audience segments.

Overall assessment

These key comments transformed what could have been a superficial discussion about women and technology into a sophisticated analysis of systemic barriers and solutions. Blair’s insights consistently moved the conversation beyond individual-level solutions to examine structural issues—from biased AI systems to masculine-coded business language to platform safety failures. Her ability to present concrete data (70% harassment rates, $30 billion market opportunity) grounded abstract concepts in reality, while her nuanced framing (positive masculinity, business opportunities in social good) created space for collaborative rather than adversarial solutions. The progression of these comments built a comprehensive framework that connected technology design, economic empowerment, safety, and cultural change, elevating the discussion from a typical ‘women in tech’ conversation to a broader examination of how to create inclusive innovation ecosystems.

How can the tech industry implement pricing in local currencies to make AI and digital tools more accessible to low-income populations?

Speaker

Cherie Blair

Explanation

This addresses a key barrier to access where products priced in dollars are unaffordable for people in developing countries, representing a significant market opportunity if solved

What can be done with AI to develop programs and tools in local languages, including languages like Bengali that serve millions of speakers?

Speaker

Cherie Blair

Explanation

Language barriers prevent access to technology for literate, semi-literate, and illiterate populations, and AI could help scale solutions to serve these large but underserved markets

How can the industry address the 70% rate of gender-based harassment on business websites and the 10% of women who stop using their websites due to harassment?

Speaker

Cherie Blair

Explanation

This represents a critical safety issue that is driving women away from digital platforms and limiting their business opportunities, requiring urgent attention from tech companies

What are the implications of META’s reduced moderation policies on women’s safety and participation in digital platforms?

Speaker

Cherie Blair

Explanation

The reduction in content moderation may have unintended consequences of increasing harassment and deterring women from using these platforms for business purposes

How can AI be leveraged as a force for positive masculinity to counter negative behaviors and harassment online?

Speaker

Cherie Blair

Explanation

This explores how technology could be designed to promote positive male role models and behaviors rather than enabling or amplifying toxic masculinity

How can alternative data and AI be used to expand micro-lending to unbanked women and men with no credit history?

Speaker

Cherie Blair

Explanation

This represents a significant opportunity to use AI for financial inclusion, particularly for women entrepreneurs who face barriers accessing traditional banking and finance

What specific strategies can make technology training more accessible to time-poor women who have less free time due to childcare and household responsibilities?

Speaker

Cherie Blair

Explanation

Understanding how to design training programs that accommodate women’s time constraints is crucial for increasing their participation in technology and entrepreneurship