BACKGROUND
As India accelerates its efforts to become a leading digital economy, building an ecosystem that is inclusive and gender-responsive remains a critical priority. We are delighted to invite you to the Gender x Digital (GxD) hub (IFMR)’s Second Partners Meet, a platform to share and discuss findings on the design and delivery of digital systems, focusing on their readiness, usability, and utility for women users. This day-long event will convene partners to reflect on what works, and explore how these insights can be adopted and scaled by programs beyond the current ecosystem.

OBJECTIVES

By bringing together a diverse set of partners and experts, the second GxD partners’ meet aims to:   

• Build a shared understanding of gender-intentional ontologies and principles that can shape the design and implementation of digital solutions across key sectors (viz health, agriculture, financial services)   
• Identify strategies to drive design and delivery improvements at the programmatic and ecosystem level   
• Prioritise sector-specific and cross-domain solutions for further piloting and collaborative programming

WHY DESIGN AND DELIVERY AS ANCHORS? 

Design: In examining design, we explore how technologies and platforms emerge from an understanding of women’s specific contexts—economic, social, and cultural. Inclusive design principles can ensure that digital services align with women’s literacy and proficiency levels, language preferences, mobility constraints, caregiving responsibilities, safety concerns, and aspirations. The ‘Design’ track emphasizes the need to embed trust, relevance, and agency into the very architecture of digital solutions. 

Delivery: Yet, even the most inclusive designs fall short if they do not reach women in ways that are accessible, affordable, reliable, and trustworthy. The ‘Delivery’ track looks at the pathways through which digital platforms and services are taken to scale and integrated into women’s daily lives. This includes examining how policies are operationalized, how community actors and intermediaries support uptake and build digital skills, how biases are mitigated in distribution channels, and how platforms adapt to dynamic, real-world contexts. Effective delivery systems ensure that well-designed solutions result in real, measurable improvements in women’s livelihoods, health, civic engagement, and financial independence.