SheCanLead

We aim to bring opportunities for girls at home through smartphone literacy, training and providing tools to learn. During pandemic, technology has shown that we can learn and grow from home irrespective of our location or challenges. We will train 100 girls and women from age group 18-29 years in smartphone training, provide them affordable smartphones and provide them digital tools like apps to do daily tasks and learn from digital books. These 100 girls will be groomed to be communities leaders in the next 18 months so that they can propagate same learning to similar groups at scale. 

In developing nations, women and girls with vision impairment are one of the most marginalized communities. Since women safety is already a concern in countries like India, the threat is increased if the women has vision impairment. Due to lack of awareness, parents or wards of such women and girls restrict them to safety nets of homes. In one survey, we found that few girls were denied higher education by parents even though the institution was at a walking distance from home. This restricts the opportunities and growth of girls in this community. We have interacted with the community with print disabilities since 7 years. During Q2-Q3-2020, when pandemic was at its highest in India, we interacted with 50+ students with vision impairment, across 10+ cities in India, over chat and call, to understand their needs. We realized that number of girls with vision impairment faced typical problems like low confidence, fear of security stemming from mindset at home and this led to low education initiatives. In our existing Eye-D app user base, 20% users are female and compared to other female visually impaired peers, who don't use technology, the former are ahead.

Project SheCanLead is a novel approach in leveraging community leadership to addressgender equality. Women with vision impairment in developing nations like India are most marginalizeddue to gender-neutral or one-on-one which only creates “isolated success stories”. Pandemic furtherhighlighted need for remote training. SheCanLead is a 12-month leadership program to takefemale youth with vision impairment to next level in their choice of career journey (choice withoutcompromise!). This program will be 100% remote, through a combination of virtual sessions, materialsand group/1-1 communication through an accessible smartphone application. And the next 12- monthfocuses on how the groomed leader can now become community leader to magnify change. Example:for a girl who is interested in music, opportunities to train or get scholarship will be explored. After 12months, she leads the music community to create more success stories. We will address “physicalsecurity” barrier through 100% remote program.

We intend to serve women and girls in age group 18-29 with severe vision impairment. Among these, the most marginalized are those located in semi-rural or rural areas. 100 community leaders will be best equipped to identify such population and establish a channel of communication with them. As a part of current proposal, we will conduct study in first 6 months to identify how far we can go down the pyramid. After we establish the model in urban and semi-urban setting in first 24 months, going further down to rural areas becomes a realistic possibility.

Eye-D app for visually impaired is our flagship product. Since 2016, it has impacted thousands of beneficiaries in 160+ countries. This problem is discovered directly by us through our interaction with community over years. In our user base, 20% users are female and when compared to other female visually impaired who don't use technology, the former are more ahead in their education, career and opportunities. It is a scientifically proven fact that better learning initiatives lead to more opportunities. For this particular segment, remote learning can work miracles and pandemic has shown that this is 100% possible.

From March 2020 till Sep 2020, we talked to 50 students that comprised 15 girls to understand how smartphone literacy and digital literacy can solve a problem for them. We ran a remote learning app pilot and discovered there are many pull and push behaviours, which we can leverage to encourage visually impaired students to learn more. In this prototype, we accidentally discovered that, since women safety is already a concern in countries like India, the threat is increased if the women has vision impairment. After completion of 6 month pilot, we developed and refined our Theory of Change. However, we would still call us prototype phase since it will take a couple of iteration to come to a learning app model which is more acceptable and encourages more girls and women for digital literacy.

Project SheCanLead is a novel approach in leveraging community leadership to address gender equality. Women with vision impairment in developing nations like India are most marginalized due to gender-neutral or one-on-one which only creates “isolated success stories”. Pandemic further highlighted need for remote training. SheCanLead is a 12-month leadership program to take female youth with vision impairment to next level in their choice of career journey (choice without compromise!). This program will be 100% remote, through a combination of virtual sessions, materials and group/1-1 communication through an accessible smartphone application. And the next 12- month focuses on how the groomed leader can now become community leader to magnify change. Example: for a girl who is interested in music, opportunities to train or get scholarship will be explored. After 12 months, she leads the music community to create more success stories. We will address “physical security” barrier through 100% remote program.

Currently, the last pilot served 15 girls with vision impairment. In 1 year time, we will server 100 more and in five years, the model will be scaled with partners to reach at least 10% of population of girls with vision impairment in India in age group 18-29.

- Baseline difference  in difference metrics (skill rating/confidence level etc.) at start and end of interaction per beneficiary

- Number of leaders directly trained to succeed and lead

- Number of women able to secure employment 

- Number of communities formed, average number of members guided by community leader

- organic percentage increase in adoption of Eye-D app by female users.

Full time: 4

Contractors: 3

Interns:2

We have experience of directly serving thousands of visually impaired globally in 160+ countries. Our product Eye-D app was also nominated for "Google Play Award 2017 - Best Accessibility App". In 2018, we got a grant of UKAID to bring our Eye-D app to users in Nepal and Bangladesh who are one of the most marginalized in South Asia. We have given one of the best results in grantee cohort. Through our past experience, we have learnt how to tackle risks, uncertainties and known unknowns. We have also built better capacity to identify unknown unknown as we go in project. Having a senior women co-founder with deep interactions with community and shown capability of executing such projects at scale makes us uniquely positioned to execute this project. GingerMind, having 7 years work experience with community, is a "National Startup Award 2020" winner by Government of India.

- We have a senior women co-founder Subodh Mittal who is passionate about causes of women

- All our positions are open equally to everyone including people with special needs

- We work ONLY with solutions for people with special visual needs for their greater inclusion in society since last 7 years.

SheCanLead addresses a critical problem which needs as much support as much possible. But this is true for any other cause as well. Funding is also a reason for us to apply but still it is small compared to what budget we are looking to raise.

The actual reason for us to apply is that we want the issue to be highlighted on a well-known platform like MIT Solve. Subodh Mittal, female co-founder of LevelUP, believes that bringing attention to the issue is first priority. Second reason for us to apply is mentorship support. We will need guidance to implement this audacious project so that we increase our chances to succeed and build a globally scalable model.

We have identified a good community-based propagation model early on. We will need mentorship to iterate on it quickly to increase chances to succeed. The current business model is charitable donation driven. We seek advice on how we can improve the model to bring self-sustainability. We have built B2C based app models before, so we have some experience in this field. Besides this, we will need to adopt best practices to generate 100 stories out of SheCanLead program to encourage others. The last leg of the project will be monitoring the project and optimizing as we go so that we drive maximum impact, identify what is working and what needs to be improved.

Other solve members in non-profit or social impact space: understand how they leverages support eco-system of MIT Solve

MIT faculty in behavioural sciences: To find better resolutions of behavioural risks we have identified.

The central theme of SheCanLead is career without comprises through remote learning for women and girls with vision impairment. This fits in "Equitable Education" mandate too.

SheCanLead aims to level learning playing field for women and girls with vision impairment. Hence, it fits in the mandate for "Advancing Digital Equity".

SheCanLead uses a novel approach of community-leadership through digital literacy and learning for women. Hence, it fits in the mandate for Innovation for Women Prize.

SheCanLead uses a novel approach of community-leadership through digital literacy and learning for women. Frugal Technology through a talking accessible smartphone app is at the core of it. Hence, it fits in the mandate for Innovation for Women Prize.