Media articles

On 22 September 2024, at the UN Summit of the Future, member states adopted the Global Digital Compact (GDC): a framework for multistakeholder digital cooperation at the global level that sets out objectives, principles, commitments and actions for “an inclusive, open, sustainable, fair, safe and secure digital future for all.” The origins of…

The Global Digital Compact upholds “gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls and their full, equal and meaningful participation” as a core principle for digital cooperation [para 8(d)]. The extraordinary complexity of our times, which the digital phenomenon has only intensified, requires us to unpack this aspirational goal by…

Why do micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) struggle with using digital marketplaces such as Amazon or Facebook for their operations? How can we make digital marketplaces more advantageous for smaller players? In this blogpost, I reflect on some of the key findings of a study that I conducted titled “Beyond platform integration –…

Can 'digitally facilitated' writing enable teachers to develop themselves as academic writers? This was the question that an IT for Change team attempted to answer through a 'Writing workshop for government school teachers'. The teachers' response was unequivocal. Thirteen of them wrote a paper based on an innovation…

Do we have the skills and mindsets that help us navigate the internet? What is digital citizenship? Why is digital literacy the need of the hour? Is social media a double-edged sword? These questions and more, are explored by Soorya Hariharan (Sr Coordinator, Training…

The Global Digital Justice Forum, of which IT for Change acts as the secretariat, has issued a rejoinder to the open letter from tech community leaders and internet innovators to the United Nations, expressing their reservations that the draft text of the Global Digital Compact (GDC) being negotiated by governments may “mandate more centralized…

“I had always felt conscious about my pimples and dark skin. I never thought I looked good,” admitted Pooja,* a Class 9 student in a government high school in Mysuru.

Pooja is part of her school’s ‘Kishori Club’—a safe space established exclusively for adolescent girls. During a Kishori Club session on ‘Body Image and Adolescence’, Pooja…

One of the biggest challenges in education is the creation of an engaging, enriching and equitable classroom atmosphere which is ideal for learning. If the children are in a state of emotional stress or worry, they are unlikely to be open to learning the topic introduced by the teacher. Children have to feel that the…

The Global Digital Compact (GDC) is a framework for international digital cooperation that is currently being negotiated as an annex to the Pact for the Future, an intergovernmental agreement that seeks to “build a multilateral system that delivers for everyone, everywhere” with concrete actions towards…

Accelerating Bharat's Digital Agenda is about addressing two critical divides -- the digital divide in meaningful access, and the development divide in the data paradigm

1. The access divides