ICT and Women: A Bangladesh Perspective

In Bangladesh, women play a central role in family, community and social development. ICT offer the opportunities for direct, interactive communication even by those who lack skills, who are illiterate, lack mobility and have little self-confidence.
(i) Women’s increased access to job Market and improve entrepreneurship
women are employed in various knowledge based industries such as computer-aided designing, graphic designing, composing etc. Consequently parents are becoming more aware about ICT and are interested to send their daughter to study computer science for better prospects in life even if they have to pay a fortune for their child’s education.
Women are encouraged to take initiatives to invest in ICT and they are also improving their competence using
(ii) Increase of average household income in villages:
The women operate their phone businesses while doing household chores or operating another business. The phones are used primarily for calls relating to financial matters, particularly relating to remittances, which are a significant source of village income. Strikingly among poor villagers, 38% of phone users had one or more family member living abroad.
(iii) Women empowerment: Women earn for their family by means of ICT and this substantial revenue stream has elevated the women positions in their own households, and the society they belong to. The role models of women who actively participate in the socio-economic development can increase self-esteem and self confidence of other women and therefore encourage them to push for changes in their own social status. Information and communication technology (ICT) is not just a technology but an inalienable weapon of women empowerment. In the era of knowledge-based culture, Bangladeshis can achieve excellence through proper use of the ICT.
(iv) Shrinking Information Asymmetry: Women in Bangladesh now acquiring more bargaining power as they are exposed to ICT specially World Wide Web through mobile phone, computer, Internet. They have become a potential store house of various news and reports. As women entrepreneurs globally have said that access to information, especially market information, is their first priority in accelerating the growth of their business. We can ameliorate the economic status of women by shrinking information asymmetry through
ICT.
(v) Improved Governance: ICT is also particularly useful in increasing the transparency and accountability of government, an application from which women can particularly profit .

(vi) Indigenous Knowledge: IT can also help empower women through codification and dissemination of their indigenous knowledge. Bangladesh Education Friendship Society to develop a participatory monitoring and learning system at the village level by using ICT tools. The program is aimed to improve the quality of lives of the poor and the unemployed.
(vii) Easy-Family communication: The use of mobile and Internet even at home has given a widen opportunity to women in general to communicate the world.
(viii) Increase Social awareness: Mass media have up righted the position of women in ICT sector all the more, advertisements, cartoons, telecasting, broadcasting all this projects female awareness in society. Female no more lack in knowledge in fitting themselves in right places.