The National Commission of Women (NCW), New Delhi and the Indian Institute of Public Administration (IIPA), New Delhi had jointly organized a policy debate titled ‘Consultation on ICT and Women Empowerment‘ on February 11–12,2015 at Indian Institute of Public Administration (IIPA), New Delhi. The deliberations were focused on the issues related to women empowerment in Information Technology (IT) spaces as well as and hitherto unexplored opportunities women’s access to information communication technologies (ICTs), with special reference to India. H.E. T. N. Chaturvedi, Chairman IIPA was the Chief Guest and Ms. Lalitha Kumaramangalam (Chairperson, NCW) was the guest of honor in its Inaugural session. Other doyens who graced the inaugural included, Prof. Amita Singh (Director, Disaster Research Program, JNU and Asia Pacific governance network), Mr. Vikas Kanungo (The World Bank, Chairman- Society for Promotion for e-Governance & Chief Editor, Government @ 27/7), Mr. B. N. Sathpathy (Senior Advisor, Niti Aayog & Chairman, NDSAP Cell) Ms. Shamina Shafiq (Member, NCW) and Dr. Charru Malhotra (Associate Professor, e-Governance and ICT, IIPA). After the thought provoking plenary session, the consultation was bifurcated into five exhaustive session including “Understanding the Existing Situation-Issues and Opportunities”, “IT Skills and Knowledge for Women: Available and Required”, “Building Novel Gender-Sensitive Scenarios using Emerging Technology Trends and Newer Implementation Models”. The final two rounds had collated the deliberations to forth all the Policy Recommendations that is expected to help in Evolving Policy Inputs for Creating Fresher Energies and Synergies in this nascent domain viz. Information Communication Technologies for Women. The workshop served as an origin of the newly coined acronym ICT4W Information Communication Technologies for Women, along with a new logo.

This consultation had successfully brought together almost one hundred (100)experts including–Director General, CERT-In, senior government officers from Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY), Ministry of Women and Child (MCD), Kolkata Police, Senior globally eminent cyber advocates, ICT/ Gender specialist professionals from UN bodies including Asian Development Bank (ADB), The World Bank, UN Women, industry stalwarts including Google, Vodafone, senior academics from including IIT, IIM, JNU, IGNOU, DU, media professionals (Hindustan Times, Microsoft-Perspective, eLTS group), gender activists, NGOs and researchers who had jointly participated and contributed to these deliberations. This unique ICT4W policy debate was convened and moderated by Dr. Charru Malhotra, Associate Professor (e-Governance and ICT), IIPA.

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