Reliance Jio, GSMA roll out pan-India digital skills programme

Reliance Jio Infocomm, a subsidiary of Reliance Industries and global mobile network operators’ organisation (GSMA) on Tuesday rolled out a digital skills programme to train rural women and those from low-income groups in India, to help them with greater digital adoption and access.  

The national roll-out phase is now underway, with the programme being rolled out across 10 states, the company said in a statement.  

Reliance Foundation will support the rollout through its large network and self-help groups, particularly in rural areas. The company said that over 1,000 rural women and men from Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu have participated and provided inputs for the refinement of the digital training toolkits during the trial phase.  

“Mobile technology has the power to empower women, making them feel more connected, independent, and secure, and providing them with access to important information that helps them in their daily lives. We are proud to partner with GSMA in this programme to take digital skills training to the women across India and be the wind beneath their wings,” said Isha Ambani, Director, Reliance Jio.  

As per the GSMA’s Mobile Gender Gap Report 2022, published in June last year, women in India are 41% less likely than men to use mobile internet. A total of 330 million women in India still do not use mobile internet, compared to 248 million men. Lack of literacy and digital skills is one of the top reported barriers to mobile internet use.  

As a part of this programme, the GSMA and Jio teams worked together to assess prevalent digital skill gaps and develop need-based digital skills training toolkits that are India-specific. The toolkits were designed post extensive field research and user feedback.  

“Mobile technology has the potential to positively contribute to protecting women’s human rights and to strengthen their economic, social, and political empowerment and development. But more needs to be done to ensure women are not being left behind in an increasingly connected world,” said Mats Granryd, Director General, of GSMA, stating that this programme will “help accelerate digital inclusion for women”.  

Over the next few months, Reliance Jio and Reliance Foundation will focus on scaling up the programme, the company said.

This is not the first time Jio is working with GSMA in the area of gender empowerment. In July 2019, as part of the GSMA’s Connected Women Initiative, the telco partnered with GSMA to address barriers women face in accessing and using mobile internet and other mobile services.

The telco is also on a spree to roll out its True 5G services across the country with the aim to cover all Indian with the aim to “connect every part of the country with 5G by December 2023”. Until now, Jio has rolled out its 5G services across 236 Indian cities. Airtel is the other telco that is rolling out 5G services across India since October 1 since the official launch of 5G in India.