Introducing the Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF)'s Digital Sarthaks

USAID’s Digital Frontiers project, through its Digital Connectivity and Cybersecurity Partnership South Asia Regional Digital Initiative activity, has partnered with the Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF) to increase the digital capacities of 16,500 women entrepreneurs and 820 women-led community development organizations across 13 states in India. DEF recruits and trains Digital Sarthaks (digital foot soldiers) from rural communities and tasks them with conducting digital upskilling trainings to help women entrepreneurs and women-led CDOs from their communities learn how to use a smartphone and simple digital applications for their businesses and personal welfare. These hands-on training sessions cover topics such as social media for business, digital marketing, ecommerce, online job opportunities, and media and information literacy, among other topics.