Osama Manzar is the Founder-Director of Digital Empowerment Foundation and Chair of Manthan and mBillionth Awards. He is member, advisory board, at Alliance for Affordable Internet and has co-authored NetCh@kra–15 Years of Internet in India and Internet Economy of India. He tweets @osamamanzar. Manzar’s complete bio can be read here.
Deep within the rugged hills of Ayodhya in Purulia lies a world that often remains invisible to mainstream development narratives
DetailsDeep within the rugged hills of Ayodhya in Purulia lies a world that often remains invisible to mainstream development narratives
DetailsLast weekend, at the ImagiNxt summit in Mumbai, I sat in the audience listening to a panel discussion titled “The other India is already innovating” where DEF Founder-Director Osama Manzar, as one of the panellists, joined the conversation on grassroots innovation.
DetailsThe Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF) submitted a detailed civil society response to the United Nations Global Dialogue on AI Governance, emphasizing that AI governance frameworks must center the realities of the unconnected, underserved, and underrepresented communities of the Global South.
DetailsData centers are central to India’s digital ambitions, but their impacts extend far beyond infrastructure. In Telangana’s peri-urban regions, communities are experiencing these changes through land loss, water stress, and shifting livelihoods.
DetailsThe current debate around banning social media for children under 16 has been framed as a question of freedom. It is not. It is a question of how societies protect children in environments they do not fully understand or control.
DetailsMuseum of Digital Society | 5th March 2026
A group of 72 students from DGSEA (Duraisamy Generous Social Education Association), Chengalpattu District, Tamil Nadu, visited the Museum of Digital Society (MoDS) on 5th March 2026 as part of an educational tour. Accompanied by 17 teachers, the visit was jointly facilitated by DEF’s (Digital Empowerment Foundation)- MoDS Team and the teachers of DGSEA themselves. The tour revolved around three interconnected themes – E-waste Recycling – Media Information Literacy, and The Museum Tour – each designed to offer students a meaningful and hands-on learning experience.
THE PARADOX OF DIGITAL PROGRESS
The 21st century’s digital revolution has created a profound paradox. While urban centers debate on artificial intelligence ethics, virtues, and algorithmic governance, rural geographies struggle with basic digital access. Urban populations navigate sophisticated digital ecosystems, yet millions in rural India encounter computers for the first time. This digital divide represents not merely a technological gap but a fundamental inequality in opportunity, information access, and participation.
This assessment documents initiatives by the Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF) at Alwar district in Rajasthan and Nuh district in Haryana. These interventions systematically democratize digital access, emphasizing marginalized populations and women’s empowerment. Significantly, while contemporary discourse addresses digital literacy and gender-based digital divides, these communities simultaneously grapple with fundamental literacy challenges and entrenched
At the CDAC Public Forum combined with the fome Symposium, the session “AI in Crisis – What Next?” examined the social and ethical implications of artificial intelligence in humanitarian and crisis contexts. Within this, the breakout session “Inclusive AI: Languages, Literacy & Community Voice,” facilitated by Digital Empowerment Foundation, focused on a core concern: how AI systems intersect with linguistic diversity, social and digital divides, and community agency.
DetailsThe Townhall with Mr. Amandeep Singh Gill, United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Special Envoy for Digital and Emerging Technologies, held at the 7th Digital Citizen Summit 2025 at T-Hub Hyderabad, focused on the theme “People & Platforms: Let’s Talk Accountability.”
DetailsArtificial Intelligence (AI), a technology that collects, classifies, and identifies patterns in data to perform tasks that are usually done by humans, can be considered one of the most prominent buzzwords of the 21st century.
DetailsUntil a few months back, Kalawati, a housewife from rural Ajmer, would mostly watch videos and reels on her son’s smartphone. Like her, many rural women across the country are made to hear, “Phone to mardon ke liye hota hai. Aurton ke haath me phone aye toh bas bigadne ka darr satane lagta hai” (Phones are meant for men—when a woman gets a phone, there is a fear of her going astray).
DetailsIn rural India, women have never been just caregivers—they have always been the backbone of their communities, the ‘silenced’ architects of the rural economy. Women-led micro-enterprises make up 20% of all MSMEs, employing 22–27 million people. Yet, an overwhelming 82% remain trapped in informality (NITI Aayog, 2023).
DetailsThe role of women in care work and reproductive labour has been discussed extensively in popular media and critical feminist scholarship. In a rapidly digitalising country, patriarchy has successfully penetrated the digital realms, reinforcing divides that are not only spatial between the rural and the urban but starkly gendered, too.
DetailsThe Digital Swaraj Fellowship concluded its first Cohort 2023-2024 with a reflective three-day workshop from July 1-3, 2024, marking a significant milestone in the journey towards building a generation of youth for a robust digital ecosystem in India.
DetailsThe Digital Swaraj Fellowship is a well-conceived program that applies the philosophy of Swaraj (meaning ‘self-governance’) to digital innovation in a democracy. It draws inspiration from Gandhi’s principles and integrates them with the ideals of constitutional democracy, exploring how technology can be embedded into societal processes.
DetailsOsama has been a good friend, guide, mentor, and a well-wisher to me for the last nine years. He is a visionary with 20 years of experience in transforming the lives of people and discussing the importance of digital in our lives.
DetailsAs the first cohort of Digital Swaraj Fellowship comes to an end, reflecting on the whole journey has been a mix of experiences, learnings and emotions. The seed that was sown a year back has started sprouting, and the aim, going forward, is to nurture it to become a full-grown tree in the coming years.
DetailsThere is a considerable difference in the consumption of digital information between rural and urban India. The access to the digital world is limited, in the case of rural India, by the digital divide. As per a study by the Internet and Mobile Association of India, only 29% of rural India can access the internet, compared to 64% of the urban population.
DetailsThis piece narrates my journey from being a resident of the Ziro Valley to a source of information and knowledge for my people. The opportunity given to me by Digital Empowerment Foundation, was a game changer for my professional life.
DetailsRuben is serving as the Center Coordinator at the Wireless for Community (W4C) Center in Vodarevu in Chirala, a coastal town in Andhra Pradesh state of India. The centre is popularly known as Vodarevu ISOC centre.
Details“This is the spot that gets a signal. Apart from this the entire village and in fact the entire island is unconnected” said Mukesh (name changed). Sawariyadigar is a village located on a river island in Nandurbar district of Maharashtra. The village has no access to the world outside; no road, rail, bridge, or even connectivity.
Details“Arrey yaar! Network aa hi nahi raha hai! (oh man there is no network)” groaned Saurabh, my colleague as we started our journey from Turtuk to Leh. The 200 km journey is amongst the most scenic roads I have been on. I was relying on his mobile hotspot since even with two sims I was disconnected.
DetailsThe joy of skywatching is never limited to young children. A sense of humility and wonder sets in effortlessly when one looks up into the vast expanse spotting the stars, constellations and planets. In a world where clear night skies are hard to find because of light pollution, spending the whole night understanding astronomy is a great treat. Even more exciting is the fact that digital mediums help in gaining more knowledge about the cosmic world.
DetailsSTEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics) subjects not only fosters innovative thinking and serves as a foundation on which many skills get developed but instills confidence, stimulates the mind to think out of the box, provides a good platform to build human relationships through peer interaction, gives better opportunities to connect with the real world and keeps the curiosity to learn alive.
DetailsI left for Jasidih, Jharkhand on 5th of February for training for Digital Didis’ who are going to work in the Jamui district of Bihar. Boarding the train from Kolkata Station, my mind was filled with all the thoughts that arose from the conversations I had with my family and colleagues when they got to know that I will be travelling alone to Bihar.
DetailsA few miles away from a town that is famously recognized for donkeys, Barabanki, one can glide to the rhythmic tune emanating from the hand looms along the lanes with kacha and pakka houses spread around the villages.
DetailsPammi Shukla is a Digital Sarthak training and mentoring Women Entrepreneurs of Barabanki, Uttar Pradesh. She shares about her experience, “A monotonous schedule, a 9 am to 3 pm job, a teaching career, was all that I had before the onset of the devastating pandemic.
DetailsRekha Kumari is a Digital Sarthak training and mentoring Women Entrepreneurs of Ramgarh, Jharkhand sharing her story, “I have heard stories of inspirational women all over the globe through the means of newspapers or sometimes television channels.
DetailsBabli from Nuh, Haryana shares her story, “I come from a social setting where people are riddled with the mentality that a woman is meant for getting married, cleaning, giving birth to kids and then looking after them. This was something that has always disturbed me as a woman myself.
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