Empowering people @ edge of information

Digital Empowerment Foundation is an integral digital action organisation. DEF constantly acts into creation of information empowerment, equitable communities by providing digital access to information, knowledge and contextual capacity. The organisation’s main focus is on to make technology easily accessible to the masses, to empower women, youth, differently abled and elderly through functional digital literacy, media literacy, and digital upskilling across agriculture, micro and nano-business, health, education, livelihood, and entrepreneurship.

DEF believes, in the digital era access to information and digital knowhow is a necessity and should not lead to exclusion. Therefore, DEF constantly works in contextualising and economising and ensuring access to digital tools its first priority.

Over the last 23 years, the Organisation is actively engaged in digitally empowering local communities through its 2000 Community Information Resource Centres and wide spread of 10,000 digital foot soldiers located across 25 states and 250+ districts in rural, tribal, marginalised, and unreached areas.

DEF has directly impacted more than 35 million people including people from below poverty line, women, artisans, youth, persons with disabilities, and elderly.

For more information, please email us at info@defindia.org

Mission

To empower marginalised communities in information dark regions to access, consume and produce information online using digital interventions and ICT tools.

Vision

To end information poverty and social backwardness by bringing about a digital revolution.

Six-fold path

DEF’s work covers six programmatic verticals or major work areas under which projects are launched and executed.

Access & Infrastructure: Providing people access to the Internet and making them digitally literate.

Governance & Entitlements: Raising awareness about their rights and entitlements and giving them the voice to demand better governance, better delivery of government services and better protection of their basic human rights using digital literacy and digital tools.

Education & Empowerment: Enabling people to access better health, education, skill and livelihood opportunities through digital literacy and digital tools.

Markets & Social Enterprise: Digitally empowering micro-enterprises and communities; and empowering grassroots-level civil society organisations with online presence and digital literacy for digitally ensuring protection of people’s culture, heritage, environment and natural resources.

Knowledge Hub & Database: Creating a knowledge network of digital practitioners and database of effective ICTD innovations and interventions in an effort to scale up and forge partnerships for specific socio-economic developmental needs.

Advocacy & Research: Advocacy and activism to ensure access for all to the Internet as a basic human right and more extensive use of ICT and digital tools for development.

Values and Principles

Over the years, there are some basic values that have govern us and will continue to govern us.

  • We trust people till proven otherwise in order to build or start relationships.
  • We make proactive, sincere and honest efforts.
  • Our main currency, instead of money, is to bring about a deeper change.
  • We empathise with people and their causes to find solutions that best suits a particular community or region.
  • We walk the talk and talk the walk by always acting first and then talking about it.
  • We cherish equality as a value when dealing with stakeholders, partners, co-workers and the people we seek to serve.
  • We create a work environment that empowers people to fearlessly express themselves, innovate and offer creative solutions, irrespective of their designations or positions within the organization.
  • We try to work for the poorest of the poor in the remotest of remote locations to help the most marginalised and deprived
  • We adopt a rights-based approach.
  • We ensure transparency, good governance and participative decision making based on a deep commitment for equality and fairness.
  • We make sure serving the people is the overarching objective that takes precedence over anything else, including revenues and faster growth.

Strategies

  • We have adopted a multi-pronged strategy with a multi-stakeholder approach. Our basic strategic architecture is outlined below.
  • Try and initiate specific projects to connect specific sectors, communities or groups to the Internet such as Digital Panchayats to connect all panchayats, e-MSME to connect all MSMEs, e-NGO to connect all NGOs, Gyanpedia to connect all schools, Minority Cyber Gram Yojana to connect all minority groups and so on.
  • Set up Community Information Resource Centres (CIRCs) across India, South Asia and Asia Pacific region in partnership with grassroots organisations to maximise their reach and make them the vehicles of choice for implementation of all kinds of programmes that have the objectives of providing access for all to the Internet, spreading digital literacy, ensuring digital inclusion and implement digital interventions for development.
  • Select locations for setting up CIRCs with special focus on backward districts, marginalised communities and information-dark regions. Try to become a member of all global and national bodies, including government panels and agencies, that determine and influence policy making in the field of Internet access and ICT for Development.
  • Constantly look out for partnerships and funding opportunities that enable us to conceptualise and design projects and programmes that address any, some or all of the objectives outlined in our vision and mission statements
  • Constantly leverage our vision, mission, values and proven work on the ground to engage as many stakeholders as possible to push forward the basic agenda of digital inclusion and extensive use of ICT and digital media tools for development and empowerment.
35M

Impact

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