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Digital Transformation with a Gender Lens

According to ECLAC, 4 out of every 10 women in Latin America and the Caribbean do not have access to the Internet, nor do they have access to devices or basic usage skills, and men are 21% more likely to be online than women. Given that digitalization is deeply linked to entrepreneurial and development opportunities, it is critical to address this issue and encourage the public sector and various private sector actors to work together to create transformative tools and ensure they are accessible and widely available.

The “Digital Transformation with a Gender Lens” session focused on engaging with this issue. Moderated by Catalina Escobar, Co-founder of Makaia, the panel also featured Jose Ignacio De Carli, Sustainability Manager at Mercado Pago; Laura Reyna, Public Policy Manager, Latin America at TikTok; Carlos Corominas, Head of Inclusive Impact and Sustainability at Visa; and Anna Romanelli, Manager of Education and Entrepreneurship at Pro Mujer. 

In addition to sharing their personal experiences, the panelists also shared their commitment to strengthening Emprende Pro Mujer, an entrepreneurial training platform featuring straightforward and engaging content that adjusts to each woman’s entrepreneurship stage. In just over 2 years of operations, the platform has impacted more than 42,000 women in 23 countries in Latin America.

Anna Romanelli kicked off the conversation by highlighting the importance of constantly evolving the platform to improve the experience of users and meet their expectations while also integrating an intersectional approach that responds to the needs of each group of women. 

“Emprende Pro Mujer is a highly responsive tool that has changed and evolved based on our relationship with users and is always grounded in our intersectional approach,” she said. Thanks to our time in the field, we have a better understanding of women’s realities and the challenges they face, and we’ve made adjustments [to the platform] to make their experience as positive and impactful as possible.”

During this process, Pro Mujer has worked hand in hand with different partners who believe in the platform’s mission.

“Each of the partners present on this panel has been key to making this training product what it is today,” she added. “Visa ideated the platform with us, Mercado Pago has supported us as we’ve grown and expanded, and now TikTok is helping us reach more women using new tools. “

In addition to their experience with Emprende Pro Mujer, the panelists also shared how they approach key issues in their day-to-day work, highlighting challenges such as the digital gender gap, financial inclusion, and intersectionality.

Carlos Corominas, head of Inclusive Impact and Sustainability at Visa, highlighted the importance of leveraging specific approaches and engaging with partners to create exciting and effective opportunities.

“At first, the sustainability approach at Visa was too broad,” he said. “We decided to focus on a specific approach where we knew we could have a huge impact, so we targeted all our efforts on women’s entrepreneurship.”

Since then, Visa has worked with various partners to develop a robust ecosystem of free entrepreneurial training tools, including the Emprende Pro Mujer platform, which uses technology to offer specialized content for women entrepreneurs while also providing women with mentoring, training, and opportunities to build a support network.

During the session, Laura Reyna, Public Policy Manager, Latin America at TikTok, highlighted the learning opportunities that TikTok has enabled: “Globally, TikTok has more than one billion users, and 40% of users don’t have a presence on other social networks. This gives us a valuable opportunity to educate people not learning from other social networks.”

As a short video platform where anyone can become a content creator, TikTok is perfect for sharing quick, practical, educational tools for women entrepreneurs. Pro Mujer and TikTok have since teamed up to create transformative content to spread the word about the Emprende Pro Mujer platform, enabling more women entrepreneurs to benefit from these free opportunities.

For his part, Jose Ignacio De Carli, Sustainability Manager at Mercado Pago, called on attendees to avoid falling into what he calls the “traps” of financial inclusion. 

“Now that we’re looking at the progress and efforts we are making to enable more women to benefit from our work, it is important to be critical and look beyond the initial numbers,” he said. “It is important to think of scalable solutions that have a comprehensive and lasting impact on the women who use our tools. Monitoring and measuring impact and creating new tools developed by women is key to transforming the existing landscape.” 

In closing, Anna Romanelli concluded the panel by inviting attendees to approach the women entrepreneurs present at the GLI Forum, who are living proof of the impact of the partnerships represented on stage

“At Pro Mujer, we strongly believe in the importance of partnerships,” she stated. “Emprende Pro Mujer exists because of the deep and powerful partnerships we have built. We believe nothing is more powerful than a group of women who believe in themselves and who can choose where they want to go and how they want to get there. Today, we are joined by entrepreneurs from the [Emprende Pro Mujer] program, and it is a privilege to learn from them. It is something we should all celebrate.”

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