As part of our Helping Women Get Online program in India, we’ve been working to provide training sessions on some Internet basics to women across the country. As a reminder of why we’re doing this, of the estimated 200 million Internet users in India today, only a third are women.

As you might expect, many villages don’t have good connectivity, let alone training centers equipped with computers. So we had to think of new ways to bring the Internet to rural India. This is how the Internet rickshaw was born.
[Image] The Internet rickshaw makes its first stop with a group of women weavers in Maheshwar in the state of Madhya Pradesh Built on the back of a bicycle, the Internet rickshaw is modelled on India’s traditional distribution system, used to move everything from people to ice cream to industrial supplies. Instead of seats or crates, though, we’ve equipped these carts with an Internet-enabled device, information on using the web and an operator keen to explain.

The rickshaw’s first stop was in Maheshwar, in the state of Madhya Pradesh, where we partnered with Women Weave to provide local female weavers with training sessions on basic Internet use as well as skills related to their profession such as stitching techniques.

A small and simple step in the face of a huge challenge, but hopefully a helpful one.

Posted by Neha Barjatya, Project Lead, Helping Women Get Online, Google India