India’s rapid rise towards becoming the second-largest Internet market in the world looks very different according to your gender.

Of the estimated 200 million Internet users in India today, only a third are women. What’s more, just 14% of India’s women who use the Internet live in rural areas.

India’s digital gender gap is larger than those of most developing countries and closing it is crucial. The knowledge the Internet makes available can improve women’s standard of living. Better access to information about health and finance can help lower maternal and infant mortality rates. That leads to a rise in GDP. As Mahatma Gandhi said, educate a woman and you educate a nation.

That’s why we’ve set up Helping Women Get Online with several partners with the aim of bringing 50 million women in India online by the end of 2014.

[Image] Schoolgirls in Bhilwara attend a session on Internet basics On Wednesday, we celebrated the first milestone of this initiative. We’ve successfully reached out to 100,000 women across 300 schools, 500 households and over 50 villages as part of a pilot program in Rajasthan’s Bhilwara district, some 500 kilometers from Delhi. We showed female students, housewives and professionals how the internet is relevant to their day-to-day lives through search, video and email at government-run Internet centers. Armed with the learnings from this pilot, we look forward to replicating the program across other villages throughout the country.

[Image] Young women learning about how they can use the Internet in their daily lives Women within India will also be able to call a toll free helpline number 1800.41.999.77 to get answers for any queries that they may have about the Internet.

This is just one step we are taking towards closing the digital divide between men and women, and between developed and developing countries. Watch out for more updates as we continue to roll out the program through 2014.

Posted by Rajan Anandan, Vice President and Managing Director, Google India