We are delighted that our one year project, Digitally Unconnected: Gender Gap (DUGG) has been chosen by the Internet Society as part of the “Beyond the Net” grants to work on digital gender issues in Serbia.

Gender digital gap is widely present in Serbia, but the lack of research data and statistics are making this problem invisible, both from the ones dealing with women’s rights, and the ones who are fighting for the just, accessible and safe Internet for everyone. Our team will connect these two activists’ fields in order to put the light on the issue!

Through this project activities, the team from ISOC Serbia will be dedicated to explore how Internet and ICT technologies can play a role in decreasing the existing gender digital gap and how to make into consideration gender awareness when developing new and evolving technologies.

As women comprise half of world’s population, the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) should address each of the goals through a gendered lens. The DUGG focuses on SDG4, SDG5, and SDG9. However, if applications and services are developed by women they would be more relevant to their specific needs and context, which would in turn attract more women to digital economy and social networks. In DUGG, we seek to address the social gender dimension online; especially, how young girls and women are navigating new technologies in low income countries, such as Serbia.

The main objective of this project is to determine how new technologies such as the Internet can be major catalysts to reduce the existing gender digital gap in Serbia, and empower users across genders in the adoption of new technologies, for education and entrepreneurship. We will study the cause and effect of gender-based digital divide, and how to mitigate them through novel solutions driven by a strong gender dimension in order to achieve a sustainable development that includes and benefits both women and men.

Thus, DUGG will become an active contributor to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 2030) and to the ISOC local and global community by proving the social and economic profitability of digital inclusion of all people of the society.   
 
The innovative concepts of the DUGG include actions related to the UN’s 2030 Agenda, especially the following afore mentioned goals: Quality education (#4), Gender equality (#5) , and Industry Innovation and Infrastructure (#9). This is the approach for the scientific examination of the social dimension of new technologies in overcoming digital gender divide and other sustainable solutions for the best practices.

Stay tuned and follow our updates as we’ll write more about the project as we progress into it, in 2019. @isoc_belgrade @dugg

Project Team Leaders

Dr Danica Radovanović is a digital inclusion advisor, digital media strategist, and senior researcher at the Basic Internet Foundation, headquartered in Norway. She is a PhD Chevening Scholar, Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, and a doctorate graduate from the Faculty of Technical Sciences, Novi Sad. She worked on international Internet and Web projects at the United Nations, Food and Agriculture Organization, Library of Congress (DC), Australian Science, was involved in a global citizen activism initiative “Global Voices and Rising Voices”, among other digital cooperation projects. Her work focuses on social media and young adults, on deploying digital inclusion programmes, education, and digital literacy skills initiatives, and Internet infrastructures to the unconnected areas in Global South to bridge digital divides. She is currently based in Belgrade. Follow her on Twitter @DanicaR and read more about her work: https://www.danicar.info/

Tijana Bajović Arapović Ph.D. is a researcher who previously worked at the Institute of Philosophy and Social Sciences, Belgrade and a project manager. She holds Master’s and Doctoral degrees in Culture and Media Studies, as well as Master’s degree in Philology. She specializes in social anthropology, social psychology, political studies, philosophy of culture, history of ideas, gender studies, critical theory, culture of fear, Internet and media studies. She managed several scientific and cultural projects in cooperation with The Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies (Brussels) and Konrad Adenauer Stiftung.