Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): Madhya Pradesh is among the four states in the country with the lowest digital literacy among women.
The other three are West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, and Bihar, says Jyoti Mishra, a software developer and ambassador of Google’s Women Techmakers Programme.
Jyoti, from Kolkata, was in the city to participate in Google Cloud Community Days Bhopal 2025, GDG Cloud Bhopal, at Minto Hall on Sunday.
On the sidelines of the event, she told The Free Press that in India, internet and mobile phone penetration has grown at a far greater pace than digital literacy, with the result that the country has millions of people with net-enabled smartphones but zero digital literacy.
Jyoti Mishra |
In this respect, there is at least a 30% gap between women and men. While 78% of Indian men feel that they know enough about the digital world, only 32% of women feel the same. Women also have less access to computers than men. Most girls say that they use their ‘bhaiya ka computer,’ as it is the sons who get laptops first and, if resources permit, the daughters too, Jyoti said.
Self-doubt and lack of confidence are mental blocks that stop women from entering the world of IT. “The difference is very apparent in IT companies. While there are a fairly good number of women coders and testers, there are few women at the developer level and almost none at the leadership level,” she said.
She added that, as part of their digital mentorship programme, they teach everything from using UPI to developing websites to young girls studying in schools and colleges. “We also hold a big event once a year on International Women’s Day, in which we ask them to showcase their models and products. Some of them have even managed to develop chatbots,” she said.
Jyoti says that the government is encouraging women in the IT field in its own way. “In hackathons organised in colleges, women-led teams are given priority,” she said.
