Giving phones to women is a smart move!

Shopkeepper in Uganda using her KEIPhone (Credit - KEIPhone)

Sometimes we are lucky enough to see a critical question become obsolete in our lifetime. And some other times, we are even luckier to know the person bringing this sea change about. Lauren Hendricks a longtime colleague (and friend) has decided to tackle women’s low ownership of cell phones. In November 2021, she launched KEIPhone, a social enterprise that gives women in emerging economies what they need to thrive: a phone.

KEIPhone’s mission is to close the digital gender gap by giving smartphones to women. For free. That’s what giving means. And then KEIPhone and their local partners train women to use the mobile internet with confidence. Smart phones are so much better than feature phones – remember the phone you had in your hands pre i-Phone? No, you don’t. Because you could barely make a call with it. Typing a text message was tedious and there was zero chance you could pay for your chai latté with it.

Features phones are cheap and in emerging economies, they are valuable because mobile network operators have adapted their service (using USSD) to enable users to pay a bill, send and receive money and cash-in or cash-out. But that is pretty much the alpha and omega of feature phones. Even though USSD is ubiquitous, it requires the user to memorize a series of digits, followed by a # or a * to complete a transaction. Some transactions can require navigating through a 10 step menu, not simple for a woman who has lower literacy. It’s not that seamless, compared to using an app on a smart phone.

Women who have received a phone, tell the KEIPhone team that they love their phones and use them many times a day. The model is super smart, relying on advertisers to cover the data costs but also building partnerships to bring useful content to users. The impact is impressive and goes beyond financial transactions. In Uganda, for instance, women who downloaded the SmartHealth app — which is available on KEIPhone — increased successful breastfeeding rates by 32%.

Strategic Impact Advisors partnered with KEIPhone to advertise “Hey Sister! Show me the mobile money!” campaign, a free audio curriculum, in local language that women can download for free, on-demand. The episodes provide basic information and skills on how to transact safely online, detect a scam and get ready to sell products using digital marketing.

With over 45,000 users in Uganda, KEIPhone is only at the beginning of the adventure. But they have already proven that there is very little downside to giving a phone to women. It provides them with essential connections: to people, networks, apps, information, and markets. We need to stop treating smartphones as luxury items (I grant you that the current price tag of the i-Phone 13 starting at $699 makes it a luxury item), but you can get a good quality smartphone in Africa for less than $100. Phones, smartphones in particular are as essential development tools to fight poverty and promote women’s economic empowerment.