Ooredoo to launch dedicated services for women in Myanmar and Indonesia
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Ooredoo to launch dedicated services for women in Myanmar and Indonesia

Qatari operator Ooredoo is to launch tailored telecoms services for women in Myanmar and Indonesia, as part of its involvement with the GSMA’s Connected Women Programme.

Partners of the Connected Women Programme met recently at the Clinton Global Initiative annual meeting in New York, and are launching a study programme to establish the socio-economic benefits of greater inclusion of women in the telecoms sector.

The study will include 12,000 interviews and 84 focus group sessions across China, Columbia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Kenya, Mexico, Niger, Nigeria and Turkey.

The results of the report aim to be published in early 2015, and will be used by the programme’s partners, which also include operators Qualcomm, Roshan and Smart Communications.

Ooredoo plans to leverage the data to provide tailored services for women in Myanmar, many of which have never had access to the internet before. Under its Indonesian subsidiary Indosat, it also plans to launch a startup called Wobe, which will target lower-to-middle-income Indonesian women with voice, data and internet services.

“The ubiquity and affordability of mobile presents us with the unprecedented opportunity to improve and enhance social and economic development”, said Anne Bouverot, director general, GSMA.

“However, women in particular tend to be left behind, not only as consumers of mobile services, but also as employees and leaders in the mobile industry. To address this, the GSMA has partnered with key industry stakeholders with the vision of accelerating the potential of the female digital economy.”

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