Rangu Salgame, CEO, Growth Ventures Group, Tata Communications presents speech at the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) Annual Meeting closing plenary.
At the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) Annual Meeting closing plenary, Tata Communications and MasterCard announced a CGI Commitment to Action to financially empower 25,000 women in the developing world—a pledge with the goal of touching the lives of 100 million women. Working with a network of partners including Brightstar Corp, Kiva, Tone, Trickle Up and the Hidary Foundation, the partnership hopes to bring opportunity to women worldwide through transformative mobile applications.
It comes as research finds that there are 200 million fewer women than men online and that 300 million fewer women own a mobile phone—yet if they were financially empowered, it could drastically raise the living standards of entire households as more income would go to establish healthier and more sustainable lifestyles.
Walt Macnee, Vice Chairman, MasterCard commented, “Two billion adults globally, the majority of them women, still don’t have a safe and easy way to receive, store and use their money.”
He went onto further say, “We see an opportunity and responsibility to empower women with access to and control over their finances through digital financial tools. By financially including women around the globe, we take an important step towards poverty alleviation, equality and economic prosperity.”
Adding to this, Rangu Salgame, CEO, Tata Communications said, “We now have our generation’s greatest opportunity to unshackle women from endless cycles of poverty and dependency by providing them with access to information and economic opportunities. With this program, Tata Communications and MasterCard are embarking on a journey to harness the long-term potential of the next 3 billion online.”
Paul Arkwright
Publisher
