The name Do-Digi is short for “Do-Digital ”. The project is tailored to addressing access to the digital economy and financial inclusion as the program’s offerings to female entrepreneurship across Southern Africa. The name broadly speaks to the skill and access gap that women entrepreneurs such as with technology which extends to women even in urban contexts. In the current digital age Technology is vital in how businesses can function effectively and efficiently, how to reach customers and therefore make profit and be sustainable. Gendered technological blockades widen the economic gender inequality. Women in business are the largest untapped market which is significant for creating sustainable economies in Southern Africa.

It includes a blended offline and online 12 weeks program, a platform, as well as an advocacy channel that creates and fosters an enabling environment, provides gender aware business support and a resource package for female entrepreneurship in Southern Africa through supporting women-led businesses. DoDigi’s intersectional approach is inclusive as the program addresses the barriers for upward mobility of women in their daily lives who have the burden of care in the home, the needs of women-led business in rural and low-income communities, the challenges faced by women in business with disabilities and women who are illiterate.

DoDigi supports businesses across sectors such as agriculture, retail, manufacturing and charity organizations; and varying business sizes and maturity. Understanding the inequality gaps, DoDigi also supports businesses in the idea generation stage. The program is holistic in providing resources for the business and the Women in business. As such, the curriculum also contains workshops on building leadership capacity, workshops on sexual harrassment in business and in the workplace, professional communication, and sessions on networking to name a few. These are hard and soft skills that women contexts such as in low-income communities do not easily have access to.