Identifying and deploying technologies

Women’s economic advancement is often directly related to their ability to access and use technology. By increasing women’s access to technology, they are able to increase their standard of living, strengthen their families and communities and contribute to significant global progress.

ExxonMobil partnered with the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) and Ashoka’s Changemakers to launch the Women | Tools | Technology:Building Opportunities & Economic Power Challenge, an innovative challenge that identified 268 transformative solutions from 67 countries, each poised to promote women’s economic advancement through technology.

To build on the momentum of the Challenge, ExxonMobil and partners, including the Thunderbird Emerging Markets Laboratory (TEM Lab), made a new commitment to invest in the expansion of several high impact, sustainable technologies that advance women in the developing world economically. The investment will provide consulting support; facilitate the innovators' connections with other social entrepreneurs, business and technical experts; and identify best practices. The program is expected to directly benefit more than 13,500 people, with indirect benefits reaching more than 475,000.