Digital Public Infrastructure: A Tool for Gender Equality?

As more public services and information sources move online, women and girls, in all of their diversity, continue to face barriers to access to digital public infrastructure and repositories of knowledge and memory. This amplifies existing inequities by hindering their meaningful participation in public life and contributes to their further marginalization.

Digital commons, such as Wikimedia projects, are essential to provide wide access to accurate information, which in turn is fundamental for both human rights, including access to information (a component of the right to freedom of opinion and expression), as well as sustainable development by reaching the Sustainable Development Goals that support digital public goods that can be used by all.

This event aims to discuss the critical need for a robust digital public infrastructure that supports and safeguards global public goods for everyone in order to fulfill the promise of the internet. Such an information ecosystem requires not only investment in technical infrastructure to ensure easy and equitable access to public information, but also support for fields that produce and organize knowledge like journalism and academia. This support extends to legal structures and open and free licensing of many different types of information.

Speakers:

• Dr. Manavpreet Kaur, Co-Founder, Punjabi Wikimedians
• Marianne Diaz Hernandez, #WhyID Campaigner at Access Now
• Kat Townsend, Expert Advisor, World Wide Web Foundation
• Sandra Aceng, Executive Director, Women of Uganda Network

Moderator: Costanza Sciubba Caniglia, Anti-Disinformation Strategy Lead at Wikimedia Foundation