Over 300 million women are being left out of the benefits of mobile phone ownership as it becomes the most ubiquitous technology in the developing world, which has major implications given women's role in social and economic development.

Furthermore, the potential value of cell phone ownership increases as mobile services (mServices) including health, finance, and commerce become available - half of the women who do have mobile phones have either increased their income or looked for employment using them.

Yet how can value be shown in mobile phone gender parity? Where are the challenges to scaling mService implementations? And what's the typology of different mService applications themselves and their relation to women's use of mobiles?

For the July Technology Salon, Vital Wave Consulting's CEO, Brooke Partridge, will share her company's insights and the results of a major new report on the mobile phone gender gap - Women & Mobile: A Global Opportunity (PDF), authored by Vital Wave Consulting and sponsored by the GSMA Development Fund and the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women.

This ground-breaking analysis of emerging economies quantifies the opportunity for achieving gender parity in mobile phone ownership and characterizes the relationship that women have with mobile technology.

With detailed case studies, value chain models, and added opportunity identification from Vital Wave's own analysis, we'll explore the importance and the challenges of scaling mServices implementations across countries and genders.

Closing the Mobile Phone Gender Gap
July DC Technology Salon
Thursday, July 15, 8:30-10am
UN Foundation Conference Room
1800 Mass Avenue, NW, Suite 400
Washington, D.C. 20036 (map)

We'll have hot coffee and Krispe Kreme donuts for a morning rush, but seating is limited and the UN Foundation is in a secure building. So the first fifteen (15) to RSVP will be confirmed attendance and then there will be a waitlist.

Special Salon Exclusive!

For those that arrive early, we'll have a sneak peek at the new HUB: Health UnBound community from the mHealth Alliance. David Gutelius will provide a preview and explain how HUB will become an online network connecting the global health, health systems strengthening and technology communities, to improve health outcomes by reducing fragmentation and redundancy