We were thrilled to hear earlier this week that the Web Foundation has been nominated for a 2016 GEM-TECH Award. The international prize — jointly organised by the ITU and UN Women — is awarded annually to honour individuals or organisations around the world that work to promote women’s empowerment through ICTs. The Web Foundation’s nomination recognises our work to develop gender-responsive ICT policy and expand access, and specifically highlights the work we’ve done through the Alliance for Affordable Internet A4AI and our Women’s Rights Online programme. A4AI’s work focuses on closing the digital divide by reforming policy and regulation so that everyone, everywhere can afford to connect and join the digital revolution. Focusing our efforts on closing the gender digital divide and enabling affordable access and connectivity opportunities for women is a critical aspect of this work — women comprise a majority of the four billion people offline today and are up to 50% less likely to access the Internet than men in the same communities. The Web Foundation’s Women’s Rights Online initiative complements this work, undertaking much-needed research to understand the reality of women’s access to and use of ICTs (including the recently released Digital Gender Gap Audit) and advocating for evidence-based policymaking to close the digital gender gap. We are honoured to have our work recognised in this way, and look forward to the GEM-TECH Awards ceremony, which will take place November 16 at ITU Telecom World in Bangkok. We’ll be sure to keep you posted on how things turn out. In the meanwhile, check out the amazing work of our fellow nominees, and follow the links below to dig a bit deeper into some recent highlights around our work to promote women in technology.

• Research | Women’s Rights Online: Translating Access Into Empowerment
• Research | Women’s Rights Online Digital Gender Gap Audit
• Event | Africa Summit on Women and Girls in Technology
• Event | TechMousso (promoting gender data in Africa)