When it comes to gender equality, India has a mixed record. While a number of women work their way up in sunrise industries, women in rural areas struggle to lead a dignified life. In places like Africa, the struggle is even more uphill as women have to tackle poverty and economic inequality.

“There, women can't do the simplest of things like owning a mobile phone," said Revi Sterling, a research scholar at University of Colorado's Atlas Institute. Ms Sterling's doctoral research, however, brought freedom to women in Kenya and she expects her solution would help Indian women as well.

If men don't like women brandishing mobile phones, or if women can't afford to pay for them, the best way is to look for an alternative. And Ms Sterling has done precisely that: she designed Alternative through Interactive Radio (AIR), a device that allows women to interact through community radio.

“This is a simple-to-use device," Ms Sterling explained at a conference on ICTD (Information and Communication Technology for Development), organised jointly by Microsoft Research and IIIT in Bangalore. “As (the women) talk, it records their voice, much like a digital recorder, and through an Ad hoc network, allows the recorded information to reach the nearest device and also the radio station. This saves them the time and effort of going to the radio station and recording their opinions." 

WiFi technology

Since the device is distributed for free and works on WiFi technology, which has no cost implications such as installing mobile phone base stations and buying spectrum allocated for transporting signals, women using them don't incur any expense in the process of voicing themselves.

For the local radio station, where the recordings are received as voice mails in the in box of the PC, the fresh and unique perspectives women offer on policy issues to rural life becomes a good broadcast material that can be aired with little post-production work. In fact, one of the local radio stations in Kenya with which Ms Sterling works has a network of women correspondents who regularly send their dispatches.

The topics on which they speak range from poverty alleviation, to health and sanitation and micro credit schemes that as changed conditions for women in several developing countries. Rather than being a mere mouth piece of these women, the radio station also plays a role in conducting awareness programmes. “Someone asking for instance, ‘hey, an election is coming up, how do we vote?’ or asking how to make micro credit schemes work? And the station would help them with information.”.

With the growing popularity of community radios in India, Ms Sterling has extended her focus to the sub-continent, where she has held talks with Bangalore-based 'Voices' to implement AIR in rural areas. “They tell me that AIR will be the right solution for the Self Help Groups," Ms Sterling said. In fact, she points to the idea of distributing AIR devices to women collectives (groups), rather than individuals, as one of the main reasons for its success in Kenya. “This made sure that the husbands of the women didn't have the chance to snatch away the device and stop them from participating." 

When she distributed a few AIR devices to women in SHGs, Ms Sterling also noticed how their responses defied general notions. While she expected younger women to take more interest in airing their opinions, she actually found older women showing no hesitation in talking, despite not having had a chance to record their voices before. 

Ms Sterling  has kept the production cost to the bare minimum. She took the help of a few engineering students in her university and hand-made each of the AIR devices. She is expecting to visit India by March to fully implement the 'AIR’ based community radio along with 'Voices’ in some of the rural areas. Like in Kenya, she things the device would give life to thoughts that never had an expression.