New Mobile Web Application Empowers Thousands of Women Entrepreneurs in Indonesia

Qtel Group, Indosat, the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women and Nokia Launch the Usaha Wanita (Business Women) Mobile Web App Delivering Business Information to Thousands of Women Entrepreneurs in Indonesia

Mobilk - Tens of thousands of women entrepreneurs in Indonesia can now receive free business advice through their mobile phones, helping to boost women’s empowerment and Indonesia’s economy, thanks to an inspiring new partnership announced today by Qtel Group; Indosat; the Cherie Blair Foundation; and Nokia.

 

Indosat, part of the Qtel Group, is the first operator in the world to offer the new Nokia Life+ Usaha Wanita (Business Women) service, exclusively available for Indosat users. The service was launched at a special ceremony in Jakarta, Indonesia, attended by Braman Setio, Deputy Minister of Production, Small Medium Enterprise; Cherie Blair; Qtel Group Chairman H.E. Sheikh Abdullah bin Mohammed bin Saud Al-Thani; Indosat President Director and Chief Executive Officer Alexander Rusli; and Jawahar Kanjilal, Vice President and Global Head of Nokia Life. 

Built for Indonesian women entrepreneurs, Usaha Wanita is provided through the Nokia Life+ web app and provides information on topics such as business management, banking and credit access, customer management and marketing for small businesses. The service is aimed at women who run a small- or medium-sized business, women who are just starting their own micro-enterprise and young women who aspire to have their own business. 

 

Other topics supported include interpersonal communications and life skills, to ensure that the service addresses multiple facets of a woman’s daily life.

 

Information for the service has been developed with the Foundation for Social Change, and is offered free-of-charge for one year to Indosat’s women customers. 

 

Usaha Wanita is accessed via the Nokia Life+ web app, which is supported by a wide range of Nokia Series 40 mobile phones and all Nokia Asha smartphones. Nokia Life+ is available from the Nokia Xpress Browser home page or as a download from the Nokia Store. Nokia Life+ benefits from Nokia’s Xpress Internet platform, which can make browsing the web up to 90 percent more efficient, allowing users to save on data charges. 

 

H.E. Sheikh Abdullah bin Mohammed bin Saud Al-Thani, Chairman of Qtel Group, said: “We are proud that Indosat’s Usaha Wanita service will deliver the latest life-enhancing mobile technology thanks to this innovative partnership with the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women and Nokia. The transformational Usaha Wanita service will help empower women in Indonesia, which is crucial for the society and economy to grow. As a company, we are very aware that closing the digital gender divide has a positive social and economic impact on families and communities, and we see the launch of services like this one as critical to increasing access to the full benefit of mobile technology for women.”

 

Usaha Wanita is based upon research that was conducted by the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women, made possible by support from the ExxonMobil Foundation. The research, titled “Mobile Value Added Services: A Business Growth Opportunity for Women Entrepreneurs”, was published in May 2012.  It was focused on Nigeria, Indonesia and Egypt and is part of a three-phase collaboration between the Foundation and ExxonMobil to extend the benefits of mobile value added services to women entrepreneurs.

Across the three markets, 98 percent of entrepreneurial activity is driven by micro-entrepreneurs, who have few employees and low capital, according to the report. Additional results show that more than 88 percent of women entrepreneurs are willing to use mobile value-added services for their businesses, and 82 percent of women entrepreneurs said they would pay for such value-added services.

 

Cherie Blair said: “Our research demonstrates the urgent need for the Usaha Wanita service, and we are delighted to be working with Indosat and Nokia on this project. Usaha Wanita furthers our commitment to empowering women entrepreneurs, in developing and emerging countries. We look forward to continuing to work with Qtel Group in developing services that address topics important to women.”

 

Usaha Wanita is the latest in a series of Indosat’s mobile initiatives addressing the needs of women across Indonesia as part of Indosat commitment to the GSMA mWomen Programme. The GSMA is the world’s leading mobile technology trade association, and their mWomen Programme seeks to close the worldwide mobile phone gender gap by 50 percent by 2014.

 

In July 2011, Indosat launched an offering specifically for stay-at-home mums called ‘Hebat Keluarga’ which includes an affordable tariff for friends and family and a “family-finder” application to track the geographical location of family members. The scaled success of this service led to further research that these women also wanted information to help their families, and in June 2012, Indosat launched, in partnership with Nokia, ‘Info Wanita’. The award-winning service delivers SMS-based information on small business management, financial management, life skills, health and childcare. More than 10,000 Indosat customers have already subscribed to Info Wanita.

Alexander Rusli, President Director and Chief Executive Officer, Indosat, said: “Indosat believes we have a clear role to play in enriching the lives of our customers throughout Indonesia, and we are focused on providing distinct customer experiences. In Indonesia, women are not only the centre of family life, but they are also the drivers for entrepreneurialism and a potential work force. Recent data shows that in Indonesia, 49,8% of the population are women and around 21,3% of them are cellular subscribers. With our focus on offering targeted services for women today, we believe that we are making a real and immediate difference to support ICT needs across communities.”

Nokia Life provides valuable, personalised and localised livelihood and life improvement information across health, education and agriculture for people without a data connection. Similar to Nokia Life, the recently launched Nokia Life+ web app offers personalised information across health and education for people with data subscriptions. More than 80 million people have experienced the benefits of Nokia Life.

 

Jawahar Kanjilal, Global Head of Nokia Life Services, said:  “Nokia Life was created from the ground up to plug information gaps in emerging economies and help young people get ahead in life. We are delighted to have co-created Usaha Wanita with the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women and Foundation for Social Change. Introducing it as a service on Nokia Life+ will enable Indonesian women entrepreneurs to have immediate access to information that will successfully enhance their business.”

Through the support of the ExxonMobil Foundation, Usaha Wanita will be augmented by an 18-month financial literacy and business management training program delivered through a partnership between the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women and Mercy Corps.