Join Belongg’s Inclusive Tech Mission: Transforming Technology for All
Technology can be a powerful lever for change but often excludes users either because it is not accessible
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Our work centres on BelonggAI, The Inclusive Product Management Fellowship, and Research Programs focused on intersectional inclusion.
Belongg has conceptualized and is running, in partnership with Dalberg, the Inclusive Product Management Fellowship. This first of its kind Fellowship program has brought together product teams from leading companies – including Salesforce, Flipkart, Groww, e-Gov Foundations, Wisdom Circle, Digital Green, FMCH, Chimple and many more – to make more inclusive features that better serve the needs of users with marginalised identities. Know more here.
The first cohort of IPMF has been funded by Omidyar Network and we are planning new rounds of IPMF with a focus on inclusive DPI/DPGs as well as sector specific cohorts with a focus on inclusive fintech, edtech, and healthtech.
Technology and innovation are rapidly enabling the fulfilment of critical needs through well designed products and services.
However, people with diverse identities not only face accessibility challenges but also find that existing products and services do not fully address their unique needs.
Belongg, with other partners, has established the Inclusive Product Manager Fellowship – a joint research and design program to create and grow Inclusive Product Managers and Product Teams.
The Fellowship equips early-stage and seasoned product managers with the tools, skills and networks to build products that are more inclusive of diverse identities.
The Fellowship has a range of pillars including learning about inclusive design, user research and immersions, prototyping support, expert sessions, support with making the business case for product inclusion, and more.
Over three years, we hope to influence at least 200 product teams and collectively drive product inclusion for at least 100 million users with marginalized identities.
You can read more here: www.ipmf.co
Our flagship AI-based platform BelonggAI enables development organisations create more inclusive and equitable development programs that better serve the needs of people with marginalised identities in terms of gender, race, caste, disability, sexual orientation, religion, ethnic backgrounds and more. See more here: www.belonggai.com
It won the Gates Foundation AI For Equity Grand Challenge in 2023 and is now being piloted at leading development organisations across the world.
Embedding Inclusion In SDG Research, Program Design, & Funding
Billions of people in LMICs with marginalized identities (gender, caste, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion) experience sub-optimal outcomes across different domains in life. This happens because of prejudice/bias on the one hand and poorly designed public and development programs/policies on the other that don’t take into account unique needs of these segments.
Despite their importance, such intersectional considerations often get overlooked in SDG activities, leading to gaps in addressing the challenges faced by marginalized groups. Epistemic inclusion, or the integration of equity considerations in SDG research and program design is vital going forward.
Belongg along with collaborators such as J-PAL South Asia and Dalberg Advisors has been working on these issues over the last two years and has hosted a knowledge platform called xSDG (intersectional SDGs), carried out conferences (the xSDG UnConference).
We are now building BelonggAI, an innovative LLM-based tool that will enable development practitioners, funders, and researchers uncover how their work might be excluding these considerations and how it could be be more inclusive of marginalized groups. Recent advances in LLMs have made it possible to develop tools that will dramatically improve the ability of stakeholders to discover intersectional aspects that might be missing in their work and provide recommendations to incorporate these into their research, policies, and programs and we are keen on pushing the envelope here.
Our hope is to influence development researchers, practitioners and funders in diagnosing and adopting more equitable and inclusive approaches that better serve the needs of people with marginalized identities.
We host frequent conversations focused on intersectional inclusion in development. These are available for free on Spotify and our YouTube channels.
We have published pioneering research reports focused on intersectional mental health, disability and food systems, intersectionality and tech product usage, and are currently working on a report on gender inclusion in development programs.
We also host meetups focused on intersectional inclusion in development programs. These take place in both Delhi and Bengaluru.
Technology can be a powerful lever for change but often excludes users either because it is not accessible
This article, written by Nirat Bhatnagar, the founder of Belongg and a Partner at Dalberg, and Shruti Goyal,
About Belongg Belongg drives programs and platforms that focus on bringing intersectional research and expertise to bear on
About Belongg Belongg drives programs and platforms that focus on bringing intersectional research andexpertise to bear on important
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We are looking to actively partner with researchers, innovators, funders, NGOs, tech companies who are interested in apply intersectional thinking in their work.