USAID Microsoft Airband Initiative Factsheet

Date published: June 3, 2021


Launched in August 2020, the USAID/Microsoft Airband Initiative is a collaboration between Microsoft Corporation‘s Airband Initiative and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). This public-private partnership seeks to bring Internet access to more women around the world, expanding women’s economic opportunities and enabling digital development services. The partnership will utilize the technical expertise and scale of Microsoft’s staff and operations as well as USAID ‘s expertise and successes on combating gender inequality in the digital development space. 

Six participating Microsoft Airband partners across the five countries include: New Sun Road (Guatemala), Bluetown (Ghana), AirJaldi (India), AndiTel (Colombia), Mawingu (Kenya) and M-KOPA (Kenya). Mawingu was previously funded by Microsoft and USAID as a rural connectivity initiative. Now, Mawingu and the other in-country partners have committed to programming that focuses on closing the gender digital divide.

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