Imagining an AI Toolkit for Women-Led Small Businesses in Low-Income Countries

In this project, the SIPA capstone workshop team, working with the International Trade Centre, developed one of the first practitioner-oriented AI toolkits tailored to women-led small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in developing and least-developed countries. The AI Toolkit includes a step-by-step guide to learning AI skills, with skill and tool complexity organized by business function and featuring hands-on, relevant use cases. In addition to the Toolkit as a downloadable PDF, the team proposed adding an interactive microsite that mirrors it, guiding users through the AI learning journey in a dynamic format.

The project was grounded in a human-centered design approach with an intersectional gender lens, and drew insights from mixed-methods research: (1) a desk review covering AI adoption among women-led SMEs and the gendered digital divide across four initial markets (Ghana, India, Mexico and Viet Nam); (2) survey data from 155 women entrepreneurs across Asia, Africa, and Latin America; and (3) primary qualitative data collected through semi-structured stakeholder interviews and focus group discussions in Hanoi, Viet Nam. 

Based on these insights, the SIPA team developed a tiered AI Toolkit structured around levels of digital readiness to train entrepreneurs in skills identified as having the most potential to scale up the utility of AI tools for their businesses. So, even as digital tools evolve, users will have a strong grasp of the foundations of AI and can refer back to the Toolkit to ‘level up’ as desired.