“World Pulse is a safe online space where thunder voices are hatched and harnessed!” - Sally Mboumien, Cameroonian peace activist and movement-builder

As we welcome a new year and reflect on 2021, it’s clear that a surge of new voices and leadership are needed for global healing. At World Pulse, we are using technology to collaborate globally and build a growing pulse of women's collective power.

Here are 5 areas where we will build more impact in 2022 and beyond:

We will grow the number of women digital empowerment trainers everywhere to help bridge the gendered digital divide.

In response to the devastating cost of digital exclusion for women in the wake of the pandemic, World Pulse launched the Her Digital Leadership Alliance to increase women’s digital changemaking skills across the globe. The Alliance will equip 20,000 women, girls, and gender-diverse leaders in 50+ countries with digital leadership, advocacy, and training skills to impact millions more. Since launching at the Generation Equality Forum - one of the world’s largest gatherings to secure ambitious commitments for gender equality - dozens of collaborators have joined the commitment including the Vodafone Americas Foundation, Equinix, Salesforce, Providence, the Fossil Foundation, the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), the EQUALS Global Partnership, and private donors.

The Her Digital Leadership Alliance builds on the work of the World Pulse Digital Ambassadors program. Made up of 151 women leaders in over 30 countries, Digital Ambassadors help to bridge the digital gender divide, training thousands of women and girls annually in digital skills. Digital Ambassadors have held over 2,900 training sessions, trained more than 51,000 people, and reached an estimated three million people overall with digital empowerment messages.

In 2022, World Pulse Digital Ambassadors will utilize new training modules in their work. We will launch an advanced digital empowerment curriculum and introduce formal trainer certification for participants, providing women with important career-building digital skills and helping to scale up a ground force of women community-based, digital skills trainers.

We will link women leaders to build more intersectional movements across issues and regions.

In 2021, we linked global voices and movements on issues such as inclusive technology and disability justice. We released the #SheTransformsTech report with the backing of 27 technology and women’s rights partners. The report includes data-driven insights, personal narratives, and visionary solutions sourced from grassroots women leaders, gender-diverse individuals, and marginalized communities from around the world. Along with the report, we launched our Technology community hub page on the World Pulse platform. We also partnered with disability rights partners to link cross-disability movements online, running a campaign to lift stories of disability justice. This campaign culminated in the launch of a Disability Justice hub on World Pulse.

In 2022, we will nurture more emerging movement-makers with a Changemakers’ Lab providing skills and connections to grow potential high-impact advocacy campaigns and budding movements. We'll also grow more campaigns linking previously disconnected leaders, stories, and resources on key global issues ranging from women’s health, peace and security, environment, girls, human rights, ending violence, and more.

We will raise the volume on women's voices.

In 2021, we lifted the vital voices speaking out on the frontlines of global issues from Afghanistan to Colombia through our Story Awards program and promoted important voices at conferences such as the World Summit on the Information Society, RightsCon, and MozFest.

In 2022, we’ll kick off an annual World Pulse awards event in March that will celebrate rising voices that are too often overlooked — the emergent storytellers and digital changemakers of our time. We will channel these voices to global decision-making forums, media outlets, and advocacy partners throughout the year.

We will crowdsource more resources to seed new voices and movements.

In 2021, we released a new community giving program called Changefunders. Through the Changefunder program, supporters of World Pulse and members with resources can pay it forward by giving to our Change Fund, which provides seed funds to emerging women leaders in our global community to invest in their stories, digital access, and change-making activities.

In 2022, we’ll grow this program and its funding through new partnerships and campaigns. We’ll also connect Changefunders to the leaders and campaigns their funds support to build cross-border solidarity and follow their journeys in real-time. Whether it’s $5 or $500, you can join in and become a Changefunder here.

We will model ethical technology that creates a measurable impact for gender justice.

In 2021, we broadcast our expertise in transformative technology and released our popular Impact Dashboard to more members, putting power in the hands of our community to track their impact and visualize their progress towards change. Throughout the year our community used their Impact Dashboards to report impacting 3.3 million people. Extraordinarily, members project they will impact 85.5 million more people if their planned efforts are successful!

In addition, we shared our practical learnings sector-wide with features on Google’s home page to published articles from Forbes and Apolitical on topics ranging from how governments can use online platforms to listen to women’s voices to shape more inclusive policies to how disability leadership can shape more caring online communities.

In 2022, we will launch a new community platform as proof of how ethical technology can come to life. The new platform is grounded in consent-based design and carefully shaped from our new Technology Design Justice Board and years of community input. Over the next year we will continue to evolve the platform and its many new features, crafted to provide a deeply personalized, inspirational, and connective experience that transforms the lives of our members.

In the coming years, World Pulse is committed to playing a leading role in bringing women's movements and the technology sector together to increase women's voice and power across the globe — linking movements to speed up the pace to global gender justice. It's high time for women-led antidotes to the big tech empires to rise and present the alternative path.

Thank you for being a part of World Pulse’s transformational community. We’re excited for what we will create together in the years ahead!