About the session

The World Bank has stated that poverty will not end without financial inclusion. Globally, 65 percent of women have an account compared to 72 percent of men. This unbanked population and the visible gender gap is amplified when zoomed in on developing countries. In Pakistan, for example, only 7% of women are financially included compared to 20% men. Women and Financial Agency explores the barriers for bringing women in the fold of formal financial services and how to address them. Bringing first-hand research experience and interactions with women at the bottom of the pyramid throughout Pakistan, the session will share actionable insights gathered from the field. It will build empathy in participants for the women by bringing forth fascinating stories of their workarounds and financial behaviors, so providers can begin to design products and services that incorporate their needs. Case studies on how current services are being transformed, and how new services are being developed to better serve women will be featured, taking the audience through each phase of the human-centered design process.

Key learnings

1. How to create enough value proposition for women to convert
2. How to circumvent and address barriers to access for women and their contexts
3. Work being done in developing countries to bridge the financial inclusion gap

About the speaker

Umair has 10 years of total experience and he is the Chief Innovation Officer at IDEATE Innovation which is Pakistan’s first dedicated UX design firm. He is a mechatronics engineer with a double master in Innovation Management and Entrepreneurship from TUBerlin and Warsaw School of Economics with a Design Thinking certification from HPI Potsdam and UX certification from Neilsen Norman Group.

He has co-founded two startups in Germany and Poland, in the domains of agriculture technology and shared economy sector, respectively. Previously, he has spent over 5 years in process engineering design, working closely with product technology centres in the FMCG sector. He is a strong believer in technology and its potential to solve greater challenges that technology combined with deep user insights can be served as a great tool to solve a lot of social problems, especially poverty.

Book your day pass for Friday 25.10, you will be asked to pick 5 sessions of your choice for the day.