TEQtogether combines technology (T), equality (EQ) and the need for men to work together with women to address this challenge (together). Each of these ideas is complex and contested, but can be summarised as follows:

  • Technology (T). Digital technologies, or ICTs, have been used to transform the world over the last two decades. Their appropriate use has huge potential to change lives for the better.  However, they can also be used to damage lives.  TEQtogether is committed to ensuring that women benefit from, and are not harmed through, the use of technology.  It recognises that there are much broader issues around gender and development, but it focuses explicitly on technological aspects of this inequality.
  • Equality (EQ). TEQtogether is based on the premise that equality of opportunity to the benefits of technology is of central importance in empowering people’s lives. Substantial evidence exists to show that women across the world are less engaged with technology than are men, and are also more abused through it than are men.  TEQtogether recognises the full complexity of LGBTIQ agendas but focuses specifically on working with men to increase the involvement of women in the tech sector, and in reducing harassment and abuse of women by men through technology.
  • Together (together). There are many existing initiatives (see our Other Initiatives page) that focus on how women can support each other in the tech sector, but far fewer that address what men need to do to support equality of opportunity and empowerment at the interface between gender and technology.  Many of the initiatives that have already started to focus on this area have begun to use the term “allies” to emphasise the ways that men can support women in the sector.  The use of the word “together”, though, emphasises that TEQtogether is not about “men for women” or “men as allies of women”, but rather that we must all work together if positive changes are to be made.  In particular, men need to learn from women about how to change their own lives, and we all need to work together to change existing processes and structures that lead to inequality.

For more about “Why TEQtogether” see the video (20 min) by Tim Unwin, answering questions from Natalia Robinson in 2021, on why he and Liz Quaglia set up TEQtogether.