The Annamalai University at Chidambaram, Tamilnadu, India along with the Software Technology Parks of India and the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology jointly propose to organize an international Conference on Women in the Digital Era: Opportunities and Challenges during December 10-13, 2003. This conference will address issues related to the status of women in the digital era. The questions that are going to be deliberated in this forum include the following:

1. How far the digital technology has leveraged women? lives in general and their socio-economic and political participation in particular?
2. What transformation the digital technology has brought into women? entry in the ICT related labour market? What is their status in the ICT workforce? Have they been able to gain access to the primary labour market or relegated to the secondary one?
3. Are there any significant change in the gender roles in the IT sector and what is the extent of gender democracy that is being identified in the IT related professions?
4. How far the convergence of technologies changed the location and content of women? work throughout the world? How for the border lines between the public and private spheres of work and between the work and leisure activities being changed as the home becomes increasingly computerized?
5. What is the extent of gender based digital divide prevailing in the developed and developing countries? What are the initiatives taken by the governments to close the divide and what are the rationale adopted to tackle the future challenges in this area?
6. How far women have succeeded in building women's network for sharing experiences and exchange their best practices?
7. What are the efforts taken by the government and non-governmental organizations in the compilation of gender segregated data especially in the area of IT education and IT employment?

In short, the objective of this conference (WIT2003) is to discuss the opportunities and challenges created by the new technology for women? development. Besides, it helps to formulate mechanisms for drawing more women into the IT sector. It will further work out the modalities of extending IT education and IT training to the women community based on the market requirements. The key effort is towards identifying the means to involve more women into the digital world in different capacities as users, designers, managers and leaders of IT. This effort will lead to achieve gender democracy in the digital society where the digital capacity of the individual is highly regarded than the gender factor.