Women as Citizen Scientists: Identifying Potential Digital Solutions for Addressing Gender-Based Challenges

Women in different parts of the world, especially developing countries, experience gender-based challenges including violence against women, limited access to girls’ education, reproductive and sexual health challenges, and traditional harmful practices. Citizen Science projects have shown to have positive outcomes by including members of the public in data collection. The purpose of this paper was to identify studies relating to the use of digital technologies for Citizen Science projects to aid data collection. The overall goal is to inform research in enabling women to participate in addressing gender-based challenges through the use of digital technologies for data collection. The findings revealed that digital technologies such as mobile phone cameras, mobile applications, social media and web applications and videos were used as data collection methods in Citizen Science projects. The study also proposed how these technologies can be used as data collection tools for Citizens Science projects revolving around solving gender-based challenges.