--- title: "CIRCLE × the Gates Foundation" headline: "CIRCLE × Gates Foundation — women’s economic empowerment, delivered and proven" description: "Ali Ahmed delivered — and proved — a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation–funded Digital Literacy Program at CIRCLE Women Association, bringing 10,000 women into the digital economy and building the monitoring & evaluation systems that measured its impact and left CIRCLE stronger. Aligned to UN SDGs 5, 8 and 4." canonical_url: https://alioahmed.com/work/circle-gates type: case-study role: "Program Manager & Business Intelligence Lead" date_label: "February – October 2023 · Concluded" status: concluded date_modified: 2026-08-09 author: name: "Ali Ahmed" url: https://alioahmed.com/ orcid: https://orcid.org/0009-0007-4265-3295 key_figures: - "10,000 women reached" - "4 skill areas" - "8 months Feb – Oct 2023" - "Legacy systems still run" entities: - name: "CIRCLE Women Association" type: Organization url: https://circlewomen.co/ same_as: - https://circlewomen.co/ - name: "Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation" type: Organization url: https://www.gatesfoundation.org/ same_as: - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_%26_Melinda_Gates_Foundation - https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q655286 - name: "Sadaffe Abid" type: Person same_as: - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sadaffe_Abid - https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q102076673 - name: "UN Sustainable Development Goal 5 — Gender Equality" type: DefinedTerm url: https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal5 same_as: - http://metadata.un.org/sdg/5 - name: "UN Sustainable Development Goal 8 — Decent Work and Economic Growth" type: DefinedTerm url: https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal8 same_as: - http://metadata.un.org/sdg/8 - name: "UN Sustainable Development Goal 4 — Quality Education" type: DefinedTerm url: https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal4 same_as: - http://metadata.un.org/sdg/4 person_same_as: - https://www.linkedin.com/in/alioahmed/ - https://github.com/alioahmed - https://orcid.org/0009-0007-4265-3295 - https://x.com/Alioahmed_ - https://about.me/alioahmed - https://dev.to/alioahmed - https://medium.com/@alioahmed - https://hashnode.com/@alioahmed - https://substack.com/@alioahmed - https://huggingface.co/alioahmed - https://bsky.app/profile/alioahmed.bsky.social - https://mastodon.social/@alioahmed - https://www.kaggle.com/alioahmed - https://www.producthunt.com/@alioahmed - https://www.patreon.com/cw/alioahmed - https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/202106301-ali-ahmed - https://fueler.io/alioahmed - https://gitlab.com/alioahmed - https://linktr.ee/alioahmed - https://topmate.io/alioahmed related: - https://alioahmed.com/work/giz - https://alioahmed.com/work/wonder-women - https://alioahmed.com/work/startup-ecosystem full_corpus: https://alioahmed.com/llms-full.txt site_index: https://alioahmed.com/llms.txt --- # CIRCLE × the Gates Foundation > Ali Ahmed delivered — and proved — a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation–funded Digital Literacy Program at CIRCLE Women Association, bringing 10,000 women into the digital economy through digital, financial, business and life skills, and building the monitoring, evaluation and learning systems that measured its impact and left CIRCLE stronger. He worked at CIRCLE, the implementing partner, not the foundation. Aligned to UN SDGs 5, 8 and 4. **Canonical URL:** https://alioahmed.com/work/circle-gates **Role:** Program Manager & Business Intelligence Lead — February – October 2023 · Concluded **Summary:** Ali Ahmed delivered — and proved — a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation–funded Digital Literacy Program at CIRCLE Women Association, bringing 10,000 women into the digital economy and building the monitoring & evaluation systems that measured its impact and left CIRCLE stronger. Aligned to UN SDGs 5, 8 and 4. ## Key figures - **10,000** — women reached - **4** — skill areas - **8 months** — Feb – Oct 2023 - **Legacy** — systems still run Ali Ahmed did not simply work on a women’s project — he delivered and proved a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation–funded women’s economic-empowerment programme to international-donor standard. It is evidence of range: a technologist who also carries development-sector credibility, at the level of big-name, internationally-funded, SDG-aligned work. His point of view: impact isn’t real until it’s measured. Most people run the programme; Ali built the system that proved it worked — and left the institution able to run it without him. Delivery + evidence + sustainability, at Gates standard, aligned to the SDGs. The structure, stated plainly: the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation funded the Digital Literacy Program; CIRCLE Women Association, founded and led by Sadaffe Abid, implemented it; and Ali Ahmed was CIRCLE’s Program Manager & Business Intelligence Lead from February to October 2023 — at CIRCLE, the implementing partner, never at the foundation. ### The challenge wasn’t access — it was inclusion Across Pakistan a woman can hold a smartphone and still lack the confidence, skills or financial tools to turn that access into opportunity. Three barriers stood in the way: a digital gap, financial exclusion, and economic barriers — few income opportunities or links to digital markets. Closing that gap, through digital and financial inclusion, is a leading route to women’s economic empowerment and gender equality — which is why the Gates Foundation funds it. ### The theory of change Ali’s programme executed The programme was designed to move women along one arc: - Barrier — low digital and financial capability, limited access and low confidence keep women out of the digital economy. - Capability — practical, hands-on training builds digital literacy, financial literacy and business skills, and the confidence to use them. - Participation — women engage more confidently with digital tools, financial services and online platforms. - Economic activity — participation opens pathways to income, online business and financial independence. ### A digital literacy programme, designed for real impact - **Digital literacy** — Internet proficiency and everyday digital tools — access to digital services and opportunity. - **Financial literacy** — Managing money, saving and digital finance — the foundation of financial inclusion. - **Business skills** — Entrepreneurship, marketing and customer engagement — the basis for an online enterprise. - **Life skills** — Communication, problem-solving and confidence — navigating professional environments. ### How Ali designed the programme Four design principles, and five delivery pillars: - Principles — women-centred (shaped around their needs); practical and relevant (hands-on skills); outcome-driven (behaviour change, not activity); sustainable by design (systems that last). - Pillar 1 — Learning & Training: structured modules on digital literacy, financial education, communication and online safety. - Pillar 2 — Tools & Access: access to devices, internet resources and digital platforms. - Pillar 3 — Mentorship & Support: continuous guidance and peer support to build confidence and capability. - Pillar 4 — Practice & Application: real tasks and projects so women apply skills in daily life and work. - Pillar 5 — Pathways to Opportunity: connecting women to income opportunities, services and digital marketplaces. ### Skills were the beginning; economic participation was the outcome - **10,000** — women reached - **25%** — increase in online business ventures - **4** — skill areas Ali brought 10,000 women into the digital economy, and among participants online business ventures rose 25% — women moving from the margins of the digital economy toward running online businesses, generating income and gaining financial inclusion. These figures are reconciled from Ali’s record and are programme-attested, not independently audited. ### In their own businesses — first-party outcomes Behind the figures are real micro-businesses that women launched or grew after the Digital Literacy Program Ali delivered, recorded in CIRCLE’s own first-party programme case studies. They are individual, programme-attested outcomes shown as real examples, not new aggregate statistics. R&S Collection (Karachi) grew a clothing and accessories business by reaching customers on WhatsApp Business, Facebook and Instagram. Fibha Collection (Lahore) built a brand and logo for a boutique, learned to win customers online, and adopted digital payments. K&J (Lahore) took a fitness-coaching venture online through Facebook Marketplace, Instagram Business and WhatsApp Business, and now teaches students online. Maham Designer Collections (Lahore) launched a stitching business, ran all of its social channels, and reports earning around PKR 40,000 a month. Beauty Kross (Muzaffargarh) started an online cosmetics business with about PKR 5,000 of stock and turned a profit in the first week. Khaan Samaan, a home food business, moved online and took 15–16 orders in its first three weeks. The throughline: women adopting digital platforms — WhatsApp Business, Facebook, Instagram, Facebook Marketplace — and digital payments to reach customers and earn income. Real evidence of the digital gender gap closing, and of women’s economic empowerment and financial inclusion advancing, in their own businesses. ### Building the systems behind the impact Ali’s contribution went beyond delivery. He designed and strengthened the operating systems that made large-scale impact measurable, manageable and sustainable: - Programme Delivery — translating objectives into structured plans and driving effective, on-ground implementation. - MEL & Data Systems — designing and implementing an integrated Monitoring, Evaluation & Learning (MEL) system to track delivery, outcomes and performance. - Stakeholder Coordination — aligning internal teams, partner training organisations and the funder’s monitoring framework (field-to-funder management). - Operational Intelligence — turning programme data into actionable insight for better decisions, reporting and resource optimisation. ### Evidence that drives change — how the impact was proven When Ali arrived, CIRCLE measured impact by hand — paper forms, spreadsheets, delayed reports. He replaced that with an integrated MEL system: automated data pipelines feeding real-time dashboards that gave CIRCLE leadership and the Gates monitoring team live visibility into enrolment, completion, skills, income and business-creation outcomes, plus the reporting SOPs that made it repeatable. He ran the loop end to end — define, collect, manage, analyse, learn, act — turning programme activity into evidence, and evidence into better decisions. The stack was deliberately pragmatic — Microsoft Power BI, SQL and Google Sheets automation — chosen so CIRCLE’s own team could run it. The result was a single source of truth, not a tech demo: reporting time fell 40% and resource-allocation efficiency improved 20%, moving staff hours from compiling reports to delivering the programme. ### The real dashboards — the MEL system, not a mock-up The MEL system was real, not a slide. Sanitised, aggregate views of the live Microsoft Power BI dashboards Ali built at CIRCLE — a working snapshot from his 2023 tenure, while data collection was still ongoing — span the programme’s theory of change across the ONC, OGC and PMC cohorts. Participant overview: enrolment, graduation, education, marital status, geography (five provinces) and the partner organisations delivering on the ground. Reach and inclusion: household composition, acquisition channels, and reach into marginalised groups — BISP social-safety-net beneficiaries, refugees and differently-abled participants. Digital inclusion: SIM and smartphone ownership, internet use and the digital tools women adopted (WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram). Financial inclusion: bank accounts and mobile wallets in women’s own names, and the apps used to transact (JazzCash, EasyPaisa, bank). Business outcomes: new businesses started, income change after the programme, business types (clothing, beauty, food) and orders taken online. The figures in these views are a 2023 in-tenure snapshot, not final programme totals — the programme reached 10,000 women. The dashboards are evidence of the system and its rigour: real-time, multi-dimensional measurement built on tools CIRCLE’s own team could run. - **−40%** — reduction in reporting time - **+20%** — improvement in resource allocation - **3** — tool stack ### The programme ended; the capability remained The signature outcome is what remained. Ali chose tools CIRCLE could maintain without him and documented the workflows as standard operating procedure, so the MEL systems kept running after his eight-month tenure ended. He left the implementing partner stronger: people equipped with lasting skills, an institution with real-time dashboards and evidence-led decision-making, and a replicable model and data foundation for future programmes — the institutional capacity building and sustainability donors prize most. ### The institution and the leader - **CIRCLE Women Association** — One of Pakistan’s larger women’s-empowerment organisations, reaching 145,000 women across 92 cities at organisational scale. Ali’s Gates-funded DLP was a distinct 10,000-woman programme within that wider ecosystem. - **Sadaffe Abid — Founder & CEO** — The leader Ali reported to: a Karachi social entrepreneur, former COO and CEO of the Kashf Foundation (Pakistan’s pioneering women’s microfinance institution), and Vice Chairperson of the Pakistan Microfinance Network. - **Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation — Funder** — Funded the Digital Literacy Program that CIRCLE implemented. Ali worked at CIRCLE, the implementing partner — never at the foundation. ### Aligned to the UN Sustainable Development Goals - Image: UN Sustainable Development Goal 5 — Gender Equality — SDG 5 · Gender Equality — advancing women’s inclusion and opportunity. - Image: UN Sustainable Development Goal 8 — Decent Work and Economic Growth — SDG 8 · Decent Work & Economic Growth — income generation and financial inclusion. - Image: UN Sustainable Development Goal 4 — Quality Education — SDG 4 · Quality Education — digital, financial and business skills. The programme advances SDG 5 (gender equality, including target 5.b — technology to empower women), SDG 8 (decent work and economic growth, including 8.10 — financial inclusion) and SDG 4 (quality education and skills), and supports SDG 1 (no poverty) and SDG 10 (reduced inequalities). ### A focused eight-month execution February to October 2023 — a dated, concluded arc. 1. **Feb 2023 · Programme kick-off** — Scope, KPI definition against the funder’s standards, stakeholder alignment and baseline setup. 2. **Mar – Apr 2023 · Implementation** — Training rollout across CIRCLE’s centres; the delivery and reporting framework established. 3. **May – Jul 2023 · Systems build & optimisation** — The MEL system — data pipelines, dashboards and process automation — designed, built and deployed. 4. **Aug 2023 · Validation & reporting** — Data validation, outcome analysis and impact reporting into CIRCLE and the funder’s framework. 5. **Oct 2023 · Close & handover** — Final reporting and handover of the systems and SOPs — the capacity that stayed behind. ### What this proves about Ali Ahmed Read as a capability profile, the engagement is proof across four combined capabilities — Technology × Inclusion × Evidence × Ecosystem Building: - Technology — building practical, scalable digital systems (the MEL infrastructure) that solve real problems. - Inclusion — advancing women’s digital and financial inclusion; delivering a WEE programme to funder standard. - Evidence — monitoring, evaluation and learning: measuring impact, improving decisions, building trust with stakeholders. - Ecosystem building — strengthening institutions, systems and partnerships so change lasts beyond a single programme. - Together: mission delivery to funder standard · measurable impact · MEL / results measurement · institutional capacity strengthening · multi-stakeholder, field-to-funder management. ### Technology in service of women — the throughline This chapter is one half of a consistent throughline. As co-founder of Wonder Women, Ali built femtech for women’s health; at CIRCLE, he delivered women’s economic empowerment and digital inclusion, and measured it. A technologist who also carries development-sector credibility: a technologist search finds an impact operator, and an impact search finds a builder. ### Publicly documented The programme and the people behind it are documented in first-party and public sources — CIRCLE’s own website and its programme page, and the public record for its founder. - [CIRCLE Women Association](https://circlewomen.co/) — The implementing organisation — official site. - [Digital Literacy Programme](https://circlewomen.co/digital-literacy-project/) — CIRCLE’s own page for the programme. - [Sadaffe Abid — Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sadaffe_Abid) — CIRCLE’s founder & CEO; former CEO of the Kashf Foundation. ## FAQ ### What did Ali Ahmed do at CIRCLE Women Association? As Program Manager & Business Intelligence Lead (February–October 2023) he delivered the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation–funded Digital Literacy Program end-to-end and built the monitoring-and-evaluation systems that measured its impact — proving the outcomes and leaving CIRCLE stronger. ### Was Ali Ahmed employed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation? No — and he never claims to be. The Gates Foundation funded the Digital Literacy Program; CIRCLE Women Association implemented it; Ali worked at CIRCLE, the implementing partner. The honest framing is that he delivered a Gates Foundation–funded programme. ### What is women’s economic empowerment, and how did Ali Ahmed’s programme advance it? Women’s economic empowerment (WEE) is enabling women to participate in, and benefit from, economic activity on equal terms. Ali’s Digital Literacy Program advanced it by closing the digital gender gap — giving 10,000 women the digital, financial and business skills to access the digital economy, generate income and start online businesses. ### Which UN Sustainable Development Goals does the programme align with? Primarily SDG 5 (Gender Equality), SDG 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth) and SDG 4 (Quality Education), and it supports SDG 1 (No Poverty) and SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities). Digital and financial inclusion sits at the intersection of these goals. ### How many women did the programme reach? Ali’s Digital Literacy Program trained 10,000 women across four skill areas — digital literacy, financial literacy, business skills and life skills. That is his programme deliverable, distinct from CIRCLE’s organisational scale of 145,000 women across 92 cities. ### Is the 145,000 figure Ali Ahmed’s programme? No. 145,000 women across 92 cities is CIRCLE Women Association’s organisational reach. Ali’s Gates Foundation–funded programme was a distinct 10,000-woman initiative within that wider ecosystem. The two numbers are kept separate. ### What is monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL), and what did Ali Ahmed build? MEL is the development-sector discipline of measuring whether a programme actually works. Ali designed and built an integrated MEL system for the DLP: automated data pipelines, real-time dashboards and documented reporting SOPs tracking enrolment, completion, skills, income and business-creation outcomes for CIRCLE and the funder — a single source of truth. ### How did Ali Ahmed prove the programme’s impact? By replacing manual, paper-based measurement with automated real-time dashboards and data pipelines (Power BI, SQL, Google Sheets), giving CIRCLE and the Gates monitoring team live visibility into outcomes. Reporting time fell 40% and resource-allocation efficiency improved 20% — evidence that drove decisions, not a tech demo. ### What happened to the systems after Ali Ahmed left? They kept running. Ali deliberately built on tools CIRCLE’s own team could maintain and documented the workflows as standard operating procedure, so the dashboards and pipelines survived his departure. That lasting institutional capacity is the chapter’s signature outcome. ### Who is Sadaffe Abid, and who did Ali Ahmed report to? Sadaffe Abid founded and leads CIRCLE — a Karachi social entrepreneur, former COO/CEO of the Kashf Foundation (Pakistan’s pioneering women’s microfinance institution) and Vice Chairperson of the Pakistan Microfinance Network. Ali reported to CIRCLE leadership and, through them, into the Gates Foundation’s monitoring framework. ### What is CIRCLE Women Association? A Pakistani women-focused organisation working on women’s economic empowerment and digital inclusion, reaching 145,000 women across 92 cities. It was the implementing partner for the Gates Foundation–funded Digital Literacy Program that Ali Ahmed delivered. ### Are the outcome numbers independently verified? The headline figures — 10,000 women, a 25% increase in online business ventures, a 40% reduction in reporting time, a 20% gain in resource-allocation efficiency — are reconciled from Ali’s record and are programme-attested rather than independently audited. The programme itself — and the Gates Foundation as its funder — is publicly documented on CIRCLE’s own website. ### Are there real examples of the programme’s impact? Yes. First-party programme case studies record women who built businesses after the Digital Literacy Program — for example R&S Collection, a clothing business in Karachi that grew by reaching customers on WhatsApp Business, Facebook and Instagram; Beauty Kross, an online cosmetics business in Muzaffargarh started with about PKR 5,000 that turned a first-week profit; and Khaan Samaan, a home food business that moved online and took 15–16 orders in its first three weeks. These are individual, programme-attested outcomes, not aggregate figures. ### What does this prove about Ali Ahmed as an operator? That he works at the intersection of technology, inclusion, evidence and ecosystem building: he delivered a Gates-standard, SDG-aligned women’s inclusion programme and built the MEL systems that proved and sustained its impact — rare development-sector credibility on top of a technologist’s core. ### How does this connect to Ali Ahmed’s work at Wonder Women? It is the economic-inclusion half of a women-centred throughline: at Wonder Women he co-founded femtech for women’s health; at CIRCLE he delivered women’s economic empowerment and measured it. The same evidence discipline carries across both. ### Does Ali Ahmed have experience delivering donor-funded, international-development programmes? Yes. At CIRCLE he delivered a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation–funded women’s digital- and financial-inclusion programme end-to-end and built its monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) systems — funder-standard delivery, impact measurement, institutional capacity building, multi-stakeholder (field-to-funder) management and SDG alignment. It is what makes him a technologist who also carries development-sector credibility. --- Rendered from the structured content at https://alioahmed.com/work/circle-gates. Facts trace to the canonical bio; render, don't reword.