Corresponding Author: Pragya Sharma, pragya.sharma@iiad.edu.in “Untapped”: Exploring Craft Potential of Urban Women Through Technology Intervention Pragya Sharma, Indian Institute of Art & Design, New Delhi Abstract In the past decade, India’s metropolitan areas have seen a huge surge in job opportunities in the craft and design sector, yet women remain largely unrecognized and undervalued. This research focuses on urban women, largely in the 30-70 age group, who are stuck in the conventional setup of their nuclear or joint families. A good number of these women were found to be seasoned in craft skills like knitting, crocheting, darning, mending, embroidery, etc. They make products for family members but fail to make substantial earnings or get any recognition for their skill. Despite a huge market for people who practice such skills, there is no platform for them to connect with individuals, designers, or retail companies. Untapped, a skill-sourcing app model, can connect these home-based makers to designers and buyers. Through the app, makers can build a profile highlighting their skills and subsequently connect with prospective customers. The app provides better recognition to local communities and their unrecognized skills, as well as help sustain their craft and associated skill. The aim of this paper is to define the needs of these women, explore the nuances of their craft, and propose how the intervention of technology through an app model can help them procure more clients and generate sufficient revenue in return. Through research methodologies such as personal interviews, as well as a review of existing apps, the paper seeks to build the context further by recording and analyzing varied narratives of home-based makers. Keywords: home-based makers, technology intervention, women empowerment, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), gender equality Introduction hile observing India in its developing phase, a direct result of rapid urbanization has been the inclusion of several villages around a city’s periphery. The capital city of Delhi consists of approximately 300 such villages (Shah, 2012) which are gradually blending in and forming part of the National Capital Region (NCR) (Rao et al., 2018). The city’s population saw a significant upsurge post-independence due to economic expansion and increased job opportunities that led to a heavy inflow of people from nearby states and adjacent countries (Rao et al., 2018). As White (2015) points out, women in particular have been excluded from some of these economic improvements. The “urban villages” within a city consist of a considerable number of women, typically in the age group of 30-70 years, and seasoned in craft skills like knitting, crocheting, darning, mending, and tatting, to name a few. The fashion industry employs a large number of such women who work informally from their homes (Kara, 2019). Unni et al. (1999, p, 21) define these home-based workers as the: types of workers who carry out remunerative work within their homes. They form the bottom most layer of this industry. This segment of the garment industry operates mainly through contractors. These contractors take the material from the large merchants or shops and supply it to home based workers in the city. They then collect the finished product and return it to the supplier for final sale in the market. The home-based workers are almost 100 per cent women. W