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Our Brand and Reputation
continued
Quality education
g
g
Our flagship mobile education programme (mEducation),
developed in partnership with the South African Department of
Basic Education, provides ICT equipment and free internet
access to 3 000 schools and 92 teacher centres across South Africa, and we
have trained over 150 000 teachers on the use of ICT in the classroom.
g
g
As part of our commitment to reduce the cost to communicate and to
contribute to free education, we have entered into partnership with
19 universities to zero-rate online access to curriculum content provided by
these universities. More than 340 000 learners have free access to quality
digital educational content through Vodacom e-School.
g
g
In April 2017, we were awarded the contract to supply a school
management solution to the Eastern Cape Department of Education to help
with the administration of over 5 000 predominantly rural schools. Our
tailored solution enables the Department to collect reliable and consistent
data about each school, helping to ensure that resources are being
deployed in areas of greatest need.
g
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Through our Siyakha platform, we offer low-income South Africans
zero-rated content on specific education, health and employment websites.
g
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In Tanzania, our Instant School initiative is a free education platform
providing digitised educational material for primary and secondary school
learners country-wide; launched in 2017, we have 30 000 learners
registered on the platform. We also support educational initiatives in our
other markets in the DRC, Mozambique and Lesotho.
Gender equality
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In 2014, in partnership with the South African Department of
Social Development (DSD), we established a 24-hour call centre
providing counselling to victims of gender-based violence; this
year, we extended its services, supplying laptops to 23 of the DSD’s
‘safe door shelters’ to empower gender-based violence survivors with ICT
skills training.
g
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Following the encouraging adoption of the Siyakha Mum and Baby product,
we will be expanding our offerings with the ‘Digital Mom’ segmented
proposition aimed specifically at women in low-income communities.
g
g
Through our groundbreaking M-Pesa product in Kenya, Tanzania, the DRC,
Mozambique and Lesotho, we provide affordable access to mobile financial
services to more than 32.3 million customers, many of them women in
remote rural areas.
Good jobs and economic growth
g
g
The Vodacom Youth Academy focuses on youth skills
development by providing basic computer skills, IT essentials,
enterprise development and business skills. The academy has
benefited 966 trainees since its inception four years ago.
g
g
Over the last two years, we have been progressively allocating our
fibre-to-the-home work directly to SMMEs; since last year, we have also
been engaging SMMEs that are >51% black-owned to undertake our long
fibre work on critical routes.
g
g
In October 2017, we launched an online trade portal, creating a platform for
Small, Medium and Micro Enterprises (SMMEs) to express interest to provide
goods/services to Vodacom and/or to become channel partners.
g
g
We have supported 12 entrepreneurs through Vodacom Lesotho’s
Innovation Park, a technology-based business incubator for young
entrepreneurs in Lesotho.
Sustainable cities and
communities
g
g
We currently have 3.8 million active
connections providing loT solutions
in the transportation, industrial, energy,
residential, property and healthcare sectors,
covering end-to-end services across the full
IoT value chain: connecting things; collecting
the data; analysing the data; and taking action
on this data (page 23).
g
g
We have continued our partnership with GIZ,
which provides an IoT-based solution to support
smallholder farmers in South Africa. With an
estimated combined investment amount of
around R21 million over three years, our
Cloud-based web and mobile software
Connected Farmer platform will link thousands
of smallholder farmers to the agriculture value
chain, improving agriculture productivity,
addressing food security, creating jobs and
increasing incomes in the agriculture sector.
g
g
In keeping with our commitment to increase
rural coverage, this year, we brought network
coverage to the remote town of Noenieput in
the Northern Cape, the culmination of many
years of work of feasibility studies and planning
for the network infrastructure development.
g
g
Extended rural coverage by adding 101 rural
sites to towns that never had coverage before.
Climate action
g
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We have 6 000 sites that are either
free cooled or built as outdoor
cabinet sites. These sites consume
R72 million less energy.
g
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We have 871 solar-operated sites across
the Group.
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We launched a new head office in Lesotho, the
first of its kind ‘green building’ in the country;
the roof is covered with solar panels generating
the primary source of power for the building.
Partnerships
g
g
All of our activities in the above
areas involve partnerships with
business peers, government
agencies, technology providers, civil society
organisations, academia and/or community
representatives – aimed at identifying and
implementing innovative ways of using mobile
and data to make a significant social
contribution.
36
Vodacom Group Limited
Integrated report for the year ended 31 March 2018