How Vodafone helps disaster relief
Rating: peace up
by Ken Young UK Mobile Report
Editors note: Ken Young another one of Britain’s finest bloggers and veteran journalist is blogging on GoMo News. GoMo readers meet Ken; Ken lovely to have you … blog on!
I’ve just spent lunchtime chatting with Paul Margie, senior director, Technology Partnerships, United Nations Foundation.
UN Foundation?
Yes, that’s what I thought. I’d never heard of it.
It was set up by Ted Turner (he of CNN fame) to do good deeds, and it’s the only organisation allowed to use the ‘United Nations’ moniker, when in fact it is a totally independent charitable organisation. It gained a lot of publicity when it was first created because Ted Turner became the first person ever to pledge $1bn for charitable works. I suspect Bill Gates has topped that figure now.
Paul Margie is in the UK to talk about how UNF works with Vodafone in its various initiatives. This is done through something called Vodafone Group Foundation (VGF), the firm’s charitable arm.
Vodafone pledged £10m to UNF in 2005, which UNF matched with £5m. This money has been used in three ways:
To create software that is used to capture health data
To develop a rapid resonse telecoms unit
To fund research into the use of mobiles for banking among low income groups in South Africa
Margie says that the fruits of these projects are already being seen:
data capture software which can be tailored to local needs is now available and has been trailled in Kenya
rapid response is now available anywhere within 48 hours. The team assesses the local need and then usually has a data network up and running within hours of arrival the research is complete and concluded that mobile data for banking will be able to extend banking services where otherwise it is too costly or impractical.
“We’re very pleased with the relationship with Vodafone,” says Margie, clearly keen to attract similarly benevolent corporates. He says that such relationships are not exclusive but that so far UNF has been looking for one partner in specific sectors.
Vodafone respresentative Caroline Dewey (who joined us on a phone link) said that the work of UNF was just the sort of thing that Vodafone’s charitable funding was set up to cover, even if it did mean on occassion funding projects that used non-Vodafone technology/services (such as Inmarsat’s BGAN for satellite voice and data).
On a broader level it is a demonstration of how philanthropic bodies such as UNF are developing close ties with the telecoms industry to gain further funding and further scope. With such close links to the United Nations and its global scope it gives donors like Vodafone a unique fast-track into global projects in which they can have an impact.
Such partnerships are clearly key to helping save lives in the early stages of a disaster and contribute to the wider debate about what is the best way to prepare and react to such events.
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