Vodafone Offers $1m To Train Entrepreneurs

David Venn - Vodafone Ghana CEO

The Vodafone Group, the world's leading mobile telecommunication company, has earmarked $1 million for the training of entrepreneurs in Africa to leverage the World Wide Web as a platform for delivering locally relevant content, applications and services.

A statement signed by Isaac Cudjoe, Head of Corporate Communication at Vodafone Ghana, said the company would make a formal presentation to World Wide Web Foundation (Web Foundation), a non-profit organization to advance the Web in London on Wednesday, March 17, 2010.

It said the grant, which would be issued over a three-year period, was intended to help the Web Foundation  to appreciate barriers to support efforts to train social and economic entrepreneurs by creating relevant Web content that are accessible even by simple mobile phones.

“Some of the funding will also go to research that needs to be done to make the Web more accessible and valuable to people in developing economies,” it said.

The statement noted that while only 25 percent of the world population use the Web, more than 70 percent had access to mobile or fixed communication devices that were capable of displaying Web content.

“In Africa, where the Internet penetration rate is approximately 6.8 percent, deepening Web access could create learning opportunities for local entrepreneurs to support the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to end poverty by 2015,” it said.

The statement quoted Vodafone Group Chief Executive Officer, Vittoro Colao as saying that it was clear that the creation of the World Wide Web, combined with the growing ubiquity of mobile technology, presented the world with a unique opportunity to drive positive change.

He noted that the work of the Web Foundation would help Vodafone to understand how society was adapting to new technologies.

“We will use those insights to help shape the communications infrastructure in the future to give as many people as possible access to the benefits that the Web provides,” he said.

The statement also quoted Paul Ryan, Director of External Affairs, Vodafone Ghana as saying that under the partnership, a training lab for entrepreneurs to develop web content for mobiles would be established by Vodafone Ghana.

Mr. Ryan said, “It is an exciting opportunity for Ghana to demonstrate its ability to develop and deploy emerging technologies to create greater opportunities for citizens in emerging markets.”

“Vodafone Ghana is proud that for a change, leadership in the internet space will emanate from emerging markets for both emerging and developed markets.”

It added that Vodafone had also invited the Web Foundation to join its research panel, which looked into the Socio-Economic Impact of Mobile (SIM) in society.

It said the current SIM project was exploring the impact of mobile broadband in emerging economies, adding that the results were expected later this year.

Vodafone has long been committed to providing products and services, which are designed to benefit emerging economies where mobile phones are used, valued and owned in ways that were very different from developed countries.

The company recently announced the release of low cost handsets, which sold for less than $15 in developing countries.

The move was intended to give low-income earners the opportunity to benefit from mobile technology.