Ericsson and Columbia Earth Institute Connect African Countries

Ericsson (News - Alert) and The Earth Institute at Columbia University will provide connectivity to the Millennium Villages project. The alliance will bring mobile communication and the Internet to approximately 400,000 people in 10 African countries where the project is working.

The Millennium Villages project is a partnership between The Earth Institute, Millennium Promise and the United Nations Development Programme. As a community-led initiative, The Millennium Villages project aims to lift rural African communities out of the extreme poverty that affects people throughout the continent. The project currently involves 79 villages with approximately 5,000 people per village, and solves problems related to agriculture, health, education, infrastructure, gender equality, business development and other vital issues.

Carl-Henric Svanberg, president and CEO, Ericsson said that their commitment to the Millennium Villages is in line with their vision to be the prime driver in an all-communicating world. Svanberg believes the partnership will allow them to apply their core technology for social, economic and environmental benefits while at the same time stimulating new business development in emerging markets.

The Earth Institute is led by Jeffrey Sachs and has made a dramatic impact on these communities by driving initiatives that have inspired change. Providing these developing villages with mobile communications will improve basic infrastructure such as healthcare, education and safety, and will be a foundation for fostering economic growth and development.

“We are pleased to be working with a leader like Ericsson as we continue to make strides in fulfilling the Millennium Development Goals, which aim to reduce extreme poverty and hunger by half while improving education, health, gender equality and sustainability by 2015,” said Jeffrey Sachs, who is also Special Advisor to the United Nations Secretary-General in a statement.

Sachs believes that with more than 3 billion mobile subscribers around the world, the mobile phone plays a key role as one of the most powerful tools to fight poverty, particularly for poor communities in remote areas of the world. He emphasized that mobile technology will not only facilitate communication beyond borders, but will also be an engine for empowerment and a driving force for economic growth.

Ericsson plans to tap relationships with African operators, including MTN and Zain (formerly known as MTC) and its subsidiary Celtel, in order to develop a comprehensive end-to-end telecommunication strategy in the villages and to drive mobile phone connectivity and coverage build-out to selected areas.

The company will also work closely with the operators to identify and develop telecom services and applications customized to meet the needs of the villages. Additionally, Ericsson will help bring connectivity to power remote and resource-poor areas through the use of renewable energy technologies.

Ericsson informs that in the first phase of the partnership, the company and Sony Ericsson (News - Alert) will supply several mobile and fixed wireless phones to the communities. This will bring the benefits of connectivity to areas such as agriculture, health, education and infrastructure.

Both companies have also co-developed a solar village charger for mobile phones that will be provided to each village. The solar village charger claims to be capable of recharging at least 30 mobile phone batteries per day and eight phones simultaneously for each village.

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Anuradha Shukla is a contributing editor for TMCnet, covering call centers, CRM and information technology. To see more of her articles, please visit her columnist page.

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