Today we met Anna Georgoudis, Digital Strategy & UX Specialist of the group that won the EUvsVirus hackathon for the support for digitally excluded, in the category launched by the European Commission to face the new challenges posed by Covid-19. The idea was selected from the top thirty and will be presented to investors during the so-called matchaton.
Today we met Anna Georgoudis, Digital Strategy & UX Specialist of the group that won the EUvsVirus hackathon for the support for digitally excluded, in the category launched by the European Commission to face the new challenges posed by Covid-19. The idea was selected from the top thirty and will be presented to investors during the so-called matchaton.
How did the idea of Smartphones4good come about and what does it consist of?
“Smartphones4good is a project of Aion Sigma Inc., a Finnish start-up. The idea was born from a simple consideration: every year 200 million smartphones are sold in Europe and more than 150 million get destroyed. In Africa, 300 million people do not have a smartphone. This is one of the reasons why we want to redistribute the surplus of smartphones existing in Western countries to the African businesswomen.”
“Our idea is to create a digital platform where people can donate their smartphones (these are the phones that are no longer in use and that are destined to be destroyed), which will, later on, be resold. The proceeds from the sales are then transferred to the local partners and used to finance the purchases of the new smartphones directly in the African countries. In fact, we realized that sending smartphones directly to Africa did not make economic and ecological sense. The local partner also takes care of selecting the women to whom the aid is sent to and ensures that the smartphone is actually being put to use.
At the moment we have local partners in Cameroon, Nigeria and Zambia. In addition to that, we are working on having Rwanda and Mozambique become part of that list.”
What is the goal of the project?
“We mainly want to help African women who have businesses or farms. It is in fact the latter that contributes to the sustenance of the whole family. Most of these entrepreneurs already have a cell phone, but not a smartphone with the possibility of accessing the Internet. Plus it is very expensive for them to buy a new one.”
“We realized the importance of having a smartphone, especially during this pandemic; not only for the ability to access urgent information but also to have access to certain resources such as online sales platforms. These women, in fact, having no other communication systems, found themselves not knowing how to sell their products. With a smartphone they could, as happens now in western countries, take pictures of their products, post them on social networks and continue to sell”.
What developments are planned for the future?
“In the short term, S4G wants to give a concrete answer to the crisis caused by Covid-19. In the long term, it wants to be a support project for the activities carried out by African businesswomen. We are thinking of inserting some educational content into smartphones that can be a useful tool in company management. The idea would be to automatically install applications on smartphones that must be in the local language and take into account the degree of illiteracy”.
A positive reflection?
“I was very impressed by the fact that, in crisis situations like this, there is a willingness from all over the world to help find solutions that can be put into practice in such a short time. Moreover, there are institutions, in this case, the European Commission, which supports certain initiatives. Another positive, more personal aspect was the possibility to meet and work with people from all over the world; matter of fact, there are five different nationalities in our team.”
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Translated from original source: https://ilpolopositivo.com/2020/07/01/risposte-digitali-al-covid-19-smartphones4good-per-le-donne-africane/
Original source in Italian by Piera Buccino Grimaldi
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