The ‘Millennium Villages’ project is a community-led initiative that aims to lift rural African communities out of the extreme poverty that traps hundreds of millions of people throughout the continent. The project is tackling challenges related to agriculture, health, education, infrastructure, gender equality, business development and other vital issues.
Ericsson will tap relationships with other African operators 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 help to bring connectivity to power remote and resource-poor areas through the use of renewable energy technologies.
Ericsson and Sony Ericsson will supply a number of mobile and fixed wireless phones to the communities, in the first phase. The two companies have also co-developed a solar village charger for mobile phones that will be provided to each village. This new product concept is capable of recharging at least 30 mobile phone batteries per day and eight phones simultaneously for each village.
Carl-Henric Svanberg, president and CEO of Ericsson, said: Our commitment to the ‘Millennium Villages’ is in line with our vision to be the prime driver in an all-communicating world. It will allow us to apply our core technology for social, economic and environmental benefits while at the same time stimulating new business development in emerging markets.
