ON THE GROUND

In *2014, an experimental vaccine for Ebola was found to be highly effective after the first major Ebola outbreak swept through Sierra Leone and Liberia killing just over 11 300 people in 2013.

The UMC, an organisation established in 1958 stepped in to assist in the launch of the “SMS for Ebola Prevention” Program to spread the life-saving messages to the communities.

Two daily text messages of less than 160 characters were sent, consisting of both words of disease prevention information and hope to a network of Pastors and staff to assist in relaying/passing on the message to 375,000 people in their communities.

UMC partnered up with DTOne, to distribute cross-border airtime top-ups to reach the most remote of locations. UMC was able to centrally disburse top-ups regularly and eliminate inconvenience of traveling long distances for airtime.

UMC were able to manage the project quickly and cost effectively by being able to pay for actual usage and not worry about pre-purchasing airtime.

Zero Mothers Die was first launched in Ghana in 2014 and has since been expanded to several other African countries and across continents.

The project was launched as a global project to combat high maternal and child mortality rates.

According to the World Health Organisation, 99% of all pregnant woman deaths occur in emerging countries such as Somalia, where the chances of dying in pregnancy or childbirth is 1 in 18 versus a country like Norway, which is 1 in 15,000.

Many of these deaths could have been prevented if only these vulnerable women had access to healthcare, information and communication.

This Ezra initiative equipped vulnerable pregnant women with phones. With these phones, women across different countries would receive text or voice messages, in their own language, sharing pregnancy, healthcare and childbirth information.

Most importantly, they were receiving free airtime, which would allow them to make calls to seek advice or help.

With technology to transform lives, mobile and airtime is driving economic empowerment of women in emerging countries around the world.

Health workers were empowered to use mobile phones to report on the presence of mosquito larvae and larvicide usage. Mapping this data helped to prevent disease outbreaks, such as Zika, Dengue fever and Malaria. Health workers were aided to detect disease threats earlier, respond in a more targeted way, and allocate resources based on the potential for future outbreaks, instead of relying on less nimble decision-making tools.

The health workers utilised the Premise app on their mobile devices. Each device was topped up with airtime to enable participants to use the app so they did not run out of credit while on their daily data collection routes.

DT One partnered with their customer base to reach Ethiopian diaspora in US, Europe and Middle East and extended the donation program to them. By sending a mobile airtime top-up through the DT One network to the dedicated donation phone number, Ethiopians overseas were able to quickly and effectively support the national relief efforts.

An Investec funded initiative, dig-it, is a free, after-school revision platform with the goal of making Maths fun, and improving results in the classroom. dig-it has been piloted in several townships in South Africa. 6500 children from underprivileged backgrounds attending middle school participated in the initiative, completing Maths questions delivered on their mobile phones. By scoring 80% or above in these short quizzes, the children were rewarded with mobile airtime each week, a significant motivation to perform well.

Through a partnership with DT One, Praekelt.org was able to easily administer airtime incentives. Within a matter of minutes, they could reach thousands of users in multiple locations with one single click. By already exhibiting promising results, the dig-it initiative is now in the process of integrating into the mainstream education system in the region to measure the ratio of impact to performance at school. Additionally, Praekelt.org has offered airtime vouchers as rewards in further programmes. Tune Me, a youth engagement portal and mobile website, has reached over 1 million users in 6 countries (Zambia, Malawi, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Swaziland) and intend to run this incentive in even more locations.

Tembo’s answer was to use SMS to deliver lessons to phones in 19 areas, charging a nominal amount for parents to sign-up and receive the lessons. To ensure that the parents were motivated and would continue lessons regularly, Tembo needed a strong incentive and handing out cash or vouchers was not an option.

The effective solution was mobile airtime. As airtime is assimilated to cash in many emerging markets it happened to be the biggest motivator and the simplest to distribute. There were no regulatory hurdles, no setup fees and the incentive was delivered instantly. Tembo sent quizzes to parents to test their knowledge of the lesson they were supposed to teach. When they passed, the Lagos parents received airtime incentive as a reward. Tembo’s Lagos pilot was a success. Completed in 2015, parents responded positively to the programme, unanimously agreeing that it helped them with their children and they would recommend it to other parents. They welcomed airtime top-ups as the most impactful incentive that helped spur them on in completing the curriculum.

On the other side, for the 150 000 Bangladeshi migrant workers in Singapore currently living under isolation or lockdown due to the rise of Covid 19 cases, staying connected to their families back home couldn’t be more important. Weekly calls home have become daily as families seek connection and reassurance. On April 2020, 18 foreign worker dormitories in Singapore were declared as isolation areas, meaning residents could not leave their rooms for at least 14 days. The Singaporean government committed to look after the health and welfare of workers, while employers committed to continue paying salaries so workers can continue to remit money and send airtime home.

DT One partnered with the two largest mobile network operators in Singapore, Singtel Dash and StarHub, to offer any person who purchases mobile airtime for family members or loved ones in Bangladesh extra airtime at no additional cost. Singtel Dash’s customers and StarHub’s customers received a 20% bonus on mobile top-ups, helping Bangladeshi workers stay connected to home for longer.