Safaricom 2018 Sustainable Business Report

54 INTRODUCTION OUR BUSINESS OUR MATERIAL TOPICS STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT 2018 SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS REPORT TECHNOLOGY FOR DEVELOPMENT CONTINUES TO TRANSFORM LIVES During the year, we renamed our Social Innovation unit as Technology for Development (T4D) to reflect the unit's identity and portfolio of work better. We are delighted to be able to report that many of the innovations we have been incubating and piloting in recent years have been successful and, as a result, have transitioned into commercial operations that are managed and scaled by the business. Among our successful projects are the M-Tiba health payment ‘e-wallet’, the DigiFarm suite of financial and informational services, and the Shupavu 291 USSD-based educational platform (please see the society segment in the stakeholders section of this report for further detail on these projects). During the year, we continued to build on our work in areas such as agriculture, education and health, where technology is a critical tool that can make a significant difference to people’s lives. Not only are these areas aligned to our areas of influence, but they are key elements of both national and international development priorities. We use numbers of active users/subscribers as a primary gauge of the impact and success of the new ideas we develop, together with usage data. Among the applications and programmes we continued to develop during the year were the following: • Fafanuka 215 An SMS-based information service that aims to provide support and information to patients suffering from non-communicable diseases — for example, cancer, epilepsy and diabetes — and their families. The service can be accessed by dialing *215#. During the year, focus groups were held in Embu and Nairobi and the insights gathered were used to re-evaluate the product value proposition and redesign the service. An enhanced version has since been piloted to 1,200 subscribers and we anticipate launching the product nationally in FY19. • Instant Network Schools (INS) The INS programme helps students in East African refugee camps receive an education by transforming the most basic of classrooms into a digital learning hub. Through the INS programme, each class of teachers and students in the refugee schools are provided with 25 tablets, a laptop, a projector and speaker; free internet connectivity and Wi-Fi; localised mobile content and a robust teacher training programme. During the year, the programme was expanded to more than 43,000 students in 14 camps. INS students in Kakuma refugee camp accessing classroom content through the Safaricom network and using tablets supplied by the Vodafone Foundation. S D G 8 S D G 1 7 S D G 9 S D G 1 0 S D G 3 S D G 4