Humanitarian charity Save the Children and Vodafone Foundation, the philanthropic arm of multinational telecommunications company Vodafone, have formed a new global humanitarian partnership.

Announced recently at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), it brings together the partners’ humanitarian expertise, technology and global reach to better support children and communities before, during and after emergencies.

The partnership will strengthen emergency preparedness and humanitarian response and expand access to Vodafone Foundation’s technology and connectivity solutions in some of the world’s most challenging environments.

A key element of the partnership is Vodafone Foundation’s donation of six Instant Network kits — portable communications systems that can rapidly restore connectivity when conventional networks are disrupted by disasters or conflict.

Pre-positioned at humanitarian hubs around the world and deployed by Save the Children during emergencies, the kits will help response teams coordinate operations, assess needs and deliver life-saving assistance more quickly. Vodafone Foundation will provide the technology, training and technical support for the kits, while Save the Children will oversee secure routine testing and deployment.

Instant Network has already been used by Save the Children during emergency responses, including in Mozambique, where the technology helped improve operational coordination.

Vodafone Foundation will also support Save the Children’s Emergency Fund, enabling rapid response when crises occur and investment in action before disaster strikes, and will join Save the Children’s Humanitarian Network, a community of partners committed to faster, more effective humanitarian action for children.

In addition, the partnership will explore how Vodafone Foundation’s TerraGuard software (a disaster risk monitoring platform) and Vodacom’s M-Pesa cash-transfer payments could strengthen humanitarian response. Integrating these technologies into Save the Children’s systems, Vodafone says, could help teams anticipate risks and enable assistance to reach families faster and more efficiently.

As the two groups point out, their collaboration was announced as recent climate-linked emergencies around the world – including flash floods in Nepal, heatwaves and forest fires globally – as well as ongoing conflict and displacement, continue to put millions of children at risk.

The partnership builds on a longstanding relationship between Save the Children and Vodafone Foundation, including collaboration on Skills Upload Junior, part of Vodafone Foundation’s wider work supporting young people’s digital wellbeing, skills and resilience. The new global partnership extends this relationship into humanitarian preparedness and response.

India’s three largest operators – Airtel, Reliance Jio and Vodafone Idea – will be required to offer affordable voice & SMS-only tariffs from next month, following a mandate from regulator TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India).

As reported by Times of India, TRAI has ordered that the new plans be made available from 21^st October 2026. The tariffs are intended for low-income users who require short-term, flexible plans for calling and messaging but have less use for bundled data services.

Under TRAI’s mandate, operators must offer Special Tariff Vouchers (STVs) for voice and SMS with shorter validity periods of up to 30 days, with the option to renew monthly. Operators are also obliged to offer at least one longer validity plan solely for voice and SMS.

This is not the first time that TRAI has tried to address this issue; in December 2024, the regulator mandated that all operators must offer at least one voice and SMS-only STV, but this effectively resulted in lower availability of voice and SMS plans as operators offered limited validity options while failing to reduce prices to reflect the removal of data. To resolve this, the new mandate requires parity across validity periods.

For their part, all three operators formally opposed TRAI’s mandate, arguing that it was anti-consumer.  In particular, Jio claimed that voice now functions as an application on an underlying data network, making voice-only plans technically infeasible, and highlighting that 88% of its subscribers are active data users.

While TRAI has noted these objections, it has nonetheless pressed ahead with the mandate in the interests of consumer protection, arguing that users who do not require data will benefit from plans with the same validity period as data tariffs, but with proportionally lower prices.

This Industry Viewpoint was authored by Pino G. Dicorato, Solution Marketing for Nokia’s Network Infrastructure optical network automation environment portfolio at Nokia.

By: Pino G. Dicorato Optical networks are carrying higher volumes of AI traffic and facing stricter demand around service availability, time-to-market pressure, and operational cost control expectations. Providers are also pushing optical infrastructure deeper into metro locations to support optimized performance and lower latencies for the rich data traffic associated with AI inferencing. … [visit site to read more]

Cybastion, a US company that delivers digital and infrastructure solutions in Africa, has signed an agreement with Liberia’s Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection to develop women’s technology and business innovation hubs with child care centres across the country.

The project, Liberia Women’s Digital and Economic Empowerment Programme, will expand women’s access to digital skills, entrepreneurship training and business development opportunities.

Cybastion’s philanthropic organisation Theya Foundation, in partnership with Cisco, say they will deliver digital skills and entrepreneurship training for women and young people through the Cisco Networking Academy, an educational initiative.

Cybastion CEO Dr Thierry Wandji explains: “Liberian women are a vital force in the country’s economic and social development. By bringing digital skills, entrepreneurship support and modern child care together in one place, these technology innovation hubs will create pathways for women to build stronger businesses and participate more fully in Liberia’s digital economy.”

A flagship campus will be established in the capital, Monrovia, and four regional sites in Voinjama, Gbarnga, Kakata and Buchanan. The campuses will provide business development support, as well as mentorship.

The tech innovation hubs are designed to help women scale their business management skills, reach new markets, connect with financial services and participate in broader supply chains.

Each campus will include a modern child care centre, allowing mothers of young children to participate in training, mentorship and business development activities. The centres are intended to address child care as a barrier to women’s participation in education and entrepreneurship programmes.

Cybastion has been in the news a number of times this month, most recently due to plans to mobilise about US$300 million for several projects supporting Senegal’s digital transformation. We have also reported that it plans to invest US$75 million in an AI-powered data centre and power plant in Cameroon, expanding the company’s digital infrastructure projects across Africa.

Tencent Cloud, the cloud business of global technology company Tencent, has announced a partnership with Malaysian fintech and digital bank Boost to support the fintech’s digital transformation and innovation initiatives across Malaysia and Indonesia.

Under the agreement, Tencent Cloud and Boost have entered into a partnership spanning AI innovation, cloud infrastructure modernisation and super app development.

Tencent explains that as fintech companies across Southeast Asia scale their operations and expand service offerings, organisations are increasingly seeking strategic cloud partners that can provide integrated solutions spanning infrastructure, AI and platform technologies.

To support its next phase of growth, Boost has selected Tencent Cloud as a strategic technology partner to consolidate infrastructure, accelerate AI adoption, and drive innovation across its digital ecosystem.

The collaboration encompasses three key pillars. First, Tencent Cloud will provide its scalable infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) capabilities to Boost across Malaysia and Indonesia. This will enable Boost to streamline infrastructure management, improve operational agility, and support future business expansion with scalable cloud resources.

Second, Boost will leverage Tencent Cloud Super App as a Service (TCSAS) to augment existing customer experiences, drawing on Tencent Cloud’s expertise in building large-scale super app ecosystems. The platform will integrate multiple financial services into a unified user experience, enabling consumers and businesses to access a wider range of digital financial solutions through a single application.

Additionally, Boost will partner with Tencent Cloud on its AI development roadmap to co-create products and leverage the existing off-the-shelf products offered by Tencent Cloud.

Pakistan data network provider Zong has partnered with local company ISP Environmental Solutions (ISPES) to launch PecoDrop, described as first-of-their-kind smart waste management stations.

The smart recycling stations will be deployed across Zong facilities to enable source-level segregation and recovery of recyclable plastic, paper and metal. By bringing segregation to the point of disposal, PecoDrop explains, it introduces a technology-enabled approach to improving recycling practices, reducing recyclable waste from entering landfills and encouraging more responsible consumption and disposal behaviours.

At the heart of the initiative is a digitally enabled waste management system that captures data on material deposits, volumes and collections, creating a traceable data chain from disposal to recovery.

The initiative reflects Zong’s broader ambition to apply technology beyond connectivity, to address environmental and social challenges and create measurable impact.

Through an integrated rewards mechanism, Zong employees will also earn credits for depositing recyclable materials, digitally track their contributions and redeem accumulated rewards. By connecting responsible action with tangible recognition, the initiative aims to make recycling simpler, more engaging and measurable, while fostering a stronger culture of environmental responsibility across the workplace.

Zong’s Head of Strategy and Company Spokesperson, Nabila Yazdani explains: “PecoDrop demonstrates how technology, data and employee participation, can come together to create a smarter and more measurable approach to waste management.”

The CEO of ISPES, Dr Zillay Maryam, speaking on the partnership, adds: “This partnership goes far beyond collection points. It’s about engineering the first mile of a true circular economy. By deploying smart, tech-integrated segregation systems, we ensure that waste separation begins at the precise point of disposal, enabling the complete recovery and recycling of sorted materials.”

This partnership, in conjunction with World Cleanup Day, which takes place annually on 20 September as an official United Nations observance dedicated to combating the global solid waste crisis, represents Zong’s commitment to turning sustainability from an occasional activity into an everyday, measurable workplace practice. 

ISP Environmental Solutions works on what it calls the integrated solid waste management (ISWM) strategy. Its effective ISWM system works to prevent, recycle, and manage solid waste in ways that most effectively protect human health and the environment.

For many years now SUBCO has been busy building out infrastructure connecting Australia to itself and to the rest of the world. So today’s announcement that they plan to build not one, not two, but three new ‘hypercables’ is a surprise only in quantity. The new systems aim to meet the next wave of bandwidth demand from AI-driven growth. … [visit site to read more]

Mozambique’s communications regulatory authority INCM says it is responding to concerns expressed by consumers on social media and elsewhere regarding the rapid exhaustion of mobile data packages.

INCM informs says it is developing what it calls a Tariff Management System, whose start-up is scheduled for November of this year.

This platform will strengthen the monitoring of tariffs and packages offered by operators, compare tariffs, identify the effective price of the service, including conditions and validity, verify the conditions applied to consumers and ensure greater transparency and accountability in the provision of telecommunications services.

In the field of data services in particular, INCM says it intends to ensure that the announced validity of the packages is effective for the consumer and that the depletion of the data volume does not result in an abrupt interruption of service before the scheduled date.

INCM is also conducting a process of restructuring telecommunications packages with a view to adopting fairer and more predictable solutions.

The regulator says it is encouraging operators to provide clear, accessible and verifiable information on consumption, balances and the conditions applicable to each package, explaining the factors that determine the level of mobile data consumption.

INCM says it will continue to monitor the concerns presented and work with operators to ensure greater transparency, better quality of services and more effective consumer protection. Whenever there are indications of irregularities in the accounting of data, the necessary technical checks will be carried out, and the applicable regulatory measures will be adopted.

Consumers are being advised to continue using appropriate complaints channels supplied by operators. If they are not satisfied, they are invited to use INCM channels through its website.