Helping Society
People Planet Progress Festival for colleagues
If we want to realise our ambitions to improve the world around us, we need actions as well as words. With that in mind, we organised the People Planet Progress Festival once again in 2022 – a week full of inspiring sessions, well-known speakers and captivating stories that focused on making VodafoneZiggo even more inclusive.
Professor of Communication Science Alexander van Deursen kicked off the festival with an inspiring session on digital inclusion. During a session given by MuZIEum, colleagues were given a lesson in empathy as they were transported into the world as experienced by people with vision impairments with the aid of virtual reality. By experiencing what life is like for those who are blind, colleagues were able to develop ideas on how businesses can ensure those with disabilities are included in tomorrow’s world.
We also held our inaugural award ceremony for employees who solved a major problem with a new small idea. The ceremony is our way of building an innovation culture and encouraging employees to think about how they can make VodafoneZiggo more sustainable.
Instant Network for Ukraine
Our thoughts are with all those affected by the war in Ukraine. It is our duty to help where we can, which is why we donated 12,000 prepaid SIM cards to Ukrainian refugees in the Netherlands and made calls to and from Ukraine free for all of our customers.
Through the Vodafone Foundation’s Instant Network programme, we set up emergency networks with free WiFi in border areas of Ukraine and laid connections in masts, emergency buildings and train stations. In June, we travelled to a former summer camp in Poland, where 120 Ukrainian orphans are currently living, and installed a free WiFi network.
We also supported refugee families in the Netherlands. Together with the municipality of Gooise Meren, we accommodated 120 Ukrainian families in a hotel. We facilitated offices, transport and internet connections while the municipality enabled education and healthcare programmes. We offered children respite by adding Ukrainian Nickelodeon to all our TV packages.
A team of volunteers from Vodafone travels to disaster areas to help set up emergency networks.
We made sure that Ukrainians new to the Netherlands could use our new fast-track application process to apply for a job at VodafoneZiggo, with a bespoke career platform for adults who wanted to start working quickly. We are pleased to say we can already count many of them among the VodafoneZiggo family.
Energy Crew for energy reduction
Sustainability is an integral part of our strategy. That is why we have an Energy Crew – a team of energy-conscious colleagues from all corners of our company who have already identified more than a hundred possible energy savings across the business. In 2022, motivated by the energy transition and rising energy prices, they focused on accelerating the reduction of our energy consumption. The result is an ambitious action plan, which our Energy Crew is implementing.
Further energy efficiency measures include switching off outdated services and installing energy-saving software updates. Furthermore, IoT solutions have enabled us to make our buildings smarter. For example, if there are no people in a room, then the IoT-supported heating will be turned down automatically.
We also do our best to reduce our customers' energy consumption, for example, by replacing old media boxes with the Mediabox Next Mini. The Mini uses less power, switches to standby automatically and has a power saving mode. Moreover, it is made of 85% recycled material and fits through the letterbox with ease – enabling more energy-efficient delivery that doesn’t require a courier.
Online Masters for kids
To ready young people in the Netherlands for our fast paced, digital world, we launched an innovative programme to prepare them: Online Masters. This free teaching package has already allowed us to teach important digital skills to more than 550,000 pupils, focused on four themes: the digital world, online skills, safe online and the balance between online and offline.
It is essential that we provide children and young people with the right digital knowledge.
The lessons, developed together with Safe Internet and Mediawijzer.net, invite field experts – from professors to vloggers – to pass on insights to pupils in the upper years of primary education and lower years of secondary education. With the aid of engaging video lessons, they learn about making the most of the opportunities that digitisation has to offer.
Online Masters also featured specifically-designed modules for teenagers in special education, as well as teachers and parents involved in their education. The former are taught about online bullying and sexting, teachers brush up on online gaming and programming, while parents are provided with an Online Masters@Home module, so that they can stay up-to-date with digital education.
Welcome Online for elderly
Not everyone can navigate the digital world so easily. Older adults, for example, sometimes feel left out, frustrated or powerless because they cannot keep up. For them, together with ASML and the National Foundation for we established the Welcome Online teaching programme – an accessible way for them to explore the digital world gradually.
Welcome Online is a free online teaching programme for anyone who wants to become more digitally literate. Through various workshops, students learn about digital topics and develop basic skills. Examples include online banking, making an appointment with the general practitioner online or using an app to plan a trip. Volunteers from the National Foundation for Elderly, ASML and VodafoneZiggo teach these classes. We also created and debuted the documentary series Welcome Online in 2022 – an online show that followed five elderly students learning how to make better use of the internet thanks to this course.
