A continent on the move, and the people making it happen

We begin in Ethiopia, with a story that may surprise you. In four years, Safaricom Ethiopia has built a 4G-ready network reaching 60% of Africa’s second-largest population and connected 15 million active customers, and it is now on the cusp of EBITDA breakeven. In four years, the Ethiopian team has built half as many towers as Safaricom has built in Kenya over 26 years. That pace, and the human energy behind it, sets the tone for this edition.

Growth on that scale brings responsibility, and this edition shows how seriously we take both.

Youth takes the spotlight too, showing what becomes possible when young people are given access and opportunity.

Security is never far from the conversation about digital growth. Our social engineering feature shows that our best technology is only as strong as our daily decisions, as a $25 million deepfake scam proved. It is a practical guide to pausing and protecting the customers we serve.

Inclusion runs through the heart of this edition too. The accessibility feature asks: who are we actually designing for? Building for everyone from the start helps us serve more customers better and live our purpose more fully.

Expanding connectivity and protecting the planet are not competing ambitions, as our decarbonisation story shows. With about 600 million Africans still lacking reliable electricity, how we power our networks matters.

We close with more young changemakers: learners at Vodacom Schools of Excellence turning e-waste into education and community impact.

What ties it all together is a belief shared across our eight markets: connection, done well, changes lives. From an entrepreneur in Addis Ababa making a digital payment to a learner in KwaZulu-Natal dismantling a circuit board, these are the moments Vision 2030 was built for.

I hope this edition inspires you. If you have a story to tell or a colleague we should feature, please click here to share it with us.

Happy reading!