Vodacom Innovation

Vodacom’s focus on the customer keeps it at the forefront of innovation, particularly in finding more affordable ways to connect people and offering value-added new services. The company’s vision of democratizing access to voice and data services in sub-Saharan Africa is premised on the understanding that affordability is a key driver of penetration and usage, and ICT expertise and technologies the enablers.

As part of Vodacom’s strategy to drive innovation in the African ICT and services market, Vodacom has established the Vodacom Emerging Market Collaboration & Innovation (VEMCI) unit in South Africa – aimed at providing an environment where ICT innovations can be identified and nurtured from inception to commercialization.

Vodacom believes that initiatives such as VEMCI, are essential to nurture and support innovative ideas and concepts that can contribute to new communications services and applications which can enrich the lives of people.

VEMCI is an innovation-enabler for individuals, new start-ups and small businesses with innovative communication ideas and concepts, which could take years to reach sufficient economies of scale to achieve market adoption and to become sustainable businesses. VEMCI, in collaboration with its innovation partners in South Africa, will nurture new ideas and concepts from inception to commercialization.

Another initiative is the Vodafone open mobile applications development platform Betavine, which is now available to the mobile development community and was created to encourage innovation in the areas of wireless and Internet communication. It is an online open development platform and community, which supports mobile application developers in stimulating ideas, building, testing and launching great new applications for mobile and Internet communications and services.

To find out more about Betavine visit www.betavine.net or send an email to betavine@vodacom.co.za