Uncapping
Education

Aurelia Neethling is a seasoned professional in the fields of corporate governance and human resources. With her genuine passion for driving social change and dedication to people, she joins Project Isizwe as a Non-Executive Director. Having established herself as the Company Secretary at Herotel, Aurelia has demonstrated her skills in handling a wide range of corporate governance and compliance duties.

After nearly 20 years of being in Telecoms, Shireen Powell joined the Project Isizwe team in 2020 to lead the organisation’s operations. She is driven by her passion for people and social justice, and fuelled by her belief in the power technology has to change our world. Her approach to problem-solving South Africa’s connectivity challenges, has allowed Project Isizwe to develop and iterate an innovative business model that optimally harnesses WiFi technology in a cost effective and scalable way. Not only has this transformed how the internet reaches underserved communities; it is also sustainably affordable to users and is already showing operational sustainability. A year after joining the team, Shireen became the CEO of Project Isizwe, formulating a clear and resolute vision to connect underserved Africans to uncapped internet. She is deeply committed to schools, and is leading Project Isizwe’s education strategy, to connect the 16,000+ South African schools that have no internet access to free, uncapped WiFi, enabling educators and learners to access the teaching and learning opportunities that will best equip them for their futures. In her words: “We believe that everyone deserves equitable access to the internet and we work to make this possible. Connecting communities, youth, entrepreneurs and schools to uncapped internet is necessary for our country and continent to participate in the rest of the world” Shireen Powell, CEO, Project Isizwe.

Access to economic growth opportunities is a critical outcome for citizens living in South Africa’s township communities. Providing and diversifying economic growth goes hand-in-hand with increasing access to the internet and ensuring these upwardly mobile populations in the high growth mass market have community development opportunities in spaces where retail and connectivity merge. Project Isizwe – in partnership with the Futuregrowth Community Property Fund – has connected free WiFi at 7 shopping centres across South Africa. Each month, more than 30,000 economically active shoppers in the townships of Thulamahashe, Mahikeng, Gqeberha, Diepsloot, Katlehong, Orange Farm and Heidelberg connect to 500MB of free daily WiFi, ensuring that as employment and economic activities thrive in these communities, so citizens are equitably able to participate in the online world.

In a similar project – powered by SEACOM – citizens from the Alexandra township in Sandton are provisioned with free WiFi at Sandton Mall. Each user from this economically mobile community is provisioned with 500MB free internet per day, diversifying internet access in support of economic growth.

Since 2018, Project Isizwe has installed 70 hotspots that provide free internet access to mine and solar farm workers and their families in South Africa’s Mpumalanga, North West and Northern Cape provinces.

Funded by Glencore Coal, Project Isizwe has deployed 32 free WiFi hotspots across 28 physical site locations. These hotspots serve low-income citizens in the Emalahleni coal mining communities of Phola, Ogies, Middleburg, Mhluzi, Kwa-Guqa, Klarinet, Lynville, Ackerville, Thubelihle, Rietspruit, Clewer, Kriel, Belfast and Witbank. Across these communities, 34,000 monthly active users connect to the internet. Each user receives 1GB of free internet access per day, per device. The free WiFi provides connectivity that would otherwise cost the citizens living in these communities in excess of R7 million per month. Since inception, this project has saved citizens in the Glencore mining communities more than R36 million.

In the North West Province communities of Rustenburg, Bethanie, Steelpoort and Lydenburg, Glencore Ferroalloys has funded the deployment of 25 free WiFi hotspots which provide 500MB of free daily internet to the mine workers and their families. These sites connect more than 5,000 monthly average users, resulting in R1.4 million in community savings since July 2020.

In the Northern Cape’s Sishen region, Project Isizwe has deployed 10 hotspots to connect the solar farm communities to free community WiFi, in a project enabled by Acciona. The 10 sites in Deben and Mapoteng give users 200MB of free WiFi a day, connecting almost 6,000 users each month. Collectively, these users consume 1800GB of data in the average week, resulting in a monthly savings of R2.5 million.

Four free WiFi hotspots in the Western Cape town of Hermon serve Gouda Wind Farm workers and their families. The free WiFi connects the community’s library and homes to the internet, with a 200MB free daily allocation per device. Each month more than 350 community members use more than 500GB of data as they connect to the free WiFi.