What do you think Coca-Cola and Ericsson could have in common?

What do you think the Coca-Cola Company and Ericsson could have in common? The first one is the world’s largest beverage company and the second one is the world leader in mobile communications and ICT. The answer is a common quest to invent sustainable solutions that positively impact rural communities’ well-being.

It all started with a declaration of intent between the two companies’ CEO’s. Then a few weeks after that, the Coca-Cola team got together with the Ericsson team to explore collaboration opportunities with sustainability in focus. One idea that immediately emerged was a collaboration around EKOCENTER™, a Coca-Cola initiative to empower women entrepreneurs and bring safe water, power to millions of people in rural areas. The Coca-Cola EKOCENTER™ concept envisions a solar-powered kiosk as a hub where free and fee-based services can be offered, including education, healthcare, finance, information and entertainment.

But many of these services cannot be delivered without connectivity. And mobile broadband has the potential to address a wide range of issues that hinder development—from poverty to lack of electricity and safe water to financial exclusion and gender inequality.

Ericsson will deploy the Managed Rural Coverage (MRC) solution to provide internet services in the rural areas where the kiosks are located. Ericsson’s cloud-based TV Anywhere service will provide education and healthcare content as well as infotainment capabilities at the site. For financial inclusion, Ericsson M-Commerce will also provide EKOCENTER™ with its capabilities that enable people to make payments using mobile wallets. Taken together, these features enable the kiosk to become a connected hub. The pilot project will be conducted in collaboration with Tigo Rwanda and German start-up company, Solarkiosk, and an EKOCENTER kiosk is on display at Ericsson’s Hall 2 at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week.

After productive conversations with both the Coca-Cola and Ericsson teams, it’s exciting to see the pilot project coming to fruition. I am sure that together our companies will have a tremendous impact on sustainability efforts, one that few can even imagine today.

In conclusion, the more we learn about poverty, healthcare, water, nutrition and societal issues in general, the more we see opportunities to use economics and new business models to address them. Through the increased contribution of ICT in our daily life – transforming industries; changing the way we live and do business; and expanding existing market boundaries and creating new ones – this private partnership really captures the essence of Technology for Good – bringing our technology leadership and our people together with public-private partnerships to help meet a global challenge.

Note: This post has also been published in Ericsson's Technology for Good blog here