The following entries have been shortlisted in the Outstanding Mobile Contribution to the UN SDGs to go through to the final round of judging, which will take place at Mobile World Congress later this year:

The results below are in no particular order.

Congratulations to each of the entries for making the shortlist and good luck with the final awards at MWC2021 later this year.

• Fairphone for Fairphone 3 (27 August 2019) and Fairphone 3+ (27 August 2020) launch

  Fairphone are makers of ethical, sustainable smartphones. Fairfone create smartphones that can be upgraded by swapping out modules. This approach means phones last longer and can even be repaired and upgraded by the user. Fairfone focus heavily on ethical, sustainable supply chains and fair employment.

• Qualcomm for Qualcomm® Wireless Reach™ and FHI 360 for Wireless Solutions for Fisheries in Senegal (WISE)

  Qualcomm’s entry focuses on providing connectivity and location aware solutions to enable independent small-scale fisheries to maximise their efficiency and trade competitively in the markets.

• Rainforest Connection (RFCx) & Huawei for Nature Guardian Project

  Huawei are repurposing old smartphones to act as acoustic sensors in the rainforests. Using AI, Huawei and their partner RFCx are able to detect specific sounds to help with the prevention of deforestation and harm to biodiversity. The sounds currently include chainsaw sounds (illegal logging), vehicle movements and even the movement of specific species, such as the spider monkey and Darwin fox.

• Robi Axiata Limited for bdapps- National App Store of Bangladesh

  bdapps, an initiative by Robi Axiata Limited (Robi). bdapps is a regional app store designed to facilitate between the budding app developers of Bangladesh and the 165 million mobile phone subscribers of Bangladesh. Designed to stimulate a new economy between regional app developers and the nation, it has already seen tremendous growth, with the largest developer community of Bangladesh with 12,000+ app developers publishing more than 23,000 apps. bdapps now boasts of more than 800,000 paying subscribers.

• Telenor Pakistan for Digital Birth Registration

  Telenor Pakistan and UNICEF partnered to create a mobile centric solution to provide legal identity to the 60 million unregistered children in Pakistan. his solution aims to reduce health care spend (SDG 3), increase enrolment in schools (SDG 4), reduce force marriages (SDG 5), prevent child labour (SDG 8), reduce inequalities through access to digital services (SDG 10) and provide legal identity to all (SDG 16).

  • Huawei for Green 5G Solution

    Huawei have launched an energy focused solution for 5G operators. The solution combines new base station hardware, solar technology, new standards and AI energy management, and aims to reduce consumption by tens of percentage points, and enable a higher percentage of renewable energy from solar.

  • KT for AirMap Platform

    Causing millions of premature deaths, air quality is a growing concern for all countries. Korea ranks 173rd in the world for air pollution and KT aim to improve this. Leveraging their national network of connectivity and real-estate, KT have deployed thousands of air quality monitors to create a detailed and accurate realtime map of air pollutants.

  • Nokia AVA Energy Efficiency for China Mobile: world’s first all-embracing AI based energy savings solution for mobile networks

    Mobile network consume around 2% of world electricity, and Nokia are trying to help the operators reduce this. Thie innovation uses AI to help intelligently shutdown equipment when it’s not being used, automatically adjust antennae angles to reduce power consumption and adaptively manage cooling.

  • SK Telecom for GHG Offset Methodology Using Single RAN

    To help reduce energy consumption and GHGemissions, SK Telecom have created a new radio access network (RAN) technology that combines 3G and LTE networks, earning them 1,117 tons of carbon credits through an effective energy reduction of 53%. This, along with other company initiatives helped them become the first Korean company to join RE 100 (Renewable Energy 100%) of the Climate Group, with a target of sourcing 100% renewable electricity to power business operations by 2050.

  • Telefonica for On the road to Net-Zero emissions

    Telefonica have taken great strides to reduce their carbon impact. They claim 100% renewable energy sources, 90% reduction in energy consumption and emissions as well as other impressive planet-friendly accomplishments.

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