Mozilla's plans to bridge the African digital divide

Mozilla, known for its popular Internet browser Firefox, is expanding its focus beyond browsers to build communities and bridge the digital divide in Africa. The company's Chief Innovation Officer, Katharina Borchert, shared insights on Mozilla's initiatives during a recent interview with CNBC Africa. Mozilla is actively engaging in partnerships and working closely with regulators in East and West Africa on policy issues such as data protection, user privacy, and digital identity. The company's focus on empowering and protecting users drives its mission to promote digital literacy and open source coding across the continent. Through collaborations with local communities, Mozilla is nurturing talent and building local capacity for digital use. The company's efforts to bridge the digital divide in Africa are evident in projects like the Innovation Challenge, which aims to bring more people online in cost-efficient ways. Project Isisway in South Africa is a prime example, providing Wi-Fi to millions in townships through advertising funding. Additionally, Mozilla is launching a network engineering fellowship to support individuals in building and expanding internet infrastructure locally. The company's involvement in the summit emphasizes its commitment to open innovation and collaborative partnerships. Mozilla is seeking to develop products and ideas in conjunction with local talents to meet market needs effectively. Borchert highlighted the importance of developing language data for voice recognition technology to cater to diverse linguistic communities in Africa. Mozilla's hackathon in Kigali generated innovative ideas for collecting language data, such as leveraging community service days for data gathering. The company is eager to work with government and commercial partners to further develop voice-enabled services for local languages, ensuring inclusivity and accessibility in the digital realm.