Sustainability
Social support
Activities
Sony Mobile believes that mobile technology and communications bring new opportunities to people and society. We engage in Community Investment projects in which we truly believe that our innovation and competence are utilized.
We associate with a number of Community Investment projects around the world aspiring to build a sustainable future and to promote the well-being of humanity and society.
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Peek Vision
Agenda:
80% of blindness is avoidable but the appropriate medical care is not available for many people in the world. Peek Vision has, as a social enterprise, developed portable tools to help detect avoidable blindness. Peek Vision turns a smartphone into a comprehensive eye exam tool. Tested in the remotest places it gives high resolution images of the eye at a fraction of the cost.
Action:
Much inspired by Peek Vision’s innovation and activities, Sony Mobile is proud to be a part of expanding their work and spreading their message. In 2015, 150 Xperia™ smartphones with the Peek Retina adapter supported the roll-out of their projects in Africa and Central America. As of now, Xperia™ smartphones are used for examining visual impairments in Kenya, Tanzania and Sierra Leone.
Impact:
Many people in the world are unaware that they have poor eye sight. Detecting poor vision and ensuring to receive a full eye assessment frequently lead to the correction of vision with measures as simple as spectacles or sometimes surgery.
To learn more about Peek Vision, check out their website: http://www.peekvision.org/, this video and our blog post: Peek Vision, an app using Xperia Z3 that demands great eye care for everyone (October 13, 2014).
Pollinate Energy
Agenda:
In India, about 1/4 of population (306 million) are living without access to electricity and modern technology, which means they rely on fossil fuels like kerosene for light. People living in energy poverty not only simply lack access to the basic stepping stones that will allow them to break the cycle of poverty but burning kerosene for light, particularly in the poorly ventilated confines of a tent home, contributes to indoor air pollution and serious health damage. Pollinate Energy empowers slum communities in India by making accessible to affordable solar energy lumps or efficient stoves to those who need them the most, and by creating a large-scale, affordable distribution network through employing, training and supporting local entrepreneurs called “Pollinators”. Find out more at: http://pollinateenergy.org
Action:
For those Pollinators going into urban slums, smartphones are an integral part of their daily business operations. Smartphones are used for everything from locating the communities, capturing baseline survey data to understand the needs of people living in the communities, entering customer and sales information, and providing after-sale servicing. In December 2014, Sony Mobile started to support a project roll-out in Hyderabad, one of the most populated cities in India, with providing 23 smartphones, mainly Xperia™ M, to Pollinators.
Impact:
So far the pollinators have mapped and surveyed around 500 communities across Hyderabad.
To learn more about Pollinate Energy and to get an update on their latest activities, check out their website http://pollinateenergy.org/impact/ and our blog post: Pollinate Energy and Sony Mobile bring sustainable products to urban India.
Folding@Home mobile app
Agenda:
When proteins do not fold correctly, there can be serious health consequences, including many well known diseases, such as Alzheimer’s, AIDS, Parkinson’s disease, and many cancers. In order to analyze these protein folding patterns, not only is the process complex but it requires many thousands of hours of computing time.
Action:
Sony Mobile has teamed up with a group of Stanford University scientists to carry out millions of complicated calculations in order to move forward in their search. The Folding@Home mobile app developed by Sony Mobile allows the computing power of millions of smartphones around the world to contribute to this valuable research project. Together we will find the cure faster. Please join us.
Impact:
Since its launch in January 2015, the Folding@Home app has hit over 150,000 downloads from around the world, with highs of over 50,000 users donating their processing power per day. To put that into perspective, 1.5 PetaFlops* of processing power is created at its peak. That is already 50% more than the 2007 world record set by the team using PlayStation 3 consoles. *a measure of computer performance
To learn more about Folding@Home, check out their website: http://folding.stanford.edu/ and our blog posts: Your smartphones are already helping to cure breast cancer, now even more of you can help and While you sleep, your phone could be curing Alzheimer’s disease.
Filling the digital gap on the streets of Stockholm
Agenda:
On the streets of Stockholm, when the homeless people try to sell their paper Situation Sthlm for their income, the cash-only sales of the paper is hindering sales because fewer and fewer Swedish customers carry cash. Find out more about Situation Sthlm: http://www.situationsthlm.se/
Action:
Enabling credit card payment gives the homeless people better opportunities to increase their magazine sales. Situation Sthlm turned to iZettle, a mobile payment company, and Telia, a Swedish mobile operator, and asked if they could help come up with a solution to the problem. Inspired by the idea of the project, Sony Mobile joined the project by offering Xperia™ smartphones for the pilot of the first credit card payment of Situation Sthlm. http://www.situationsthlm.se/
Impact:
The pilot proved that the credit card payment option was a success and that it made it easier for the homeless people to sell the paper. The results: sales increased by 25-59%!
To learn more about the project, please check out the following:
- Our GreenHeart blog post: Sony Mobile supporting Situation Sthlm
- Youtube video of the project.
- Article in the Guardian
Employee Volunteering Program
Agenda:
Sony Mobile cares about the local communities where our offices and employees reside. Through our Employee Volunteering program, Sony Mobile aspires to contribute with our employees’ day-to-day skills to local communities as well as to create unique opportunities for our employees to be inspired.
Action:
In late 2013 Sony Mobile introduced its Employee Volunteering Program which entitles employees to take 3 paid days off work each year to participate in volunteering activities which support local/global communities. In order for the new program to be truly activated we hold volunteering fairs which introduce local volunteering opportunities at the different sites around the world.
Impact:
At the volunteering fairs, our employees around the world get the opportunity to meet and start to engage in activities by various local non-profit organizations.
Our activities from 2013 to March 2015:
- 272 employees have participated in volunteering
- 7 regions (Brazil, China, Japan, Southeast Asia, Sweden, UK, USA) actively promoted the Employee Volunteering
- Approx. 378 days of our working days have been applied for employee volunteering
- Approx. 2026 hours of our working time have been applied for employee volunteering
Football for social change supported by employees
During the FIFA World Cup 2014, Sony Mobile cooperated with streetfootballworld, a non-profit organization which aspires to use the power of football to create sustainable social change in communities together with local grassroots and non-profit organizations. Through our employees’ engagement, we supported three of their projects: a Youth Forum on Football for Social Change, grants for young leaders around the world and the football3 digital toolkit. http://www.streetfootballworld.org/
Future Goals 2014: Youth Forum on Football for Social Change was facilitated by streetfootballworld together with Sony Mobile, in which young leaders from over 20 countries gathered to share ideas and experiences. This group of unique individuals, all aged between 18 and 29, have faced a life of hardship, but have excelled when it comes to social responsibility and they now engage with their community in organizations using football as a method for change. Through our employee Talent Management Programme, 7 Sony Mobile employees got the opportunity to practice and develop their leadership skills and gain invaluable experiences from 35 inspiring young people.
With Sony Mobile’s engagement, the Future Goals Fund enabled young leaders from streetfootballworld network members around the world to apply for a grant of 5,000 EUR to initiate their own football for social change program in their communities. The response was extremely positive, with a total of 20 stipends being awarded – 8 in 2014 and a further 12 in 2015. The programs have engaged thousands of young people in over 15 countries and range in focus from engaging girls in Peru, to reducing malaria in Burkina Faso, to engaging street children in Indonesia. For more information, please click here.
football3 is a new way of playing football created by the streetfootballworld network that is designed to create social outcomes. This methodology has been proven to help in promoting conflict resolution, youth leadership and gender equality. football3 uses special rules to create a platform for interactive social learning. In a game of “three halves”, the teams discuss the rules together prior to the match, play, and come back again to reflect upon the game and award each other fair play points.
Sony Mobile helped to develop an online reference, the football3 digital toolkit, which supported the dissemination of the football3 methodology in South-America during the FIFA World Cup 2014 and beyond. The projects aimed not only to support streetfootballworld network members and other non-profit organizations but also to engage individuals such as sports coaches, school teachers and social workers to conduct workshops and tournaments using the football3 methodology. The results have already been very encouraging, with numerous organisations and individuals across the globe reporting that they have now started using the methodology thanks to the resources made available in the football3 toolkit. Find out more at: http://streetfootballworld.org/football3/
Support biodiversity together with employees in China
At BMC, our Sony Mobile factory in Beijing, we promote biodiversity on various occasions such as on the Earth Day, the International Biodiversity Day, the World Environmental Day and so on. By cooperating with the Sony ExploraScience Museum in Beijing, we organize educational activities for young people to understand the importance of biodiversity and climate change. In 2014, through our biodiversity activity, 40 employees and their families joined the nature tour and learned about wild animals and plants as well as experienced to release rescued animals back to the nature. To learn more about the Sony ExploraScience Museum please click here.
Expanding possibilities for girls
Millions of girls around the world—particularly in poor, rural areas—face extraordinary challenges completing primary school, and barriers to graduating secondary school that are often insurmountable. Without a basic education, and with no connection to the outside world, most of these girls never get the chance to reach their full potential or the opportunity to improve the lives of their families and communities. In 2013 and 2014, Sony Mobile supported Ericsson’s Connect to Learn project in Ghana and Mexico with our 40 XperiaTM Tablet Z.
To learn more about Connect to Learn, check out their website: http://connecttolearn.org/
Our activities up to 2010 can be found in here .
To learn more about our activities in Japan, please check out our Japanese webpage (Japanese only).