Driving Social Impact Through Telecoms, 5G
Sustainable assets, ESG funds, under management over the last two years have grown by around 96%. I think Europe is leading in this.
Angela Baker
Head of Qualcomm For GoodMy Thoughts on the Conversation
Angela has an impressive background, with two international relations degrees, she navigated her way into the tech industry via a role as an innovation advisor during the Obama administration. Her role was to identify how to leverage American technologies and tech companies to help global civil societies, and drive positive social impact.
Angela describes Qualcomm as being built of a bunch of really bright engineers trying to do good things. Having worked at Qualcomm in the early ‘naughties’ I completely understand what she means. Back then, my role was to help build a market that didn't exist, yet could be one that Qualcomm could succeed in. In doing so we created impacts much bigger than we expected. Our work back then resulted in the boom of the location based services industry, in particular smartphone navigation and the idea of ‘apps’, and much more.
Playing that forward to the work that Angela is leading today, it is exciting to imagine the bigger-than-expected impact the Qualcomm For Good programmes could deliver. Already, these programmes have touched tens of millions of lives across the planet, from the diabetes and blood-drive apps she mentions in this video, through to education programmes, remote maternity care services, and much more. You can find out more about some of the work they’ve been doing via their Wireless Reach programme here. (Angela also features in the video you’ll find on that page, too)
Angela talks about some of the corporate-wide initiatives and goals that fit within her remit of Qualcomm For Good, including the reduction of GHG emissions, supply chain sustainability audits and fair practices along with a pledge to reduce power consumption in their chipsets by 10%.
It is these kinds of mass-scale incremental improvements that excite me, because they are currently forecasting shipping 690 million chipsets in 2021, 800M. That's a lot of change.
Of course, we couldn't have a chat with one of the world's leading providers of mobile chips without talking 5G. Angela sees 5G as a game changers, helping connect even those communities that haven't been able to be connected before, and in some cases, helping communities and societies 'leapfrog' not-so-old technologies, without the encumbrance of legacies.
Positive Social Impact, Building Bridges
One of the points I found really interesting was the role of connectivity in conflict resolution, or in other words, helping overcome the conflict that inequalities can propagate.
Watch the video for more insights from Angela, including her views on how to make CSR and sustainability a core part of the business.
Please do leave a comment to let me know what you think. Indeed, I'd love to hear of other leaders you think I should invite to the interviews.
Also, given Qualcomm and Angela's passion for gender equality and female empowerment, any new subscribers to my website can choose to support a UN SDG5 (gender equality) social impact project for free. To find out more, and choose to make an impact, head over here now.
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