Our work in the community: Making a difference

At u-blox, we believe strongly in giving back to the communities where we operate. Our deep knowledge of technology means we’re uniquely placed to help in innovative ways. You can discover more about some of the projects we’re involved with below.                            

And as well as supporting specific larger-scale initiatives, we also encourage our employees to volunteer their time to charitable organizations, through our uGive program. Find out more about this below.

 

Funding education in Ghana

We collaborate with a non-Governmental organization to help provide education to rural communities in Ghana.

Back in 2012, u-blox funding enabled the Savannah Education Trust to complete a new school building, which is now used by 170 children every day. We’re continuing to support the running of this school.

Elsewhere, we funded a solar lighting project that enables children to study for their exams during dark evenings, and provided a large number of textbooks to the same school, to improve the quality of education it could offer.

We also helped fund an e-reader program with Worldreader. Availability of books in remote areas is severely limited, so the e-readers, with access to 10,000 e-books, have opened up a world of possibility for young people. They’ve since led to noticeable improvements in pupils’ engagement, reading and overall academic abilities.

Protecting the environment in Madagascar

We’re committed to supporting initiatives seeking to slow down climate change. As part of our long‑term CSR strategy, u‑blox has been supporting ADES since 2011, and we recently renewed our commitment to the project, sponsoring three‑months of the mobile sales platform’s activity. From May to July, 2018, the ADES truck will travel from Moramanga to Ambatondrazaka to Tamatave. Throughout the journey, the team onboard expects to raise the awareness of 4000 people of the importance of environmental protection, the risks of inhaling smoke from wood stoves, energy‑efficient cooking, and a healthy diet. In total, they expect to sell stoves to 1500 households made of 8250 individuals, collectively saving 4500 tons of wood and CO2 emissions.

Supporting a community hospital in the Democratic Republic of Congo

Medical professionals in the Democratic Republic of Congo are often hampered by unreliable electricity supplies. Without power, hospitals can’t easily store blood or medicines, sterilize equipment or guarantee lighting during operations. We’ve been supporting a community hospital in the township of Lukala, firstly to buy and set up a back-up generator and, more recently, to purchase other equipment and medicine.

 

Product donation: Helping children with long term illnesses

u‑blox has donated 500 4G modules to Norwegian company, No Isolation, as part of an ongoing Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiative. No Isolation is a connected healthcare start‑up, pioneering an avatar for children with long term illnesses who have to stay in hospital or at home over an extended period of time. Their robotic avatar, AV1, represents the child during school classes, field trips or birthday parties, enabling them to participate in everyday events where their medical condition means that they can’t be physically present.

Employee volunteering: Our uGive charity funding program

Many of our employees volunteer their time to charitable organizations, and we like to encourage and reward this. That’s why our uGive program will pay the organization in question 20 CHF per hour that a u-blox employee volunteers. It’s a little extra way of us giving back to the communities we work in and the causes close to our employees’ hearts.

Supporting the next generation of engineers

It’s no overstatement to say that engineers will play a vital role in shaping the future of humanity. That’s why we support a variety of causes that encourage the next generation to pursue education and careers in this area.

We provide funding to organizations such as Engineers Shape our Future (IngCH), Jugend forscht and Electronics4you, which run workshops, demonstrations and other programs to stimulate interest in technology among young people.

In November each year, we open up our doors for young girls who have an interest in technology.