Early this month, Samsung Electronics Africa unveilled a new brand campaign ‘What If I Can’. The initiative is an attempt at shifting the mindsets of normal people to believing they can contribute towards the greater good because they have the power in their everyday routine to change people’s lives and circumstances. So to make the initiative stronger, the electronic company is working along side with a UK-based company called Pavegen by laying a 68-tile walkway, situated in Sandton City Johannesburg. These tiles have the ability to collect kinetic motion and store this as energy. In addition, the walkway consists of an interactive data screen displaying a leaderboard of real-time footfall data and providing an immediate visual payback. Sandton City’s main passage receives a monthly footfall rate of over two million footsteps. To extend participation beyond the Sandton City walkway, Samsung has created a simple step-counting mobile application allowing thousands of ordinary citizens across Africa to power solutions that benefit the less fortunate by simply walking. This application can be downloaded from the Google Play Store and is available on all android devices. The Campaign runs from March until the end of May. Participants across Africa will compete against each other to take the most steps and Samsung will match every contribution with a further 1000 steps. The country generating the most steps at the end of the first part of the campaign will earn a Samsung Solar Powered Internet School for a deserving community in that country. Ntutule Tshenye, Director of Public Affairs and Corporate Citizenship at Samsung Electronics Africa said: “Education relevance and internet connectivity are imperatives to contribute towards future socio-economic growth in Africa,” says Ntutule. “We feel that a consumer facing campaign such as ‘What If I Can’ is both complementary and even gives credit to our innovate solutions such as Solar Powered Internet Schools and Solar Powered Digital Villages that work to empower people by delivering revolutionary solutions designed to overcome local challenges and take communities into the future.” Through this campaign, Samsung is looking to raise awareness and use innovation and technology to overcome region-specific problems. For more information and to see which high-profile people are taking on the challenge to make a difference, follow the campaign on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQFHZTQ0wv0).
