Digital access starts with people and their potential

(March 2026) Despite the technology on display at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, digital access is about far more than cables and computers. It’s about people – and what they can become.

In today’s economy, digital skills increasingly determine who gets access to opportunity and who does not.

That belief led Olivier Vanden Eynde to found Close the Gap, a social enterprise providing affordable IT solutions to schools, hospitals, and communities across more than 50 developing countries.

At its core is a philosophy captured in a single word: ubuntu – the idea that our lives and ambitions only have meaning in relation to others.

In a Transform Talks interview with Huawei’s Executive Editor-in-Chief Gavin Allen, Vanden Eynde explains why closing the digital divide means going beyond infrastructure to create real opportunities for people, wherever they are.