Naspers

No evidence was found of leading practices in this area.

The company has programmes for intermediate and technical digital skills. It has partnered with the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa to implement WeCode24, which teaches secondary school students computer programming. This includes an after-school programme to teach technical digital skills to students at under-resourced rural schools. Naspers Labs teaches digital skills to young unemployed South Africans to help them find employment or start a business in their communities. In Romania, eMAG, a subsidiary of Naspers, has introduced Let’s Go to School Olympics!, a programme that provides after-school training in subjects such as informatics and computer science.

Naspers follows best practice in disclosing how the group handles high-level responsibility for cybersecurity matters.

The company is a leading supporter of the digital tech innovation ecosystem in developing countries through its venture capital fund, and the Naspers Foundry an accelerator for South African start-ups. The company considers ethics in artificial intelligence, including the responsible development of applications.

No evidence was found that Naspers supports making digital technologies more widely available and accessible to vulnerable groups. The company could better demonstrate how it contributes to universal and affordable access to digital technologies, and supports digital inclusion for women and girls, and accessibility for users with disabilities. Naspers should also report how the economic value it creates is distributed among stakeholders.

Although Naspers has programmes for intermediate and technical digital skills, it has an opportunity to support other levels of digital skills development for members of vulnerable and under represented groups.

No evidence was found of best practice in how Naspers monitors, remedies and reports cybersecurity matters. The company should consider disclosing such practices as well as reporting on government requests for user information. No evidence was found of company initiatives to protect children online. Naspers should make a high-level commitment to online safety for children and report on the group’s activities in this area.

Limited evidence was found that Naspers supports open innovation. The company could report on initiatives relating to open source and standards. It could also demonstrate diversity in innovation by reporting the number of women in technical roles and the locations of its research and development facilities.