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This piece opens with a clear collaboration between Telefónica and Forward-Looking Partners, underscoring a shared commitment to sustainable development that leaves no one behind. It centers on SDG 4, the goal of Quality Education, and explains Telefónica’s ambition to go further by mobilizing society, particularly older adults, to seize the vast opportunities created by rapid digital change. The aim is to ensure people develop the digital literacy and practical know‑how needed to engage with modern services, commerce, communication, and civic life in an online world that touches daily routines more than ever before.
As part of its core purpose, Telefónica and its Foundation implement a range of digital-skills programs designed to empower interested individuals with practical competencies for online environments. These efforts extend beyond training by encouraging employability initiatives such as Campus 42 and Conecta Empleo, which build pathways into education, training, and work. The initiatives emphasize hands-on learning, real-world projects, and inclusive access so that people from diverse backgrounds can participate meaningfully in the digital economy and feel confident navigating online systems daily.
In 2021 the group announced a significant investment in a new innovation and talent center located in Madrid, with a commitment of around 100 million euros through 2024. This center is envisioned as a catalyst for reducing social and economic inequalities, promoting local talent, and generating meaningful employment opportunities. By fostering collaboration with academia, startups, and community organizations, the initiative seeks to create a robust ecosystem that supports ongoing skills development and innovation across sectors while strengthening regional resilience and digital fluency.
Across the globe, the Telefónica group continues to champion digitalization and inclusive connectivity as a core mission. The aim is to keep people connected in ways that enable expression, sharing, collaboration, learning, reading, and an enhanced quality of life. With a reach surpassing hundreds of millions, the company highlights projects like Internet para Todos, which have extended connectivity to more rural communities, bringing essential online access to tens of thousands of residents who previously stood on the margins of the information era. This approach demonstrates how connectivity is not only a utility but a platform for opportunity, enabling families and individuals to participate more fully in education, commerce, healthcare, and civic life.
Telefónica’s strategic vision includes an ambitious plan to connect 90% to 97% of rural areas in its primary markets by 2024. The deployment of fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) is advancing rapidly, increasing capacity and reliability and delivering high-speed networks to an ever-growing number of households and businesses. The scale of FTTH expansion has placed Telefónica among the world’s leading operators in terms of reach, with tens of millions of homes now served directly. The network breadth makes the company a major player on the European stage, ranking second only to the largest Chinese operators in terms of nationwide footprint and capability, while simultaneously driving digital inclusion and everyday productivity for people across cities and countryside alike.