By Augie K Fabela II, Co-Founder & Chairman Emeritus, VimpelCom, Ltd.
The mobile future is truly a global future. In many ways, it is eliminating barriers, transcending borders, and enabling a quantity and diversity of connections unimaginable until very recently.
The change in the nature of these connections is worth mentioning specifically—as it is the catalyst of the transformation towards this “mobile future” from the “mobile present.” With voice giving way to data, we continue to connect people with each other.
Increasingly, we are connecting people with information, ideas, and larger communities.
Importantly, as the heart of the emerging digital world, mobile is becoming the means by which people conduct every facet of their lives—their work, their social lives, and their economic activities. Mobile is also becoming the hub of an interconnected web—consisting of customers, devices, data, behaviors, social networks and processes, which depend on the systems and infrastructures that form the backbone of our operations.
One thing we see as giving us an advantage in shaping this digital future for our 220 million customers, in 14 countries across Africa, Asia, and Europe is the fact that we are headquartered here in the Netherlands, in Amsterdam.
Aside from giving us an environment which helps us attract top talent from all over the world, our base in the Netherlands also connects us to an innovative community of entrepreneurs, professionals and thinkers who are looking at the mobile future and developing ideas and solutions that are focused on the kinds of markets where we work.
The Netherlands is an important player in building mobile approaches to social challenges as well as commercial opportunities. With our home in the Netherlands, we are proud to be part of this effort to shape the mobile future, for our customers, and to all they connect with.
