Accenture

Health care where doctors are few.

In some of the world’s poorest nations, two vital resources can help address critical health disparities: Mobile devices and the humans who use them. What Accenture—the professional services, technology, and consultancy jack-of-all-trades with nearly $130 billion in market value—has managed to do is bring the former to the latter in a meaningful way. 

The firm points out that there will be a shortage of 12.9 million skilled health professionals in Africa by 2035, disproportionately affecting rural regions. One possible solution? Use good, old-fashioned flip phones and SMS texting tech—both of which are significantly easier to access in low-income regions than high quality health care—to train thousands of community health workers on the ground. These community workers aren’t necessarily accredited physicians or nurses—but they serve a critical role providing their neighbors with initial medical testing and information about where to get basic health care services such as vaccinations.

Accenture has teamed up with the nonprofit Amref Health Africa to create a mobile learning platform called LEAP that, as of February 2019, has already helped train more than 35,000 community health workers in Kenya (an undertaking the company says has improved health services for more than 3.5 million households).

And while a collaboration with a nonprofit may sound like philanthropy, in Accenture’s eyes, it’s also just smart business. “If you’re not working with NGOs around the world, you’re missing out on growing your business,” says Roger Ford, managing director and global lead for Accenture Development Partnerships, in an interview. “Doing good by providing programs that improve livelihoods—if we do that right, we open up new markets for Accenture.”