MTN, one of the official sponsors to Design Indaba, offered students on the other side of the country the opportunity to get a taste of this year’s event with their Connector Bot robot. The Connector Bot formed the main element of their activation at Design Indaba this year.
MTN teamed up with Metropolitan Republic to create this roaming robot, which allowed students in Tshwane to interact with speakers and experience Design Indaba as though they were delegates at the event.
This year we wanted to do something that had an impact on a community in a positive way, says Ryan Gould, general manager, MTN brand and communications.
MTN’s 2013 campaign was titled “Connected We Can Create Change”. Connecting the community was the main source of inspiration for the Connector Bot, which was able to inspire and create change.
Further, MTN created a hashtag for social media and with a certain number of tweets, the brand “connected a child”. This meant that an underprivileged child was given a tablet and connected to the MTN network for a year.
Design Indaba’s huge community of creatives, designers and people who want to create change and movements allowed us to create change but to do it with a purpose, says Gould.
The Your Street initiative saw R250 000 being given to a winning urban upgrade project, and was proudly sponsored by MTN.
