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Closing Digital Literacy Gap Could Unlock Trillions of Dollars in Global GDP Growth

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 New report, authored by GSMA Intelligence in partnership with Huawei, released at UNESCO’s Digital Learning Week

PARIS, Sept. 14, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — More than one in three (38%) people remains offline despite being covered by mobile broadband – and a lack of digital literacy skills is often to blame, according to new research published yesterday.

The new report, “Bridging the Divide: Enhancing Digital Literacy in the AI Era,” authored by GSMA Intelligence and produced in collaboration with Huawei, identifies a digital divide impacting 3.1 billion people caused by a shortage of digital skills, user trust and AI literacy.

AI raises both access and risk

Existing industry projections suggest closing the capability gap could add around $3.5 trillion to global GDP by 2030, with more than 90% of those gains flowing to low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Physical mobile broadband coverage currently reaches 96% of people worldwide.

The report, unveiled at UNESCO’s Digital Learning Week, suggests artificial intelligence could act as both a bridge and a barrier for underserved communities. AI-powered voice assistants and applications that work with images, audio and video can all help low-literacy users bypass the need to input text. At the same time, they raise the security and critical-thinking standards required to participate safely. However, the study warns that users must now be able to understand data privacy and identify risks such as fraud and deepfakes.

The research cites World Bank statistics that GenAI literacy represents the highest-value skill category, with wage premiums up to 36%, far exceeding returns for both digital and traditional AI skills.

Without targeted interventions in basic digital training, the authors warn, rapid AI adoption risks entrenching existing inequalities even in areas with full network coverage.

Mobile classrooms build skills in remote areas

Digital inclusion initiatives typically target those most at risk of digital exclusion, including rural and remote communities, children and teachers in rural schools, older people, and women and girls.

The report emphasizes the need for community-based delivery models, citing Huawei’s Skills on Wheels initiative as a field-tested example — particularly its solar-powered DigiTruck mobile classrooms, which bring hardware, rural connectivity and hands-on training, including AI literacy, to off-grid regions.

Since 2019, training courses delivered by Skills on Wheels projects have reached more than 130,000 people across 21 countries, with more people benefiting indirectly. DigiTruck trainers encourage trainees to share their new skills, which is shown to occur in practice. A report on DigiTruck by Kenya’s Ministry of Information, Communications and Digital Economy shows that 79% of DigiTruck trainees surveyed had passed on their newly acquired digital skills to family members and peers.

Policymakers urged to treat AI literacy as core infrastructure

To bridge the usage gap, the report urges policymakers, telecom operators and technology vendors to work together and focus on four priorities:

Treating practical AI awareness, online safety and information verification as a baseline national qualification.Adopting multilingual voice and conversational interfaces across public services to minimise user-side technical hurdles.Scaling up mobile learning units through cross-sector partnerships that combine operator connectivity, vendor technology and local NGO networks.Measuring performance by independent task completion and fraud resilience rather than trainee numbers.

“Digital literacy can no longer be defined by static thresholds,” said Tim Hatt, head of research and consultancy at GSMA Intelligence. “Connectivity alone is insufficient — capabilities, system design and trust must evolve together. To capture this multi-trillion-dollar opportunity, stakeholders must integrate layered AI literacy directly into daily livelihoods through trusted community channels.”

“Mobile classrooms have demonstrated immense value in helping underserved populations break through physical and psychological barriers to technology,” said Gavin Allen, Executive Editor-in-Chief at Huawei. “We will continue working alongside local governments and industry partners to drive digital literacy, ensuring that no one is left behind as we transition into the AI economy.”

A new DigiTruck program will launch in France this autumn, covering several cities in the Île-de-France region and targeting low-income and underserved communities with digital skills training.

The full report is available on the GSMA Intelligence research portal:

https://www.gsmaintelligence.com/research/research-file-download?reportId=83651&assetId=83691

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“All Access hosted by Andy Garcia” Profiles the Center for Developmentally Disabled

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Moving Beyond Historical Limits in Developmental Care

KANSAS CITY, Mo., Sept. 15, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — The historic paradigm surrounding developmental disability care is undergoing a profound shift, moving away from isolated care facilities toward full community integration and economic participation. Capturing this nationwide evolution, the Public Television program “All Access hosted by Andy Garcia” will feature the Center for Developmentally Disabled in an upcoming short-form educational segment. The feature illustrates how early intervention, specialized vocational training, and accessible residential housing empower individuals to build self-directed lives while strengthening the economic and social fabric of their local communities.

Production will take place at the organization’s Kansas City facilities, capturing how structured, person-centered frameworks replace traditional, one-size-fits-all service delivery. By evaluating outcomes across a wide spectrum of individualized programs, the agency demonstrates how tailored support drives personal independence and workforce participation. Designed for distribution across Public Television stations, the educational feature provides viewers with a clear look at how community partnerships, employer engagement, and lifelong learning initiatives break down longstanding social barriers.

“At CDD, we believe people with developmental disabilities should have the same opportunities as anyone else. They should be able to choose where they live, pursue meaningful work, build relationships, be provided a quality education, and be an active part of their community. Our role is not to define what is possible for someone, but to provide the individualized support so each person can define that for themselves.” – Sarah Mudd, President/CEO, Center for Developmentally Disabled

National employment trends reveal a persistent disparity, as capable adults with developmental differences face significantly lower workforce participation rates than the general population. Misconceptions regarding workplace accommodations, combined with an ongoing shortage of qualified direct support staff, present ongoing challenges for families seeking meaningful career pathways. Addressing these structural obstacles requires moving beyond basic assistance toward robust vocational partnerships with local businesses. When employers recognize the measurable value of a diverse workforce, workplace environments become more collaborative, resilient, and reflective of the broader public.

The segment will highlight these efforts, and others, as the Center for Developmentally Disabled continues to work towards a more equitable society. 

About All Access hosted by Andy Garcia: “All Access hosted by Andy Garcia” is an educational Public Television initiative that highlights cultural, economic, and technological advancements through short-form documentary storytelling. Filmed on location across the United States, the series offers audiences informative perspectives on organizations driving positive change. Discover more about the program by visiting allaccessptv.com.

About Center for Developmentally Disabled: Founded on the belief that every individual possesses inherent worth and potential, the Center for Developmentally Disabled provides lifelong supportive services for individuals with intellectual and developmental differences. Operating throughout the Kansas City region, the organization offers early childhood education, adult habilitation, career development, and residential programs designed to foster complete community inclusion. Visit www.cddkc.org for more information.

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Bygma Selects Stibo Systems to Strengthen Product Data and Documentation Across the Group, Starting in Denmark

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One of the Nordic region’s largest building materials suppliers establishes a common, governed product master data foundation to support documentation, sustainability requirements, operational efficiency, and future use of AI

AARHUS, Denmark, Sept. 15, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Stibo Systems, the largest independent provider of master data management (MDM) and the company behind the trusted intelligence platform, today announced that Bygma, one of the largest suppliers of building materials in the Nordic region, has selected Stibo Systems to establish trusted product and master data as the foundation of its business.

Headquartered in Denmark, Bygma sells and distributes construction products to professional contractors and private customers through an extensive network of branches across Denmark, Sweden, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Greenland and Poland. Operating at that scale means managing large volumes of product documentation, certifications, and sustainability data across multiple countries, regulatory regimes, and sales channels — and being able to stand behind every figure.

As Bygma has grown across markets and product categories, the requirements for consistent product data, documentation and governance have increased significantly. By establishing a common, governed source of truth, Bygma aims to standardize and scale product data processes across the Group and ensure that people and systems can act on reliable information with confidence.

Bygma’s investment in Stibo Systems product information management (PIM) and MDM addresses three priorities:

Data that stands up to scrutiny: Meeting requirements for sustainability reporting, product documentation, certifications, and traceability with information that is complete, current, and auditable.

Reduced operational risk and greater efficiency: Standardizing product data processes and reducing manual workflows and dependencies across the organization.

A trusted source of truth: Eliminating fragmented product data and manual workflows by consolidating product master data onto one governed platform.

With this foundation in place, Bygma expects to automate PIM processes and integrations with external systems, support ESG compliance requirements, increase the efficiency of product data work, and scale the platform as the business grows. Governed and verified data will also provide the foundation for future use of AI where it can create value for the business.

“Governed master data is not merely a record of what exists. It is the context that allows people and AI to act with confidence, at scale, and within the rules a business is held to,” said Adrian Carr, CEO of Stibo Systems. “That is the difference between holding a lot of data and having trustworthy intelligence. It is not complicated, but it does take discipline. What we recognized in Bygma is a business that already understood that. They are not treating master data as a back-office tidy-up. They are treating it as a strategic foundation for their continued growth and digital development, and we are excited to be helping them build it.”

“Reliable product data is becoming increasingly important to our customers and to our own operations. As documentation and sustainability requirements increase, we need a strong, common foundation across the Group,” said Preben Nielsen, Group CPO at Bygma. “We chose Stibo Systems because they demonstrated a deep understanding of our situation, our business, and the environment we operate in. We have full confidence in their ability to deliver on this commitment, and we look forward to beginning the implementation process.”

Bygma’s business priorities reflect a pattern Stibo Systems sees across the distribution and building materials sector: tightening documentation and sustainability requirements are turning product data quality from an efficiency question into a question of trust — with regulators, with customers, and across the digital systems businesses increasingly rely on.

About Stibo Systems

Stibo Systems is the largest independent provider of master data management and the company behind the trusted intelligence platform, helping enterprises transform data into trustworthy intelligence. Organizations around the world rely on Stibo Systems to create context and governance across critical domains: customer, product, supplier, location, and more. The platform helps businesses operationalize AI with greater confidence, improve decision-making, drive operational efficiency, and deliver better business outcomes at scale.

Headquartered in Aarhus, Denmark, Stibo Systems is a subsidiary of Stibo Software Group. Independence and foundation ownership provide a long-term perspective that supports innovation-forward customer success and sustainable growth. More at stibosystems.com.

For more information, please contact:

Katherine Hahn
Senior Public Relations Manager
khah@stibosystems.com

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Geotab launches Investigations and new safety capabilities to help fleets make every journey safer

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New solutions make it easier for fleet managers to surface risk, investigate incidents and take targeted action

HANNOVER, Germany, Sept. 15, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — IAA HANNOVER — Every journey matters, to the driver making it, the business depending on it and the family waiting at the end of it. As fleets navigate rising operating costs and increasing road risk, Geotab Inc. (“Geotab”), a global leader in connected operations, video telematics and AI-powered insights, today announced a new suite of safety capabilities designed to help fleet managers turn complex data into clear, targeted action. The announcements include Geotab Investigations, a unified solution for resolving road incidents, alongside expanded video coaching, a redesigned Safety Overview Page and new violation detection.

Safety is a growing priority for fleets. According to a Geotab survey, 95% of European fleet professionals believe the risk of driving collisions has increased over the past five years. For fleet leaders, supporting drivers requires more than monitoring past behavior. It requires timely intelligence that helps identify risk, prioritise coaching and measure improvement while keeping drivers at the center of every safety program.

“Every journey matters, and behind every data point is a driver whose safety and wellbeing deserve attention,” said Aaron Jarvis, Vice President EMEA at Geotab. “Our latest safety capabilities help fleet managers move from reviewing disconnected information to taking focused action. By bringing risk insights, coaching workflows and investigation tools together, Geotab makes it easier for safety teams to understand what is happening across their fleets and support drivers before risk becomes a collision.”

Geotab Investigations: a unified system of record for incident resolution

Fleet organisations regularly need to investigate incidents such as collisions, customer or citizen complaints, property damage and safety violations. These investigations typically involve multiple stakeholders — operations teams, safety managers, insurance providers and legal teams — and the process is often manual and fragmented, creating operational inefficiency alongside legal, compliance and reputational risk.

Geotab Investigations addresses this by bringing existing telematics data into a unified, structured workflow. Rather than assembling evidence across disconnected systems, safety and operations teams can locate incident-related vehicle activity, reconstruct event timelines and attach supporting materials in one place.

“Fleet-related incidents have cost companies billions of dollars in litigation and reputational damage, largely because critical data remains siloed,” added Jarvis. “Geotab Investigations changes this by turning raw data into a structured, defensible system of record, providing fleet managers with the intelligence to mitigate risk and the evidence to protect their drivers, operations and bottom line.”

Key capabilities of Geotab Investigations include:

Data-driven incident search: Instantly locate all telematics-based vehicle activity associated with an incident using location and time-based search.Event timeline reconstruction: Understand the full sequence of movement by combining trips, driver behavior, speed events and location data to reconstruct a precise timeline of what occurred before, during and after an incident.Supporting evidence integration: Attach and organise external materials — notes, emails, reports, documents, photos and video — alongside telematics data to provide the full story behind every event.Structured case workflow: Create and maintain structured cases with clear stages from open to closed, ensuring incidents are tracked, governed and auditable.Review and decision support: Provide stakeholders with complete, time-aligned records that support operational decisions, insurance claims, compliance needs and internal review.Drivers also benefit directly when incidents are investigated using accurate data, helping fleets determine what actually happened and reducing the risk of incorrect attribution.

Additional safety capabilities

Alongside Investigations, Geotab is announcing three further capabilities that extend its connected safety platform.

Expanded video coaching: Geotab’s video coaching platform, developed for the GO Focus Plus and GO Focus Pro, is being extended to Lytx Surfsight AI12 and AI14 and Xirgo KP2 cameras through the Geotab Marketplace, at no additional cost to active subscribers and without hardware changes. Managers can review events in the Geotab platform, use Smart Sequence and Magnitude Ranking to prioritise risk and connect events to the right driver with Smart Driver ID.

Safety Overview Page: Set to be introduced as a native part of Geotab’s platform, the Safety Overview Page consolidates existing safety insights into one daily-use destination. It provides a 0–100 Safety Metric, peer benchmarking, percentile ranking, high-risk driver prioritisation, behavior trends and plain-language explanations of each metric, helping managers quickly understand fleet safety health and determine where coaching or further investigation is needed.

Red-light violation detection: In addition to detecting illegal U-turns, GO Focus Plus and GO Focus Pro cameras now detect red-light violations at signalised intersections, giving safety teams video-backed insights to support targeted coaching.

Results

European fleets are already demonstrating what connected safety intelligence makes possible. Richfords, Safety Champion award recipient at the European Geotab Innovation Awards, recorded a 22% reduction in collision risk and a 59% improvement in safe driving behaviours within two months of deploying Geotab Vitality, generating a 411% return on investment. Barhale, a UK civil engineering contractor, combined Geotab telematics with AI video to reduce preventable collisions by 8.8%, eliminate high-risk drivers entirely and negotiate a 2.7% reduction in insurance premiums, despite 40% fleet growth.

To learn more about Geotab’s safety solutions, visit https://www.geotab.com/fleet-management-solutions/safety/

Disclaimer

The Investigations Solution is provided for limited informational purposes only, on an “as is” basis. To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, Geotab makes no representation or warranty of any kind, express or implied, including as to the Solution’s fitness for use as evidence or its custodial or data-retention capabilities. The Solution is not an evidence-preservation, legal hold, or custodial service. The Customer is solely responsible for preserving and producing any data or evidence required for litigation or investigation, including all legal hold and chain-of-custody obligations, and Geotab shall not be held liable for any issues arising from use of the Solution during or pending litigation. In the event of potential or actual litigation arising from a collision event, please consult qualified legal counsel. By providing the Solution, Geotab is not providing legal advice or recommendations as to any legal or compliance decisions.

About Geotab

Geotab is a global leader in connected operations, video telematics and AI-powered insights. Trusted by more than 100,000 customers — from small and mid-size fleets to Fortune 500 enterprises and public-sector organisations, including the U.S. federal government, Geotab connects approximately 6 million vehicles and assets and processes 100 billion data points daily. With ISO/IEC 27001:2022, SOC2, FIPS 140-3 and FedRAMP authorisations, Geotab’s open platform and 700+ partner ecosystem unify safety, compliance and operations in a single system. Our mission: a safer, more efficient and more sustainable world in motion.

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