Clifford Chance

Clifford Chance chooses humanitarian charity Jangala as the winner of its £50,000 Sustainable Development Goals award

Leading international law firm Clifford Chance has named humanitarian, digital connectivity charity Jangala as the winner of its United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDG) award. Jangala is a British charity which works internationally with grassroots and large aid and development organisations to enable internet access for people in need of urgent aid or longer-term development assistance across the humanitarian crisis, education, healthcare and refugee fields. As this year's winner, Jangala will receive a £50,000 donation and 500 hours of pro bono support over an 18-month period.

Now in its second year, the UN SDG Award was set up with the objective of recognising and supporting international, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) whose work contributes to the achievement of the UN's SDGs. This year's call for applications focused on educational institutions, including schools and universities, around the world, whose work contributes towards the achievement of SDG 4 – to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.

Jangala is at a pivotal stage in progressing towards its goal of becoming the world’s leading humanitarian technology organisation. As part of the pro bono support offering, Clifford Chance will work with the Jangala team to significantly scale-up its operations globally. The main projects will include creating a trading subsidiary, preparing its technologies and services to be delivered at a commercial scale, developing a framework to maximise the humanitarian impact of Jangala's IP and navigating the complex landscape of global regulations surrounding wireless technology.

Jangala started out as a group of volunteers in 2015, working to support displaced people with Wi-FI access across the Jungle refugee camp in Calais, France, before becoming a charity in 2018. The charity's core proprietary technology, Big Box, is a briefcase-sized device which transforms any form of internet connectivity into Wi-Fi, lowering the barriers to deploying internet access across a range of challenging aid scenarios for thousands of users. To date, Jangala, via Big Box, has provided vital internet connectivity across a range of functions, from supporting schools and hospitals across Africa and East Asia, to continuing to support refugees and remote, and low-income communities internationally.

Jeroen Ouwehand, Global Senior Partner and Chair of the UN SDG award jury said: The demand for connectivity across humanitarian and educational spheres is urgent, acute and growing with each new and ongoing crisis making Jangala a timely winner of this year's education focused SDG award. The impact the team has made in the time they've been operating is incredible. From supporting schoolchildren and their families in the UK, to helping remote refugee learners in Greece, and asylum seekers internationally, their work is a real demonstration of the power of innovation. We're incredibly energised to begin working together."

Richard Thanki, Founder, MD & Head of Product at Jangala added: “We are delighted that Clifford Chance has selected Jangala as the winner of the Clifford Chance 2022 SDG award. We are excited about the impact we are going to have together. This award is an important catalyst for our work including connecting vital education projects in marginalised communities around the world. With Clifford Chance's pro bono support we'll also be able to progress Jangala’s mission to create a wholly new model for a technology organisation – one that's sustainable, creates impact at scale and has doing good built into its DNA.”

This year the award jury received an unprecedented 198 applications from around the world, which was narrowed down, to a final 7 applicants who were able to present to our decision panel comprised of a range of Clifford Chance staff and clients.