Dion Jerling

Managing Director at Connect Earth

Following a career in UK technology and media space during the 'dot-com boom' era of the mid-1990s Dion founded Connect Africa in 2004. As a socially driven enterprise Connect Africa was instrumental in extending GSM (mobile phone) coverage to deep rural communities across Africa, a baton finally (10 years later) taken up by the Mobile Network Operators.

With over 75 years combined experience in connecting the underserved Dion and two colleagues co-founded Connect Earth in 2014, a development driven enterprise that advises and guides companies and organisations on how connectivity and internet access impacts socio-economic and educational change in un and underserved communities across the world.

 "Our purpose is to advise, fund, and implement sustainable, safe and secure public Internet access networks for un/underserved communities everywhere”.

My personal goal is to use these networks to provide half a billion African youth with open access to online learning and information tools by 2050.