2025: Our year in review

At the start of every year, we take a moment to reflect on what the past twelve months have brought: the work we supported, the people reached, and the lessons learned along the way.

In 2025, 48percent supported more projects than ever before. Together with our partners, we reached a record number of people across multiple regions, contexts, and connectivity challenges. This growth is not something we take for granted. It is the result of trusted partnerships and the long-term, often complex work of connecting people in ways that are meaningful, sustainable, and locally grounded.

In this blog, we look back at the year through three lenses: the numbers behind our work, the projects we supported, and the broader reflections that are shaping how we move forward into 2026.

Our year in numbers

In 2025, we invested €178,517, directly reaching approximately 69,055 people. This brings our total funding since the founding of 48percent to €882,138.

While we keep track of these numbers, they are not goals in themselves. They help us understand scale, but impact is ultimately about what connectivity enables in people’s lives. Still, we note with care that, if momentum continues, 2026 may see us pass both the €1 million mark and 100,000 people reached.

We supported 19 projects, working with five new partners alongside long-standing collaborators from our partner network. The balance between continuity and new relationships remains central to how we work.

What we supported in 2025

Rather than listing projects one by one, 2025 is best understood through the themes that that define our program lines: digital literacy, online safety, and sustainable community centered connectivity and networks.

Building digital skills and safety

A significant part of our work this year focused on helping people not just get online, but use the internet safely and confidently.

The projects we did with Webfala, Brain Builders, YFTC Uganda, Karisma Foundation, and Colnodo addressed digital safety, online rights, and basic digital skills across different age groups and contexts. From secondary school students in Nigeria, to older adults in Colombia, to refugee communities in Uganda, these initiatives recognized a shared reality: access without knowledge can leave people vulnerable.

Across these projects, participants learned how to recognize online scams, protect personal information, navigate misinformation, and engage more safely in digital spaces. Importantly, many of these programmes trained teachers, community leaders, and peer educators, ensuring that knowledge continues to circulate long after the project period ends.

Expanding digital literacy and access to opportunity

Several partners focused on digital literacy as a pathway to education, employment, and economic participation.

With Zee Tech Foundation, Almajiri students in Nigeria received structured digital literacy training, gained access to fast internet through a Starlink-powered learning center, and shared their work publicly through exhibitions and radio programs. Hello World exceeded its original target by training over 200 teachers in rural Uganda, with measurable improvements in digital skills, confidence, and classroom application.

In South Africa, Computer Aid International supported accredited digital literacy training in the Newlands community, while Fantsuam Foundation worked with rural women entrepreneurs in Nigeria, connecting basic digital skills to financial inclusion through VSLA structures and the SAVIX digital banking app.

Across these contexts, one insight kept resurfacing: digital skills are most powerful when people can immediately apply them to their daily lives.

Sustainable and community-led connectivity

Connectivity projects in 2025 continued to emphasize sustainability and local ownership.

Through the Unconnected, 15 rural schools in Chiapas, Mexico were connected to reliable high-speed internet, paired with revenue models that allow schools to stay online independently by reselling excess bandwidth to surrounding communities. Global Innovation Valley, Pata WiFi, Gonline Africa, and Pueblo Nuevo similarly focused on community networks, renewable energy, and locally relevant infrastructure.

Not all connectivity work follows a linear path. In June, severe storms destroyed Zenzeleni Networks’ main tower in South Africa’s Eastern Cape, cutting off internet access for over 1,800 people and disrupting schools, healthcare, and community services. Rebuilding took longer than expected, but connectivity was restored with more resilient infrastructure.

Learning closer to home: Westerkwartier

In the first half of the year, we rounded off the Digital Inclusion Pilot in Westerkwartier, the Netherlands. This project marked the first time 48percent was so deeply involved in implementation within our own national context.

Working alongside municipalities, internet providers, and social organisations, the pilot explored what digital exclusion looks like in a country where 98% of households technically have internet access. The findings made one thing clear: statistics alone do not capture lived reality.

The pilot demonstrated how digital inclusion cuts across policy domains, from poverty and education to healthcare and municipal services. It also showed the importance of personal guidance. A dedicated participant coordinator, a familiar and trusted point of contact, proved essential in lowering barriers and helping people ask for support.

We’ve shared our reflections on this work in more depth in earlier blogs, including:

• From pilot to policy: shaping the future of digital inclusion in the Netherlands
• Lessons from the Digital Inclusion Pilot in the Netherlands

Crucially, the pilot did not end with a report. Its learnings have since been embedded into local policy, with Westerkwartier integrating digital inclusion into its poverty strategy and later being selected for the Digicoach program, focused on strengthening digital literacy at scale.

Emergency funding in a shifting political landscape

The start of 2025 marked a significant shift in global politics and attitudes toward international aid. Cuts to USAID funding were felt across many sectors, including connectivity and digital rights. For many organizations, this did not only limit new projects, but directly threatened ongoing work and operational stability, forcing scaling back activities and pausing expansion.

USAID had long been a key funder of programs focused on digital rights, cybersecurity, internet freedom, and equitable access to the internet. Its withdrawal created uncertainty across the sector, particularly for civil society organizations and independent media working to counter censorship, internet shutdowns, and surveillance. The impact went beyond infrastructure. These cuts weakened broader efforts to promote the internet as a public good.

In response, 48percent allocated emergency funding. The aim was not to replace lost funding, but to help bridge a critical moment: keeping networks online, retaining essential capacity, and supporting transitions toward self-sustainability within already existing projects. This experience reinforced a key lesson for us: resilient connectivity depends not only on technology, but on long-term planning, local ownership, and flexible funding that can respond when political decisions elsewhere threaten digital access on the ground.

Beyond projects: strengthening how we work

2025 was also a year of internal reflection and change.

We introduced a new quarterly funding structure, moving away from monthly cycles to better manage the growing number of funding requests and ensure thoughtful distribution of resources. This structure will continue into 2026.

We also launched a resource page on our website, offering partners clearer guidance on funding criteria, timelines, and our approach to sustainability in funding.

Along the way, we continued learning from our network. Mea from the Unconnected, for example, shared insights with our founding partner on working with Starlink in rural and remote contexts, contributing to ongoing discussions about opportunity, risk, and responsibility in satellite connectivity.

Looking ahead

If 2025 reinforced one lesson, it is that connectivity is not a luxury. It is foundational to participation in modern society. But access alone is never enough. Skills, safety, affordability, governance, and human support structures all matter equally.

As we move into 2026, our focus remains on supporting partners who work systemically, who centre communities, and who think beyond short-term fixes. We will continue to invest in projects that not only connect people, but strengthen the ecosystems around them.

We are grateful to all our partners for the trust, persistence, and care they bring to this work. Together, we continue to move toward a more equitable future.