Digital inclusion emerged as a primary theme at the Foundry Innovation Showcase during MWC25 Barcelona. The Innovation Showcase brought together a wide range of innovators at the forefronts of their fields – from seamless satellite communications to next-generation quantum security – to showcase their work at the GSMA Pavilion. This year, many projects focused on bringing highly specialist solutions, previously available only to a few, to the mainstream – or breaking entirely new ground in extending the reach and purpose of connected technologies.
Quantum Dice: making quantum-safe cybersecurity more accessible
Quantum Dice, for instance – a University of Oxford spin-out now working with AT&T – is using quantum technology to deliver highly innovative cybersecurity solutions. Their core offering is based on quantum random number generators (QRNGs), which produce truly random numbers for secure encryption keys. These keys are crucial for protecting data in both classical systems and future post-quantum cryptographic environments. Quantum Dice’s QRNG technology is exceptionally efficient, being eight times faster than their nearest competitor’s. Clients can deploy it via chips around half the size of a human fingernail.
Quantum Dice’s QRNG solutions are based on a patented source-device independent self-certification protocol (DISC™). DISC™ uses Quantum Dice’s proprietary photonic quantum architecture to continuously assure the intrinsic randomness of every number generated. This gives cybersecurity architects live feedback on the quality of the keys they generate via real-time entropy monitoring. DISC™ thereby ensures transparency and reliability in encryption while also protecting against hardware failures and malicious attacks.
To make their solution more accessible, Quantum Dice are developing an entropy-as-a-service model. This cloud-based system allowing organisations to adopt quantum-safe encryption without investing in specialist equipment. This approach makes quantum-grade security highly scalable and more readily deployable across industries. Quantum Dice therefore enables a highly accessible migration path to quantum-resilient security solutions. This promotes digital inclusion in IoT especially, where device space is limited. Visitors to the Pavilion could observe the solution working through a quantum VPN. This showcased how it can be integrated into existing digital infrastructure, without requiring customers to adopt any additional hardware.
This was the first quantum project featured at the GSMA Pavilion – in 2025, the International Year of Quantum Science and Technologies. Quantum Dice’s participation underscores the growing importance of quantum-safe cybersecurity and the potential of QRNGs to set new standards in data protection for the quantum era.
Digital inclusion through NTN: how Sateliot is bridging the global connectivity gap
Currently, only about 20% of the earth’s surface has access to traditional cellular coverage. This leaves the remaining 80% without reliable connectivity. Sateliot is addressing this imbalance using low earth orbit (LEO) satellites for direct connectivity in remote and underserved regions. Sateliot’s LEO constellation can be used to ensure sensors, trackers and meters remain seamlessly connected via roaming agreements with MNOs. The connectivity gap is thereby bridged by enabling devices to stay connected as they pass in and out of cellular coverage.
Sateliot’s breakthrough lies in full compliance with the 3GPP standard for non-terrestrial networks (NTNs). It is the first LEO constellation to offer this compatibility. Devices can switch automatically between terrestrial networks (TNs) and NTNs using the same standard SIM card and hardware. This means users don’t need to purchase or install specialist equipment, and can just use existing devices. This roaming capability is now near-universal, made possible through partnerships with over 30 MNOs, promoting digital inclusion worldwide.
Sateliot has since 2020 been developing their own satellites, rather than relying on third-party constellations, and will be fully commercial by the end of 2025. The company is now fine-tuning support for as wide a range of industries as possible operating outside conventional network infrastructure. Key examples include maritime, fleet management, livestock tracking, mining, oil and gas. Sateliot have completed pilot programs with the European Space Agency and Telefonica and are currently launching pilots with MNOs and companies in various countries.
Backed by solid investor support, Sateliot recently closed a €35 million Series A funding round. It is now in the final stages of securing Series B funding, with an announcement expected soon. Sateliot’s vision is to make global, seamless IoT connectivity a reality in 2025 through this world-first approach to hybrid TN-NTN coverage.
Promoting digital inclusion by reducing AI’s linguistic biases with QazLLM
Of the 7,000 languages spoken worldwide, only seven are considered ‘high resource’ languages. This means only seven languages such as English and Chinese are fully supported across digital platforms and online. AI tools are generally based on sources and libraries drawing on these high-resource languages. Around 20 million people for instance speak the Kazakh language, living in the 9th largest country on Earth, but have very limited digital resources outside Kazakhstan’s academic and business ecosystem. Cases like these create linguistic gaps in AI, leading to accessibility issues and bias, and ultimately growing inequality.
VEON has therefore been supporting development of QazLLM, a national language model for the Kazakh language. QazCode built QazLLM on open-source frameworks in collaboration with Kazakhstan’s national university. The team trained QazLLM on 150 billion tokens of data, primarily from academic and linguistic sources. Benchmarks show performance is comparable to market-leading models such as Meta’s Llama 3.1 and GPT 4.0. The Kazakh government has now adopted the project as part of a broader effort to ensure the language remains vibrant and widely used.
A key feature of QazLLM is its interactive functionality, which uses a range of approaches to gamify language learning. This includes word-guessing games that help users reinforce vocabulary and improve memory, making the process of learning Kazakh more enjoyable and effective. This feature especially contributes to language retention among younger generations or those new to Kazakh. Around 7,500 applications and solutions have now integrated QazLLM’s, demonstrating its practical utility across diverse platforms. The focus now is on expanding QazLLM’s usage and encouraging broader adoption of this important cultural and linguistic resource for digital inclusion.
How the European Space Agency is easing the path to NTN solution testing
The European Space Agency (ESA) is at the forefront of device-to-device (D2D) communications through NTN, redefining how vehicles connect around the world. At this year’s Pavilion, the ESA showcased remote control of a vehicle via simulated 5G satellite channel, highlighting a key use case for 5G NTN. The demo employed hardware and software components to emulate real-world satellite connectivity conditions. Antennas mounted on the vehicle and satellite mock-up facilitated authentic communication over a 5G network, with a satellite emulator replicating the latency and signal characteristics of an LEO satellite.
The demo integrated two pivotal ESA projects. The first, a satellite emulator initiated in 2022, has since matured into a commercially available product. This milestone marks the transition from research to a market-ready solution for testing NTN based applications such as D2D. The second involved deployment of a 5G NTN software stack, developed atop an operator interface, an open-source 5G implementation. The company actively contributes to this open-source platform, ensuring continuous development and alignment with industry standards.
Clients can benchmark simulations against live satellite connections, to assess suitability for real-world applications. They achieve this through licensed software to deploy on their own hardware, to simulate satellite channels in-house without external infrastructure. This flexibility supports a wide range of development needs, from prototyping to system validation. The ESA will soon release a comprehensive testbed encompassing all elements of their 5G non-terrestrial stack. This will allow clients to explore, test, and innovate across the full spectrum of NTN capabilities.
SMEs in NTN development are the primary user base for now. The longer-term vision includes enabling direct satellite connectivity for commercial, unmodified devices — such as smartphones — in remote or underserved locations, without requiring external antennas or terminals. This could make a major contribution to digital inclusion by promoting broader accessibility of 5G.
The GSMA Foundry: the home of mobile innovation
The GSMA Foundry is a hub for cross-industry collaboration and business development, where GSMA members can nurture ideas, develop technologies, and scale their solutions. This is just a sample of the projects we’ve been supporting recently – the Foundry’s reach extends to supporting projects across the full spectrum of mobile technology’s abilities.
Skylo for instance also aims to foster digital inclusion by democratising access to satellite connectivity by connecting smartphones to emergency services via satellite when cellular coverage is unavailable. The solution allows users to share their location and exchange text messages with emergency services, while the interface guides users to areas with optimal satellite signal reception.
Nokia meanwhile has introduced the world’s first ruggedised 360-degree 8K video camera with IP67 protection. Nokia’s RXRM software reduces bandwidth requirements by up to 90% by only streaming the viewport being actively viewed. This, combined with integration capabilities via APIs, makes it especially useful for industrial use cases. Nokia’s ‘Network as a Code’ feature also enables dynamic allocation of guaranteed bandwidth and quality during periods of network congestion.
Airbus’ 5G aerospace manufacturing solution addresses previous connectivity issues in large hangar spaces and aircraft interiors. Airbus’ smart tools collect hundreds of data points per fastener installation, enabling immediate feedback. Key benefits include improved accuracy, worker confidence, and operational efficiency. This also enables meticulous documentation and traceability of the manufacturing process, yet with reduced administrative workload.
KPN is also working to enhance manufacturing through 5G. KPN offers customised connectivity solutions from public network end-points to fully dedicated private 5G networks. This enables highly adaptable shop floors capable of efficiently handling smaller, customised production batches. This is achieved by using automated guided vehicles for replenishment, enabling flexible production flows. By combining 5G, edge computing, localisation technologies and low-code development, much higher operational uptime is made possible.
OmniScope‘s high-resolution sequencing technology can analyse individual immune cells from blood samples, generating extensive datasets used to build the world’s first foundational model of the human immune system. OmniScope’s flagship product OS Sport uses the technology to help athletes train smarter and recover faster through predictive biological modelling. OmniScope is now working to enable personalised cancer care, based on immune profiling of over 10,000 patients, helping to extend digital inclusion to some of those who need it most.
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