Sparking change on the issues of digital exclusion and e-waste

Hubbub and Virgin Media O2 are proud to announce a £500,000 fund to support innovative programmes, initiatives and campaigns that promote digital inclusion while reducing e-waste and supporting the circular economy. Successful projects will ensure that tech can be used by those that need it, time after time.  

We’re looking for projects that can help close the growing digital divide and spark behaviour change across the UK. 

We’ll support a range of projects with funding between £25,000 - £100,000.

This could be a research project to help understand how the issues are connected, a campaign to redistribute devices, a project to fix old devices to be used by more people, or a project that aims to tackle the root causes of these problems. We want to hear from you.

About the fund

Increasingly we’re living in a digital-first society, yet there is a growing digital divide in the UK where communities have unequal access to tech; an estimated 1.5 million households who are digitally disconnected and have limited access to devices or the internet

At the same time, there is a surplus of devices sitting in drawers, with an estimated 28 million smartphones going unused in the UK alone, that could be used to help connect people that are digitally excluded.

Through projects like Community Calling as well as Virgin Media O2 and Good Things Foundation's National Databank we have seen the profound impact that getting online can have on people’s lives.

A total of £500,000 is available for projects with grants ranging in size from £25,000 to £100,000. We expect to be able to fund between 6-8 projects of varying grant sizes.

The fund will focus on digital inclusion projects utilising smartphones, tablets and laptops.

Projects will need to demonstrate measurable impact and a clear legacy. We'll openly share all learnings and results from the funded projects to enable others to build on and amplify the impact (while also respecting intellectual property or patents).

What’s the relationship between the digital divide and e-waste?

Despite the growing digital divide, there are more than enough old phones sitting in homes and offices to provide everyone with a device, with over 28 million old phones lying unused in draws across the UK.

These forgotten phones, if reused, can provide significant environmental benefits. Producing one new smartphone uses 600 times its weight in raw materials and some of these are increasingly rare minerals , such as lithium and cobalt. The Royal Mint are creating a plant in Wales to extract gold from circuit boards in discarded devices like phones and laptops – showing just how valuable our ‘waste’ really is. Over three-quarters of a phone’s carbon footprint comes at the manufacturing stage, so the longer we keep devices in use and the more we choose refurbished over new, the lower the environmental impact.

Key dates

  • Expression of interest form opens: July 3rd 2023

  • Expression of interest deadline: Friday 20th October 2023

  • Invitation to submit a full application: Tuesday 21st November 2023

  • Full application deadline: Friday 15th December 2023

  • Announcement of successful applicants: March 2024 

  • Funding released and projects start: March 2024 

  • Final impact report and learnings shared: May 2025

Round 1: Expression of interest

Expressions of interest July 3rd 2023 The deadline for expressions of interest is Friday 20th October 2023. We’ll use the information provided during the expressions of interest to review projects against our criteria and invite successful applicants to submit a full application during Round 2.

All groups will be contacted by Tuesday 21st November 2023 to hear if they’ve been successful in Round 1.

Round 2: Full application

The deadline for the full application is Friday 15th December, 12pm-noon.

We’ll review all applications against the grant criteria and areas of focus to create a short list to take to the judging panel.

The judging panel will review the short listed applications against the grant criteria. The panel is still being finalised but will be chaired by Hubbub and consist of an e-waste expert, digital inclusion expert, a community engagement expert, a relevant non-government organisation, and a Virgin Media O2 representative.

We'll contact all applicants to let them know if they have been successful or not at each stage. We hope to be able to provide feedback, but this will depend on the number of applications we receive. 

Funding given

Successful applicants will be invited to sign an agreement before we announce the winners and release the first funds. We expect projects to begin in March 2024.

Why is Virgin Media O2 supporting this grant fund?

This forms part of Virgin Media O2’s Better Connections Plan: the company’s environmental, social and governance (ESG) strategy, focusing on making their business better for people and the planet.

The Time After Time E-waste Fund forms part of their goal to enable 10 million circular actions for people to take by 2025, which will help tackle e-waste as well as their goal to connect 1 million digitally excluded people across the UK through universal and targeted programmes within the same time period.