O2 Czech Republic
11/9/2026
Digitalisation is fundamentally transforming the world of education, work, entertainment, and the ways we communicate. Yet alongside new opportunities, it is also widening new gaps. Inequality today is defined not only by access to technology, but also, and more importantly, by the ability to use it meaningfully, safely, and with confidence.
Share on social networks
Studies show that children and families from socially disadvantaged backgrounds are most at risk: for them, the digital world can become another barrier rather than a pathway to opportunity. That is why PPF Group’s telecommunications, media, and banking companies focus long-term efforts on children, parents, and teachers – those who shape digital and social competences from the earliest stages of life. Across its markets, the Group’s initiatives work systematically to narrow the social and knowledge divides that digitalisation can bring.
PPF Group’s business approach is grounded in a long-term perspective and an entrepreneurial, strategic mindset. The same principle guides its approach to social responsibility. Investment in education, skills, and social inclusion is not viewed as a peripheral activity, but as a core component of sustainable growth.
The Group’s telecommunications companies, serving more than 20 million customers, are closest to everyday users of digital technologies and therefore play a direct role in developing digital skills and promoting online safety. The banking sector strengthens financial stability through education and practical financial literacy. PPF’s media companies use their reach to bring social inequalities into focus and encourage informed public debate. Together, these all activities reinforce one another to form a connected ecosystem.
Digital well-being and online safety are essential to the healthy functioning of modern society. Within PPF, these areas are addressed systematically by the PPF Foundation together with other Group companies. At Group level, digital inclusion is embedded across all companies providing telecommunications services to the public.
By the end of 2025, O2 and Yettel had trained a total of 557,000 individuals (children, parents, and teachers) in digital skills, safety, and media literacy. Thanks to increasing reach and efficiency, this figure rises by approximately 200,000 each year.
Digital inclusion means more than access to connectivity and the internet. Most of all, it requires the ability to use technology confidently, understand its risks, and engage critically with content. This principle underpins the O2 Chytrá škola (O2 Smart School) programme, operating in the Czech Republic since 2018 as a comprehensive platform for digital education. The initiative is led by the O2 Foundation under the auspices of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports.
The programme provides training for schools, teachers, children, parents, and the wider public. Under its five-year plan, it aims to train 580,000 people by the end of 2029 – equivalent to approximately one third of the population of children under 15 in the Czech Republic. Each year, around 145,000 participants engage in O2 Smart School activities through classroom teaching, online tools, educational games, and grant schemes.
The PPF Foundation, together with the O2 Foundation, has also supported the educational project Onfine. Built on the conviction that prevention, education, and the cultivation of a healthy digital environment are essential to genuine equality of opportunity, the project draws on expertise and experience that are unique in the Czech Republic. Digital well-being has become a key area in which the parent company and the Group’s largest operator combine their efforts.
A similar approach is applied by PPF’s telecommunications companies internationally. In Bulgaria, a digital safety and literacy programme has been operating for more than ten years, reaching young people and educators on a sustained basis. In Hungary, the ProSuli educational platform has supported digital learning in schools, including robotics development, since 2015, engaging thousands of teachers and tens of thousands of pupils. In Serbia, cooperation with UNICEF covers dozens of schools and has the potential to develop digital skills among up to 60,000 students, parents, and teachers.
Financial literacy is another key pillar of equal opportunity. Air Bank has long supported education for children and young people in financial awareness, digital safety, and responsible online behaviour. Through the Bankers Go To School (Bankéři do škol) programme, by 2025 a total of 193 schools had taken part and 464 workshops had been delivered, reaching nearly 14,000 pupils throughout the Czech Republic.
Project by the O2 Foundation that aims to teach children, parents, and teachers how to properly use technology while staying safe online.
The need for systematic action is underlined by data that monitors media literacy levels. In the 2025/26 school year, more than 52,000 pupils from hundreds of primary schools across the Czech Republic took part in the school rounds of the Media Literacy Olympiad, one of the key initiatives supported by the O2 Foundation.
Test results – validated by expert partners, including the Czech News Agency, the Endowment Fund for Independent Journalism, and educational projects such as Fake Escape and Nelež – show that average success rates in media comprehension, information retrieval, and logical reasoning range between 40% and 50%, depending on age. The data also highlights significant differences between year groups and school types. Students at multi-year grammar schools achieve markedly higher results, at around 60%. These findings confirm that critical engagement with media content is a core element of digital inclusion and that, without targeted education, the potential of technology remains underused.
This is why, for example, TV Nova supports equal opportunities in the Czech Republic through sustained coverage of social disadvantages affecting children and families. In 2025, TV Nova devoted approximately 2,000 hours of broadcast time to reporting focused on disadvantaged children. This space was provided, in particular, to organisations supporting vulnerable children and families over the long term, including Diakonie, Dobrý anděl, Patron dětí, and Linka bezpečí.
The total reach of these broadcasts amounted to nearly 20 million impressions, bringing the issue of social disadvantage clearly into the public sphere. Other stations across the CME markets provided support on a similar basis. In this context, the media serve as an amplifier of empathy and understanding, giving voice to those who are often unheard, while helping to reduce social barriers.
Digital skills, media understanding, financial literacy, and social awareness are closely interconnected. Together, they form the foundation of equal opportunity in modern society.
This combination of practical on-the-ground action, transfer of know-how, and sustained public attention is an investment in human capital, which remains the most resilient foundation for future growth.
