M-Pesa ranked Top Project Beating Google, Boeing & Netflix Among Other Major Brands

The announcement of the top 50 notable and influential projects by Project Management Institute (PMI) has put Kenya in the international grid among worldwide projects that have been most impactful through project management that has seen ideas turn into reality. Safaricom’s M-Pesa is riding high among international brands like Alibaba, World Wide Web (WWW), The Euro, Prius Car, Netflix among other renown brands.

The brands that have proven to impact day to day life highly were chosen from among more than 1000 high-impact projects identified by hundreds of global project management community leaders. M-Pesa came in at position 9 ahead of popular brands; Netflix, Google search, Alexa, Bitcoin, Boeing, Walt Disney World among others.

The 12-year old service further stands out for its financial inclusion and transformation not only in Kenya but internationally. In the first three years of service, users transferred more than US$600 billion, generating about US$100 million in revenue for Safaricom and Vodafone. Today, M-Pesa has 31.8 million active users in Kenya alone.

To meet the standards of recognition, the project list identified efforts that changed the world, shaped lives, and altered the DNA of the organisations and the companies that launched them.

“The projects we’ve identified provide incredible insights into how project management has changed, is changing, and will continue to change the world for the better,” said Sunil Prashara, President and CEO of Project Management Institute.

In 2017, economists from MIT and Georgetown University found that M-PESA lifted more than 195,000 Kenyan families from extreme poverty by empowering customers with the agency to receive money from any other phone user in the country. Here are top 20 brands featured;

1. World Wide Web– For connecting everyone and everything
2. Apollo 11– For proving risk management and out-of-this-world ambitions can make the impossible possible
3. Intel® 4004 Microprocessor– For democratizing the power of computing*
4. The Euro– For flawlessly executing the largest monetary changeover in history
5. Human Genome Project– For rising above usual silos to unlock the building block of humanity and enable unparalleled innovations in medicine, biotech and life sciences
6. Alibaba® Singles Day– For creating the largest e-commerce day in the world and fundamentally shifting how people shop*
7. Prius® Car– For driving the auto industry toward a more sustainable future*
8. Live Aid® Concert– For reimagining the magnitude and model of philanthropy with a major dose of celebrity*
9. M-Pesa® Mobile Microfinancing Platform– For delivering cutting-edge mobile technology that allowed Kenya to leapfrog past more advanced economies and start a banking revolution*
10. Svalbard Global Seed Vault– For building the ultimate insurance policy for the world’s food supply
11. Netflix® Streaming – For proving a single project can pivot a company, an industry and viewing habits of the entire world*
12. DynaTAC 8000x™ Mobile Phone – For connecting phones to people, not places*
13. Alexa® Voice Service– For making voice-activated computer interface a part of everyday life*
14. Paris Fashion Week– For transforming a ho-hum industry showcase into an all-eyes-are-watching global event
15. Burj Khalifa– For standing tall as a symbol of economic diversification in the Middle East
16. Walt Disney World® Resort– For setting the bar on immersive entertainment – and then raising it again and again*
17. Google® Search– For transforming the way we think about and identify information*
18. Belt and Road Initiative– For launching the largest infrastructure blitz the world has ever seen –1,814 projects and counting
19. Bitcoin– For putting cryptocurrency on the map and giving birth to blockchain
20. MRI– For revolutionizing medicine in a noninvasive way