I struggle to be like Erik and get my images edited and up on Instagram in the middle of chaos.  I come from the days of big cameras, film, darkrooms, and long periods between clicking the shutter and realising a final image.  I like to think about my pictures.  I’m never happy with them and I often return to Lightroom and edit them again and again until I at least don’t not like them.  This process does not lend itself to the instant forms of social media that we enjoy today.  While I continue to work on my publishing speed, I figured I might as well try my hand at a more contemplative photo essay following our journey on Expedition Pemba.

[foogallery id=”4034″]

This last week I was part of a BRCK expedition team that traveled from Nairobi through the Chyulu Hills, and oversea to the small island of Pemba in the northern part of Zanzibar. On the way, we installed some of our equipment, including:

• A point-to-point link running Moja WiFi, providing free internet access for Kenya Wildlife Services rangers who protect the rhino population.
• A weather station at a lighthouse on Pemba island, running off of our PicoBRCK device.
• A special SupaBRCK running Moja, educational content in a school on Kokota island, as well as training and use of the Kio Kit at the same location.
• A SupaBRCK Moja installed at the port of Shimoni in a store near the market.

One thing I’ve learned on BRCK expeditions is that there is no “normal” experience from one to the next. This one we had to be used to water everywhere, we lost or broke two phones and severely damaged a third, all vehicles behaved themselves (miracle!), and we had the Good All Over team with us that made it feel like a reality TV show.

We do these expeditions for two primary reasons: to have a fun adventure as a team, and to test our products far out in the field.

We do have a lot of fun, you can see that in the Instagram, Twitter, and blog posts. However, a requirement is that they also be challenging, providing a certain amount of physical and mental difficulty. We plan them this way for us to test ourselves, strengthen our internal team bonds, and stress out our equipment. It works, so we keep doing it year after year.

Creative solutions come from time with users

While we were out on this trip, there was a good Economist article published that references BRCK and what we’re doing. It’s important to remember that so few companies are actually out in the field trying to find solutions for people who aren’t financially wealthy. Logically this makes sense. Unless you’re a development company or a charity organization, you have to make money and if the numbers don’t work, then they don’t work.

The ITU calculates that in poor countries the average cost in 2016 of the smallest mobile-internet package was equal to 14% of the average national income per person, putting it out of most people’s reach.

One of the benefits of the BRCK leadership team playing such a direct role in these expeditions is that we are installing, testing, fixing, and using the equipment right alongside the users of it. We’re doing the messy work, but also having to explain how our platform works to the people we’re leaving it with. This is what leads us to creative solutions for both the technical and business problems that we find. It could be a better way to waterproof our gear, or it comes in a deeper understanding of how important it is to focus on our model of FREE public WiFi as we realize that these people will not be able to pay.

Just because the companies that came before us were unable to find a way to serve the needs of the people with small incomes doesn’t mean that there isn’t a way forward. It just means that we need to be more creative. Nothing builds creativity like sweating over a connection in rural Africa with your colleagues and the users breathing down your neck. 😉

Flashback

It’s 1995. Computers are a rarity in Kenyan homes but common in commercial banks, government institutions, and private companies and are mostly used to crunch numbers. But somehow my grandfather manages to acquire one for his household (true story!). From memory, it ran some text based Operating System with yellow fonts (which I came to discover much later in my adolescent years was MS-DOS) and for the first time I get to play a game (again, many years later, I find out its the original Prince of Persia). And my fascination for the computer begins. As we move into the late ’90s, a better computer is bought, running Windows 95 with access to digital media in the form of CDs. And with that I access Microsoft Encarta, a digital multimedia encyclopedia, filled with so much information that blows my young mind. The information is not only text-based but has colorful photos and low-def pixilated videos of moving animals and dividing animal cells. However, Internet is still an alien concept to me (and most Kenyans) at this time.

Back to the Future

Arrival at Kokota Eco Primary school

Fast forward to 2017, and we’re on Kokota Island to install a SupaBRCK running Moja and donate a Kiokit . Being an island, Kokota is somehow isolated and is mainly accessible via the sea. However, a cellular network is available since it’s broadcasted from the neighbouring main island of Pemba and distributed by a local base station. With the existence of modern cloud computing technology, increased data storage and advanced connectivity technology (cellular & WiFi), the SupaBRCK has taken advantage of these technologies to provide access to almost unlimited knowledge, unlike the limited 650MB on the Encarta CD that was my treasure chest of digital information. Be it offline or online, the SupaBRCK can provide access to information via local storage or the Internet respectively.

A curious mind is a fertile mind

During the Kiokit training, I could see the same expression of wonder and curiosity that I had back in ’95 on the faces of the students of Kokota Eco Primary school. I was also encouraged to see the enthusiasm expressed by the teachers of the school as one teacher commented that free access to the information would improve performance of the school and make it the best on the island. The students and teachers now have the opportunity to access as much information as they want to improve their education standards and livelihood. Imagine the impactful socio-economic projects that could be implemented on the island by the community as a result of accessing the information: modern skills in growing crops and rearing livestock, improvement and protection of the island’s biodiversity, etc. Or even better, the teachers could be endowed with DIY skills to fix the school’s water desalinisation plant that has stalled for the last eight months, since help is not in sight to repair the much needed machine that can provide clean potable water.

Deep conversations with the Kio

The level of potential within Africa is enormous but is largely untapped due to low penetration of education and information and infrastructure unavailability. Modern computing technology and how it’s implemented with well defined and crafted policies can accelerate information access. At BRCK we have the map to access the hidden treasure that is information, but we also aspire to open that one door that will lead to opening millions more for Africans.

How well do I know my Swahili language now that I have it as one of the languages that I speak fluently? Pemba expedition has helped me put this on the litmus paper and today’s challenge is purchasing SIM cards for PicoBRCK and SupaBRCK, which are to be deployed at Kokota Eco Primary School in Kokota Island and the Zanzibar weather station.

We seek the help of a local young man to purchase the cards and later came time to load bundles and learn the necessary USSD codes to navigate through the network. He starts giving “Nyota mia moja na sita reli kusajirisha nambari yako kwenye mtandao.” I stare at him having only heard the monetary figures; of course, I can’t afford to miss out the monetary figures given my accounting background.

Ruth (L) and Elizabeth (R)

I request that he repeats the instructions and I understand that he means (*106# to register my new number to the mobile network). I giggle and accept the challenge. Before he leaves for the day, we ensure that we are all set to have the data bundles loaded and that our mission for what brought the BRCK team here is accomplished: to provide reach to content and internet to islands of Pemba that I never knew existed before this expedition.

The boat would take us four hours and another 45 minutes of waiting for a smaller boat to deliver the Kio Kit to the middle of the sea, which now becomes our “parking bay.” The boat ride and the sceneries are amazing and the whole day you forget that dry land ever existed as the sea becomes your new home.

The crew is extremely jovial, singing and humming all the way to Kokota Island. We soon arrive at Kokota Eco Primary School where Elizabeth and Mark get to train the teachers on how to use the Kio Kit. The teachers are extremely enthusiastic and amazed at the difference this brings to their school and, from the look on their faces, they can’t wait to teach the students with the Kio Kit.

An hour after the teachers’ training, they get to use the skills learnt to teach the students with the Kio Kit and broadcast the lesson. Broadcast is a feature installed on the Kio Kit to ensure that all the students attending a lesson are on the same page with the teacher and not busy exploring other features.

Surprisingly they understand how to use the Kio Kit so quickly and are all motivated and looking forward to using it on a daily basis. They each get a printed photo to take home and remember this heavenly transition for the rest of their lives in their small island of Kokota. After a successful day, it’s time to get back to our camp and we have to walk a stretch to catch the boat with water up to our waist and our backpacks on our shoulders. The expedition is real for sure. We enjoy the sunset and the birds fishing and we land back to our camp at 7.30 PM, eager to see what tomorrow has in store for us.

While I imagined it’s possible to have receipts for all the payments made, I get to experience lack of this all through this trip. I also had never had a training session of the Kio Kit before and am extremely honored to be part of the BRCK team. I have a lot of respect for the management team who get to go through rough, strenuous, and rugged terrain away from the comfort of Nairobi to make things happen where no one would consider possible… indeed they were right to have the writings on our BRCK office wall: “You Can Do Hard Things.”

Increasingly, tech companies are moving to Shenzhen, Taipei, and Seoul. At the same time, BRCK is getting itself further and further into the remotest parts of Africa. We are a unique company, and we have a unique perspective on tech that makes life mostly hard, but ultimately fulfilling. We talk a lot about ‘You can do hard things.’ However, now we’ve come to the realization that ‘We make things hard’ is becoming just as true. But it’s our customers that do harder things.

Coming to Pemba has given the team here a glimpse of island life and the challenges that come along with it.

The goal today was to install a small weather station at the lighthouse on Pemba. We’ve installed these weather stations before in various places, including on Mt. Kenya, and this was a good excuse to test the new PicoBRCK V3. PicoBRCK is an IoT gateway and edge node. We’ve been working on this now for a few years, slowly perfecting what it means to connect sensors in some of the remotest parts of the globe.

The weather station we’ve used as the base is mostly unexciting, however, the PicoBRCK is. The V3 now includes remote OTA updates, onboard flash storage, and even lower power usage than before. But what we learned was completely unrelated.

Arriving at the lighthouse, Liz and Birir began to prepare the weather station. The team had shipped some new base firmware, so we needed to do a manual upgrade of the device before putting it online. First thing to do was to download all the tools to flash the firmware, so out came the SupaBRCK and within moments we’ve got the truck set up as a mobile hotspot, a quick skype call back to BRCK HQ and we are off again.

Lesson 1. Third party tools make life hard when you are alone.

We’re more privileged than most. Travelling with SupaBRCK has meant that we’ve had pretty constant access to communication, something that isn’t a reality for most here. Without the SupaBRCK, we would have never gotten the firmware updated, and the weather station would never be up. We need to make our offline tools work for those who are offline. We’ve been building online tools for a while, and in building those out, sometimes it’s easy to forget that you’re a long way from online a lot of the time in remote areas. Sometimes that little bit of information can help you get connected faster.

Once we had the system set up, it was about getting it up and reading real data. Mark, who’s spent a lot of time in Tanzania, was set to talk to Yusef, the lighthouse keeper, to get his blessing. Well, it turns out we didn’t have the approvals we thought we did, and we had to improvise to make it work.

Lesson 2. Flexibility is critical when you are expecting the unexpected.

When we got permission to mount the weather station, we had to work out how to mount it. One of the great things about PicoBRCK is its small size, but the weather station was bigger. We’ve been thinking a lot about different options for mounting the PicoBRCK and the SupaBRCK. However, sometimes in the office it’s too easy to think about standardizing everything, and trying to force our installs into simple boxes. Mounting the weather station involved everything we had in the toolbox, every zip tie we had and scavenging U-bolts from every antenna. Deploying with all eventualities in mind, and the ability for the hardware to be flexible is critical.

We loaded up the daladala’s again with all the gear and people and set off to the new digs, Verani Beach, our home for the next three nights. Everyone got sorted out, went for a swim, and chilled out for a bit. Brandon from the Good All Over team got out the drone and headed out over the ocean.

Splash!

All of a sudden Brandon bolted up and ran at full speed towards the sea, a few people looked up, but no one connected his urgency with the splash of moments ago. Minutes passed and finally the penny dropped that Brandon was chasing the drone as it bubbled towards the ocean floor. Six of us jumped up and chased Brandon down. ‘He’s got it… come the f#$k back!…’ repeated from the shore. We hauled the drone out, and Brandon, exhausted from 300m of race-pace swimming and countless repeated dives needed hauling out as well.

Lesson 3. Keep it simple stupid.

A DJI Inspire drone is an amazing piece of machinery, designed in Shenzhen, the greatest electronics and robotics community in the world. It wasn’t meant to be field stripped on the sandy coastline of Pemba, hundreds of miles from the nearest oscilloscope, but we knew we had only a few hours to strip it down and get all the salt water out of the complicated electronics, bearings, and mechanisms.

We carry a lot of tools with us, but we did not anticipate the 300+ screws of 10 different types, from M8 hex bolts, to M2 pozi’s, and M3 Torx drives. We were laughed at by the guys working on the Land Rover, with their 10mm spanners and a single screwdriver. Tonight we’ll attempt the recovery, without wrongly sized screwdrivers, and see if we can get this thing back in the sky for the trip home.

It’s been an interesting day, full of engineering, personal, and team challenges. We’ve succeeded in getting our objectives done, but we’ve learned a lot today about how to make BRCK products world beating in our part of the world. Why do we use technology designed in New York and London and Shenzhen for problems in Nairobi and New Delhi… and Shimoni?

This BRCK expedition to Pemba has been two years in the making, and in that time my mind has often considered what it would be like for me to come back to this place. When we left over three years ago, it truly was in a blaze of glory.

After accepting a new job in Nairobi, we took a final four weeks on the island to pack up and say goodbye, and somehow that last month seemed like a final Good Riddance from Pemba to us, and the same in return. The transformer in our village blew out, and spares from the Zanzibar electrical company were just not coming. Those hot and difficult weeks were spent running a small Honda generator day and night for power, dripping as we packed and planned. That time-frame saw me arrested by a colleague in order to settle a debt between him and hotelier, a deal which I had negotiated and left them to resolve.

That stressful dispute finally settled, just a few hours from our departure, and us still sweaty from the many trips to and from our house and the port to pack all of our belongings intro trucks, followed by boats, the brakes on my Land Rover seized on the road to my workshop where I was headed for one final goodbye, and I rolled in with the front hub in flames. With the car still on fire, I rushed into the workshop, and grabbed the fire extinguisher, which I hadn’t needed in our five years of life in Pemba, and extinguished our faithful Landy, realizing I’d have to abandon the car for good, still smoldering, and to sweat it out – perhaps forever – in our wake.

I wished good friends farewell, but the island had sent me off in a bitter fashion. First to the seaport to send all our worldly goods to a new life and new adventure, I boarded a plane for the same, and with all the hassles behind me, I was glad to be leaving for sure.

At the port, I remember remarking that this was the last time I’d transport four truckloads of luggage between the port of Wete, Pemba and the port of Shimoni, Kenya. Last Sunday however, after nearly 11 hours on the road to get from Chyulu Hills to Simoni, I found myself packing up yet another jahazi, this time in reverse, heading from Shimoni to Wete. After five years of transporting furniture from Pemba to customers in Nairobi, the process of moving people and cargo through the port was well known. Three years later, I knew the system hadn’t changed, but thought maybe some of the people had.

After introductions and declaring the intent of our journey to the immigration officials in Shimoni, we began the arduous process of stamping passports and collecting paperwork for the onward journey. We had to clear with the Kenya police, the marine police, the customs officials, and the revenue authority. One clearance document seemed to be slipping from our grasp. After waking the relevant officials in KRA, we were informed that the form C32, used for importing/exporting vehicles over the border, had never been used in Shimoni before. In a port that dealt with seagoing cargo, a registered Kenyan car or motorcycle had never been taken through the port.

We were told they could order the forms from Lunga Lunga, about an hour’s drive to the Tanzanian border, but with it already being 10 PM, it wouldn’t arrive until Monday. We weren’t to be dissuaded or disheartened. A long, winding journey to wake up the owner of the only cyber café/print shop in town allowed us to download the proper form from the internet, print off four copies; two for us and two in case some other foolhardy souls decide to follow in our footsteps in the future.

After finishing the passenger manifest and submitting it to the maritime police, the ship captain, Hamadi, and I started the negotiations for the trip. After realizing that they hadn’t brought the size boat we had ordered (jahazis are slightly smaller, wooden sailboats than the much larger Mashua we had been hoping for) and after seeing how much space the kit of a film crew, 16 people, and two motorcycles can take up, we both agreed we were going to need more room or a bigger boat.

The perpetual hassle of trips like these are not without a spot of luck from time to time. Another ship captain who was loading coconuts into his boat at the time was headed to another port on the northern tip of Pemba. After 20 minutes of haggling back and forth we came to an agreement and two motorcycles and eight of our passengers would ride with them, and we would sail together to the port of Vumawimbi.

At 1:30 AM, only about 30 minutes behind schedule, all 16 people, two motorcycles, and all the camera bags, tents, food, and personal luggage were loaded, and we weighed anchor and set off for Pemba. After rounding Wasini island, the small landform off Shimoni, we headed out into the open ocean, navigating by the stars, south to Pemba. About two hours into the journey, the dim, pulsating light of the Kigomasha lighthouse began to shine in the distance. Reassuringly beckoning us to our destination across the channel, from the top of a 120-year-old rickety steel structure, where two days from now we will put in a PicoBRCK weather station to collect weather data from the area.

We pulled into Msuka Bay and into the calm waters and white sands of a quiet Vumawimbi Beach just before sunrise, to find our daladala waiting in the shade of an old muarobaini tree. At 6 AM, the reunions began. Our driver was an old friend of mine that had driven ox carts and lorries to my shop many times during our time in Pemba, bringing trunks and logs to the sawmill, and hauling away finished products to ship to customers, wherever they may be.

After the boats were unloaded (no small feat!) we headed off to Wete by road to clear customs and immigration properly, and to make our ‘official’ arrival into Tanzania. After nearly 24 hours on the road from Chyulu to Wete, we finally dropped our bags at a friend’s house, and dropped the Good All Over crew at the guest house where they’d be staying. Having missed a whole night of sleep, everyone set about getting a little bit of rest – much needed for the saddle-sore motorcyclists and those with knots in their backs from five hours of shifting and straining to get comfortable on bags of coconuts.

A few hours of shut-eye/siesta and recharge, and then up again to tackle the next few days of testing BRCK product in another logistically challenging locale, this time with the waters of the Indian Ocean surrounding us on all sides.

Coming back to Pemba has been like coming home. This time, though, with new eyes, all that is challenging feels like an opportunity. All that is hard rings as worthwhile. My life has had its seasons. I have seen ease and difficulty as it ebbed and flowed. The tide, which inevitably goes out, also comes in again. This time, it brought me with it, and it’s wonderful to be back.

When you hear about breakfast at Mukururo base near Amboseli, what do you think it looks like? Some hyenas eating a lion’s leftovers? Well… I would also think the same, but on 4th November, the view right outside the camp was breathtaking for the team and I bet even the hyenas would agree with me. The sunrise view is one of a kind that reveals the beauty of the African landscape.

This is the second day for us in Mukururo and we have the privilege of setting up a Moja for Big Life at the conservancy. Moja is a product of BRCK which allows users to access free internet through a SupaBRCK. The SupaBRCK is a rugged router, which is waterproof, dust proof, and so strong that you can drive a Land Rover over it several times without breaking it. Yet it is beautifully designed, giving it a superior look with the metal casing making it stand out even in the wild. If the SupaBRCK was human, it would qualify to be a bodybuilder.

We start by preparing pancakes for breakfast right outside the camp using my own Mhogo Foods Cassava flour (a company I run) which is a gluten-free and grain-free flour and the best replacement for wheat. As Ruth and I cooked the pancakes, everyone in the team enjoyed every bite and I realized that their faces are brighter and hangovers are gone. There is something about cooking in the wild that makes you want to stay there and eat till you drop. The antelopes and zebras are just staring at us and I am sure they secretly wish that we could get them a tent and give them some of the pancakes.

After breakfast, we head out to the ranger’s base to set up Moja, with an antenna mounted on the rooftop so as to make sure that the rangers and their visitors access free internet at a wide range. Even before we finish securing the antenna, some rangers are busy enjoying the cached content, while others are enjoying free internet provided by Moja Free Wifi. We train them on how to use the device (which most of them already know) and have lengthy chats with them.

Around 2PM and we head out for a game drive right after having our lunch. The rough and beautiful landscape makes you want to stop after every few meters and take a photo or even get out of the Land Rover and breathe. We finally get to this beautiful view of Kilimanjaro, where we make toast and enjoy our sundowners. When we started the expedition, I thought that we were all going to die… But so far, I have enjoyed every bit of the expedition and I can’t wait to see what is in store for tomorrow.

I love BRCK Expeditions! I love the intensity, the camaraderie, and – above all – I love the adventure. You never know what is going to happen on a BRCK Expedition and that is what makes them so great.

It’s been a couple years since my last BRCK Expedition, which was our overland journey to South Africa. As a company we’ve spent this time being heads down working on building a business model for giving away internet access for free. It’s a platform we call Moja (which means ‘one’ in Kiswahili). Built on the foundation of our amazing new SupaBRCK, this infrastructure platform brings connectivity to the most remote places and provides an economic model for users who otherwise couldn’t afford connectivity access to the full internet – and a bunch of great content as well.

The Pemba crew heading along the Tanzanian border

For Expedition Pemba, we decided to travel from Nairobi to the northern island of Zanzibar to deploy some Mojas and do some IoT testing. Our Director of Operations, Reid, spent many years on Pemba and he knows the people and community well. This expedition will involve our usual collection of vehicles and a lengthy dhow ride (a Swahili boat) to the island. It’s only a 10-day trip and we were all feeling it might be just a little too “easy”. Early in the planning stage, Erik received a call from a TV producer named Craig Martin. Craig and his co-host Earl Bridges both grew up in Thailand and now they travel the world capturing the stories of people endeavoring to do good in the world for their program called Good All Over (goodallover.tv). We all watched the trailer and thought that it would be fun to have a couple of TCK’s (third-culture kids, like some of us) join us with their cameras. We put out the call to the BRCK team for volunteers and quickly had a crew of 10 ready for adventure. When we were about two months out from the trip, Craig casually mentioned that they were bringing an entire film crew with them who would need to join us at every step along the way. We went from 10 to 18 people overnight. Our Pemba Expedition suddenly was no longer going to be easy.

The hosts of Good All Over with Reid and Philip

This is my fourth expedition and I have ridden a different motorcycle each time. This year, I am on my KTM Adventure 990. A revered adventure bike with off-road credibility. While the bike is extremely capable, it is also very heavy. Everything was going well on our first day of riding along the Tanzanian border heading towards the ranger station where we were going to setup a Moja unit. As we headed into the Chyulu Hills for the last 30km, the rain we had been nervously watching on the horizon started to fall on us. Fortunately, the direct rain was light but the effects on the road ahead were considerable. As we pushed our way through the volcanic soil and rocks, the track grew more and more slick. I laid the big bike down in a pocket of volcanic dust and fortunately jumped off before it hit the ground. Erik helped me right it and we headed off again. Not 1km further down the road, the rut that I was riding in pushed me into a mound of dirt. The heavy bike fell sideways against my leg and Erik, once again, gave the bike a tug to straighten it and we continued. About 3km before our camp, the road had become quite slippery. Coming out of a corner my back end came around and I – by pure blind luck – spun the bike 180 degrees without going down. Erik applauded the pirouette and, as we pulled into camp, Erik commented that the afternoon ride was like watching a man wrestle a buffalo. This expedition is going to be a bit of a buffalo wrestle for the BRCK team. Having eight extra people who aren’t used to Africa, don’t understand our corporate culture, and who have their own priorities that don’t necessarily align with our own, will make this a truly unique trip. It will be great to share our beautiful home and to expose these professionals to the chaos of Africa. Even in the first day, it is obvious that this is going to be an eye opening trip for for the Good All Over team.

Philip wrestling his motorcycle in the mud

The late afternoon rain in the Chyulu also brought us an exceptional rainbow. The light cast as the sun set was as stunning as I’ve ever seen. Everything bathed in the light took on a glow of special significance. Even the Maasai cattle – who generally look somewhat scruffy and pathetic – were picture perfect for a Swiss dairy poster. We were all chomping at the bit to stop and take pictures but the sun was setting, the ground was wet, and we still needed to setup camp. Plus, the film crew does not exactly stop and take pictures quickly. Chasing the rainbow of having a dry camp on our first night, with storm clouds and water columns all around us, seemed an impossible wish. With every turn we would align with another distant downpour and keep pushing. As with our first night in Malawi on Expedition South Africa, at the very last minute we turned into the last spot of clear sky. We arrived at camp as the last rays faded and by 9pm the tents were pitched, our bellies were full with Rinnie’s Famous Chili (a BRCK tradition), and we called it a night in our dry camp. Once again we had achieved the impossible in spite of the challenges around us. Moja is one of those ideas that is going to require the same level of good fortune and indeterminate persistence. The idea of giving internet away for free to customers that can’t afford to pay and still make a profitable business is another rainbow that is worth chasing.

The rainbow that led us to camp on the first night

Expedition Pemba is just starting to unfold keep up with us on our journey at #BRCKExpedition and the Good All Over team at #GoodAllOverTakesKenya

Being my first time to travel to Samburu, I found it quite exciting getting ready for the trip. We left for Kiltamani Primary School with a fellowship of five: Robert, Eduardo, Sheila, Duncan and I. The Kalama Conservancy is about 400 kilometers away from Nairobi therefore the long journey was expected.

Our windows are rolled all the way down. The breeze loosens my hijab and kisses my hair. We are listening to Tracy Chapman with the volume turned up. Every line is a message written just for us and we hum to the tune of the beat. The car sighs,it’s engine tickling with relief. We’ll have sunburn then fevers. We can’t wait to get to Kiltamany.

At Nanyuki, on our way to Kiltamany

We arrive at  the school quite late, but not late enough to set up camp. Edoardo helps Loussa and I with setting up our tents, cool house music plays in the background. As Duncan is telling stories I kick my shoes off and unfold my legs in the bare sand. I see a scorpion and put my shoes back on.

Where the scorpions are

The next day half the team set off to Korr for a day’s refresher training while we trained the new teachers at Kiltamany on how to use the Kio Kit. It was and still is a learning experience.

Lousa teaching the head teacher how to use the Broadcast feature.

After a day’s hard work we gather and tell stories and laugh. Our laughter did not build softly but exploded, filling the smoky air and spilling it out into the dark.

The next morning as we prepare to go home, I can’t help but feel honored to be part of this great experience: to enhance our education system for the better.

The car fills with wind, so pushy and loud my hair whips against my neck and I can’t hear the music anymore. I turn and look at Lousa and she is fast asleep. Edoardo is singing, Robert’s eyes glued to the road and Duncan trying to read a book.

2016 proved to be a busy year at BRCK, after we announced our funding round. We started off by getting into our new office, upgrading from the small room we’d used for the previous two years.

There was a blur of events, with some of us speaking at WEF, TED, ITU, and many others. A number of visitors came through, the biggest being Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg.

We had the good fortune to win a number of awards by the year’s close as well:

• Fast Company’s 2016 Innovation by Design Awards
• Sustainia Top 100 2016
• AfricaCom: Best Pan-African Initiative 2016
• ITU: Global SME Award 2016
• African Entrepreneurship Award 2016 Finalist

The real work we do is focused on what our customers need, and we figure that out in two ways. First, we spend a lot of time with them. Second, is we do quite a bit of internal testing, as can be seen from the expedition to Mt. Kenya, testing out some new sensor connectivity products.

Some of this work is done just because it’s good to do, as Juliana and Rufus continued to support the Africa Cancer Foundation work, going all over the country to bring connectivity in their efforts to help with cancer screening.

We get very close and spend a lot of time with the people using our products. The Kio Kit, our education solution has been doing well, but we always strive to make it better. Mark, Alex and Nivi lead much of this work as they visited schools, spending time with teachers and students from Malawi to Tanzania, as well as here in Kenya with our trip to Samburu, spending 7 days with Kiltamany Primary School and working with one of our partners, Liquid Telecom to speed up their overall network (see video below).

Liquid Telecom delivers internet to pupils at remote Kenya primary school from Liquid Telecom Group on Vimeo.

Other partnerships have continued to grow. Intel has become a great partner, where we work with both their chip and education teams on multiple products and projects. The same applies to our local partners in Upande, who we’ve teamed up to do quite a bit of intense water sensor work in a county in Kenya. New partners this year include; Swissport, Illuminum Greenhouses, Norwegian Refugee Council, Close the Gap International, BookAid, and Paygo Energy.

Stuff we make

Kio Kit now in 11 countries
We started shipping the Kio Kit in the beginning of the year. After getting the kits out to a few customers in some pretty hard to reach areas, we realized we needed to harden the case to manage the rough transport that is required to get it to its destination. The hardware and software teams continued to improve both, culminating in what we feel is the best holistic education solution on the market.

Kio Kit to be used to scale up a rapid response to educational needs in emergencies. In partnership with the Norwegian Refugee Council, youth and out of school children in Dadaab refugee camp will use the Kio Kit to improve their literacy and reading skills in English and Somali.

Our customers agree. Not only have they been back for repeat orders, but we’ve shipped Kio Kits to 11 countries around the world – stretching from the Solomon Islands to Mexico, and of course here in East and Southern Africa.

BRCK v1 goes end of life
As we get ready for the next generation of BRCK hardware, we decided to stop orders on the old BRCK hardware. Since the end of 2015 the team has been pushing hard on the next generation core device, using all of the lessons we’ve learned from both the original BRCK and the Kio Kit. The new BRCK will be an enterprise-grade device, more details in the new year.

R&D – continuing the innovation cycle
It turns out that there are a number of companies across Africa who badly need an IoT solution that works in our environment. Something reliable and inexpensive that can connect information from their valuable equipment and assets to the people who make decisions.

The original BRCK box states, “connectivity for people and things”, and what we found out is that the BRCK v1 might technically be able to do some IoT work, but it wasn’t the right device for it. 2016 has seen us go through the early stages of our new PicoBRCK device, an answer to the rugged IoT needs across Africa’s enterprises. While still in development, we expect a final product in 2017.

2017: The Year Ahead

Expect two new products this year from BRCK, as mentioned above. A lot of the hard work put in by the hardware, software, and design teams in 2016 will bear fruit this year as we get to final productization and are able to scale out for customer orders. Much of the effort from the BRCK team will be spent on finalizing and shipping these products, while also supporting and growing the base for Kio Kit.

On the business side of the house, we’re ramping up our supply chain to manage the increasing demand for all products. We’ll continue to extend beyond Kenya into other interesting markets, which always includes East African countries, and many Southern African ones as well. We also have a few surprises up our sleeves which we can’t talk about in public quite yet. 🙂

A huge thank you to our partners who we’re doing so much work with, and of course our families who are such a great support in the ups-and-downs of a young company’s life. A big thanks to our friends at Ushahidi, the iHub, Gearbox and Akirachix who make life in the Nairobi tech ecosystem such a wonderful experience. My biggest thank you goes out to the BRCK team, the ones who you don’t see on stage and who sometimes clock crazy hours to solve problems, run spreadsheets, create new designs, think up new ideas, and who code, solder and respond to our customers day in and day out.