I got my first motorcycle when I was 16 and started to ride the streets of Nairobi.  Fortunately, we had fewer cars on the road back in the early ‘90s. I started to understand the way to see and think when dealing with the odd assortment of experiences you face on Kenyan streets.  Today, I still ride my piki piki (“motorcycle” in Kiswahili) to work each day, and I’ve also been fortunate enough to take it to some far flung parts of the continent. During my daily commute, I started thinking about the business lessons I’ve learned from riding my motorcycle in Nairobi.  Each week, I talk to the 100-person strong BRCK team and decided I wanted to share these lessons with them. Here they are.

1. When going at speed, focus. Filter out everything else.

This, like many of the lessons, are not just for Nairobi rides but for everyone who is on a bike.  The first point here is to stay hyper-focused, and not let your mind wander.  The second is to learn to “see” everything so that you have situational awareness, but only watch what’s important.  

The business analogy is the same. When we’re really hitting our stride, or when things are moving faster than we can control (hello Coronavirus), then it’s incredibly important for me to know what I’m focusing on and not to try to do everything.  The same holds true for every person in the company; have a tight understanding of what you need to spend your time on so that we don’t waste energy, resources, and time on things that aren’t going to move the needle for the business. 

2. Deal with what you have, not what you wish you had.

I remember riding down one of Nairobi’s new bypasses – two lanes each way, with a divider in the middle – going around a long corner and finding a car driving the wrong way down the road directly towards me.  This isn’t abnormal. Shoot, I’ve got stories of U-turns on three-lane highways, pedestrians doing odd things, cows suddenly appearing (or camels, or sheep, or goats – you get the idea).  It’s part of what you have to learn to deal with. 

Running a company is much the same.  You’re pleasantly building your platform, doing sales or marketing, talking to investors, creating a solution for your primary user, and then something happens that you’re not expecting. 

I happened to be in San Francisco when the US banned travel from Europe. I was on my way to another tech CEO’s house for dinner.  When I arrived, we looked at each other and stated that raising capital just got 100% harder than it had been just a few minutes before.  You still have to find the capital to grow your company, but now you have to do it in a different way.  The truck hurtling down the road in the opposite direction just waylaid your plans. You either bail and find yourself in a ditch by the side of the road, or you swerve and find a new path, madly holding on to the handlebars and keeping the bike upright. 

3. It’s not about speed, but efficiency.

When people see you riding a motorcycle in Nairobi they think you’re driving fast. Sometimes you do when on the big highways, but mostly you’re just putt-putting along in first gear as everyone else is stuck in standstill traffic.  Riding a motorcycle in Kenya isn’t about speed, that’s what gets you in trouble (revisit my last point to see why), it’s about efficiency of consistent movement.  When everyone else is stopped, I can keep going.  My commute each day in a car would be approximately one hour each way, on a motorcycle it’s 20 minutes. 

There are times running a company where you are in a speed moment. We’ll find an opportunity with our customers that we need to act on now to clinch a win.  That’s great, and when those happen we have to sprint to get there.  No company can survive doing that all the time, though. So instead, we design for efficiency – for making sure we have constant forward movement and not being bothered that we can’t go fast all of the time. 

I think about how we rolled out our Moja Network across Kenya’s public transportation system over the last two years.  The first few months, when things were on a tight deadline and we were dealing with all kinds of issues, it was an all-hands-on-deck sprint.  Then we were able to gear down, continue growing the network, put in standard operating procedures, and build processes.  This network team today does an amazing job of being efficient and effective without tiring themselves out in a constant speed battle.   

4. Don’t get comfortable.

I remember jumping onto my motorcycle, and taking a friend for a lift down Ngong Road just outside my office.  One lane wasn’t moving at all, and the other oncoming lane was completely empty (back when it was just two single lanes).  As we’re moving along slowly passing a bus, a guy blindly walks out in front of the bus directly into our path.  I slam the breaks and swerve away from him.  He double-takes, his eyes get as big as saucers, and he jumps forward…!  By this time I’m riding forward up onto my tank as I hit the brakes hard, and my passenger is shoving me forward too. The pedestrian smacks my handlebars and my wheel goes sideways – the bike leans over and drops (my passenger and I were on our feet and didn’t go down with it) – then the pedestrian leaps up and sprints away.  Nothing broken on the bike or person, but we’d just gone from comfortable to shock in about two seconds.

At BRCK we created the Kio Kit, which I still think is the best and most holistic solution for bringing digital education to places that have never had it.  It was truly innovative and we were happy and comfortable with just how good it was.  While we basked in that, we crashed into the slow turnaround time for decisions in the education sector.  We had this great product, but the sales funnel was so long, and the cost of holding inventory was so high, that we just couldn’t make it work.  After two years of pushing it, and getting independent longitudinal studies of how it improved learning outcomes, we had to put the Kio Kit aside and focus on something else. 

5. You can’t complain about the rain.

This is a short and simple one.  If you buy a motorcycle, you know it will rain and you’ll get wet.  Don’t buy a motorcycle and then complain when it rains, like it’s some great surprise to you. 

In business we know there are going to be things that are uncomfortable to deal with.  You’ll have to fire people.  A new feature won’t quite do what you thought it would do.  A partner lets you down, or a company you relied on just isn’t there any longer.  This is business, this is entrepreneurship.  Don’t complain about it, you know it will happen. Instead, get to work and find a way to deal with it.  However, like a motorcycle in the rain, you can plan.  Get insurance, save cash for that rainy day – in other words, carry your company’s equivalent of a rain jacket. 

These lessons from riding a motorcycle often came to mind during my commute. I kept forgetting them by the time I reached my destination, so I  soon found myself pulling over onto the side of the road to scribble them down. As an innovator and an entrepreneur, things can feel uncertain even in the most ordinary seasons. It’s important to make sure we remember what we’ve learned along the way. 

Future thinking is a challenging exercise even in the most stable of times.  What is going to be important to society in 10 years? Imagine being the gig-economy visioneers like Uber and Airbnb getting sneered at back in 2010.  On the scary side, think of what it must be like to be an oil-dependent economy today in this new world of too much oil, drastically reduced travel, and widespread acceptance of electric cars.  What other commodities or services that we take for granted are no longer going to be valuable on the global markets 10 years from now? 

In uncertain times like these, the challenge is even more perilous.  Who knows whether Uber or Airbnb will even survive to the end of this year?  What other giants of industry will succumb to the virus that has affected our economy as much as our health?

But in times of great instability also come great opportunities. 

Some of the famous companies that saw new possibilities and started businesses in the midst of global recessions include GE, GM, IBM, Disney, HP, Hyatt, Trader Joe’s, and Microsoft.  

For those of you who have video game addicted kids like I do, the venerable Electronic Arts (look for the EA logo on their games) started in the early 1980s during the recession that followed the ‘79 oil crisis.  Trip Hawkins was an incredibly astute futurist for envisioning that video games would move from arcades into homes.  The year he formed EA saw the arcade video game industry — think coin-operated Pac-Man machines — peak at $8B and begin its rapid decline into a novelty.  The home video game market has now grown into a $120B industry and is thriving in the time of COVID.

So what does future thinking look like for a small connectivity company in Nairobi, Kenya? 

On one hand, we are seeing an increase in demand for connectivity now that people are either out of work or in lockdown.  Unfortunately, our network is currently primarily located on public transportation and in public spaces.  Neither of these are ideal areas for connectivity when social distancing is strictly enforced.  There is a lot of thinking about how we might extend the reach of our signal beyond public spaces into more homes and shops.  Some of these thoughts are pretty tactical, like adding more access points; others are applying more creative uses of technology, such as mesh networking – we are BRCK after all.

But the real future thinking happens when we start to look at the possible new products and services that we can enable from our connectivity platform.  The issues for yesterday were getting access to digital content and entertainment; the issues for tomorrow are going to be food security, education, and jobs.  We have to shift our focus from being just an enabler of connectivity to being an enabler of informal retail, a rail line for supply chains, and a touch point for tele-medicine.  These are some of the most obvious extensions of Moja and they get closer to the heart of the challenge in our presently chaotic world.  We have to be able to ask ourselves “how do we help a duka owner sell more bags of unga (flour)?” or “how do we help an unemployed woman learn the job skills she needs to be globally competitive?”.

There is a weightiness to these questions that were always an underlying rhythm to our work at BRCK, but now they have become the melody, the verse, and the chorus.  

The great thing about the way that we think at BRCK is that we are a connectivity company that does not consider connectivity our end product.  It is just the byproduct of our effort to ensure every African has access to participate in the 21st-century digital economy.  

We always viewed Moja as an onramp for our users to access the digital products and services of both the local and global economies.  While that underlying view hasn’t changed, we are in the process of rethinking how we can extend our value to players in various ecosystems that need to access and interact with our population, even when they are thousands of miles away.  Much like Trip Hawkins saw a seemingly unbelievable future that kids would one day sit at home and have access to thousands of video games, we see a future where every African — and ultimately everyone on earth — is able to be remotely connected to the economy, their government, their doctor, their teacher, and their local vegetable vendor without having to decide if they should spend their limited financial resources on internet bundles or food.  

Future thinking may be a challenging exercise but it is an absolute life-sustaining necessity. 

The world we knew yesterday will not be the world that our kids know tomorrow.  Things that were important before will be suddenly overshadowed by things that were previously taken for granted.  Those of us who find a path through this devastation need to do everything we can to help fill in the gap for those products and services that won’t survive.  I don’t know for certain if BRCK will survive to the end of the year but I believe that we will.  I also believe that we can make a deeper and broader impact into the lives of our users in Kenya, Rwanda, and beyond. 

If your business — whether supply chain, retail, health care, education, or anything else — depends upon connectivity to reach your users, please contact us and let’s see how we can work together to rebuild our economy and achieve sustainable resiliency in our community.

BRCK’s field team plays an essential role in keeping Moja WiFi up and running and our customers happy and online. On most days, we’re spread out across different cities and towns, providing maintenance to our equipment in matatus and at fixed sites. We are continuously problem solving as unexpected challenges arise. We are used to workdays full of variety, personal interactions, and enjoy the buzz and energy in the field. It keeps us fit, energetic, and cheerful. But working in the field during Coronavirus means that things have looked a little different lately. 

The field team prior to the restrictions.

COVID-19 in Kenya

Kenya announced its first case of COVID-19 on 12th March, several months after the beginning of the outbreak in China. We had to first internalise the whole situation and strategize a way forward for field operations. Being on the frontlines, where our daily routines involve interacting with people, there were quite a few things to consider.

Before the pandemic, our operations included daily visits to fixed and mobile spots, with one-on-one interactions with drivers, agents, and users. Field techs would move freely in town, fixing and maintaining WiFi devices. At lunch hour, we would meet up at our favourite joint while planning out the rest of the day. This free movement gave us the flexibility to repair equipment and address issues as they arose. Overnight, this had to change immediately to prevent the possible spread of the virus. 

Safety Measures

At this point, in line with government regulations, field operations are continuing – but with some significant changes. To flatten the curve, we are taking the following measures:

• Practising social distancing. To avoid the use of public transport, one person picks each tech from their homes and also practises caution while in the vehicle. When off duty, we stay at home. We avoid crowded areas and only operate in designated areas with minimal interference where we can observe social distancing. On the mobile network, we no longer move to bus stops and stages. Instead, we contact the individual drivers and meet at identified parking areas that are not crowded.
  

• Cleaning frequently touched surfaces and objects.  We use disinfectants to clean hand tools and equipment used on site. Prior to touching any agent-owned or site infrastructure, we spray or wipe down using a disinfectant. Regularly washing our overalls and dust coats, we make sure our work vehicles are kept clean and well ventilated. We regularly clean the commonly touched surfaces with a disinfectant.

• Practising hand hygiene by thoroughly washing hands using soap and water and/or using a hand sanitizer regularly, especially after maintenance at a site or a matatu.  
• Wearing protective gear such as gloves, face masks, and safety glasses.
  
• Using good judgement. This includes avoiding the sharing of phones or other work tools and equipment, reminding others on the precautions to flatten the curve, and observing the government curfew.

Impacts of the Pandemic

With the outbreak of the pandemic came unexpected challenges. With reduced numbers of commuters in and out of town, some matatus have been parked, making accessing for maintenance difficult. The government has also placed restrictions limiting our movements, particularly for night maintenance. 

On the fixed network, we have to factor in the 7 pm curfew when we plan assignments and travel routines. Planning tech visits also needs more coordination with agents, as some of their operating hours are now irregular and unpredictable. Additionally, since the government has imposed a 50% limit to passengers in private vehicles, the field guys have to work in shifts because our vehicles cannot carry the maximum number of people required for the job in a day.

Some Silver Lining

With the pandemic also came some positive trends. On the maintenance front, field engineers find it easier to maintain equipment, as clients and drivers are more cooperative. The WiFi fights boredom during this time of social distancing and there is less interference by people during servicing. Users have continued to interact with the network, even though the mobile network activity has reduced due to less travel. Video conferencing has also brought a new experience to the field team, as technicians from Kigali, Mombasa, and Kisumu are now able to participate in our weekly company-wide team meetings.

Looking Ahead

The coming weeks and months will continue to bring new situations. We will need to think creatively and adapt to changing circumstances. With the majority of our work out in public spaces, our highest priority is ensuring we continue to work safely. As people spend more time indoors, we believe the requirements and demands on the fixed network will grow, so we must do what we can now to fill the gaps and tap into new opportunities. The COVID-19 situation requires us to provide a reliable and consistent service, pay attention to our customers’ needs, and use our network to address some crucial gaps in the neediest communities. In these times of unpredictability and fear of the unknown, especially for those with fewer resources at hand, Moja plays a massive role to reduce the barriers to connectivity and affordability and making an impact to peoples lives. 

As we continue working in the field during Coronavirus, our hope is that a vaccine is found very soon and the economic situation returns to normal. Until then, we will do our part to stop the spread of the virus while we continue expanding our network. 

(Part 1 here)

I’ve argued before, alongside others, that the main inhibitor of ubiquitous and perpetual internet connectivity at a global level isn’t a technology problem, it’s a business model problem. Mostly the tech exists to put the signal everywhere. What we overlook when we say this is, that while that is true, it’s unsavory to point out that many of “those users” are not valuable – that the population covered won’t make a good return on business investment. So, even if you covered the initial cost of the equipment outlay in those areas with subsidized government funds, without a proper business model to support the ongoing operations of running the network, then the ROI would be weak and maybe even negative.

A low cost tower set up in rural Africa

The unspoken technology issue

Many of the incumbent ISPs and mobile operators have sunk too many resources into legacy technology, and then subsequently outsourced their technical capacity and platform knowledge to foreign firms. This leaves them in an unfavorable position when it comes to new technology that would decrease the cost of rollout by up to 90%, or of taking advantage of how software is changing the way networks work. Due to heavy GSM investment, the industry thinks it best to switch those from 2G/EDGE to 3G. This misses the mark, though. It’s iterative change driven by sunk costs, ignoring the fact that we’re moving to a data-only network world. GSM is a dead man walking. IP networks are the future.

It’s not just me saying this. Two years ago Deloitte was saying,

“African MNOs should create business models around smartphone users and brace for the rise of the data exclusives and data centric phone users.”

This then provides the opportunity. This is the time to bring new networks without legacy business or technology paradigms, and the ability to apply web-scale economics to the network itself, backstopped by new open software stacks and business models that don’t rely solely on end-user payment.

Fortunately, at BRCK we’ve been able to find great investors and strategic partners who see this bigger picture and understand the investments needed to make change happen in this connectivity industry of ours. BRCK, alongside some other firms, are on the forefront of changes happening across all types of data pipes, at the infrastructure level all the way through to the retail side – for both people and things. And as we start running the numbers it becomes increasingly clear just how big of an opportunity this actually represents. It only helps that many incumbents are stuck in aged technology stacks and legacy business models, so the window for positive change is here and profits are substantial.

East Africa Railways train

A new railroad

I tend to think of what we do in the connectivity space as similar to our forebearers building railroads, making it easier, faster, and more efficient to move data and connect far-flung parts of the world. The 1990s brought us the rebels in the form of scrappy upstart mobile operators and ISPs, they were real cowboys and renegades then! Inspiring leaders, courageously trying everything from pre-paid credit models in Africa, to thinking of mobile credit as cash, to digging the first fibre cables into the hard parts of the continent. Regrettably, these cowboys have handed the reins over to our modern day robber barons, sitting fat and happy on their oligopolies (or monopolies), and making damn sure that no one else has a chance to build something better if they can help it.

I like to think that at BRCK we are building the new connectivity railroads. The tip of the spear for us is unlicensed spectrum, where we take advantage of the ability to roll out public WiFi hotspots without much in the way of regulatory or political hurdles. We layer this with a free consumer business model, so that anyone who can get that signal can connect and take advantage of the whole internet. The underlying economics of the Moja platform are built around the idea of a digital economy. Businesses create engagement tasks that users can complete to earn value within the system. Users then spend their value on faster connectivity, premium content, or additional services. The flow of value into and out of the Moja platform creates the monetary value necessary to profitably run the network.

This is just the BRCK model, though, and as I sit on some global boards and in meetings, I hear of the others trying their new models as well. New technology stacks, driven primarily by open source software (and some key open source hardware plays), are a big part of the significant decrease in the cost profile (both CapEx and OpEx). But again, the business models… this is where we see the real changes coming and I’m excited to have a front row seat.

As these new railroads are built, by us and others, there lies such great opportunity for economic growth, social development, and business profit.

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.

This past weekend, we were invited by the Africa Cancer Foundation for a health camp at Sinai in Viwandani, near Doonholm Estate.

Unlike the last screening, this one was more holistic, incorporating dental and blood-sugar, weight and height checkups and HIV tests, all for free!

BRCK provided the connectivity to transmit patient data to their cloud database, just like the last time. It is a very simple thing – being able to get online, access, and transfer data (and update social media pages) – but technology does not have to be complicated.

Pictures tell a better story, so here you go!

Registration

Weight and height measurements

Blood-Sugar Test Station

BRCK co-founder Juliana Rotich taking one of the volunteers through the connection process

And we have lift-off! Data sent!

We also had BRCKs in the screening areas

A mobile ODT (optical detection technology) machine using a BRCK to send images and other screening information

If you would like to become a volunteer for the Africa Cancer Foundation, go to this page. To keep up-to-date with the organization, follow them on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

You can also follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. If you would like to become part of initiatives such as this, visit BRCK.org and send us and email.

Two weeks ago our CEO Erik Hersman was invited by the Economist to speak on a panel about digital ecosystems at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

A short video was created with soundbites from the event.

The discussion was chaired by Matthew Bishop, Editorial Director, New Initiatives, at The Economist between the President of the Republic of Estonia, Toomas Hendrik Ilves, Chief Executive Officer of CA Technologies, Michael Gregoire, the Chairman of Cisco Systems, John Chambers, the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of the TradeUp Capital Fund and Nextrade Group, Kati Suominen and the Chief Executive Officer of BRCK and Founder of iHub Nairobi, Erik Hersman.

2015 was a big year at BRCK, transitioning from designing, engineering and manufacturing a product to creating services that use the BRCK as an enabling device. The team itself grew from 9 people at the beginning of the year to the 40 people we have on staff today, and we expanded our offices (still in the iHub building) so we could finally fit everyone into a room.

To give an idea of what the company accomplished:

• Created 3 new hardware products; Kio tablet, Kio Kit, BRCK+Pi
• Built 3 new software products; Simiti ( our cloud-syncing CMS), CrisisStack, Kio OS
• Launched BRCK Education and are shortlisted for the Kenyan schools DLP project
• We’re well on our way to the second generation of BRCK software and hardware
• Raised $3m in investment

While the raising of the $3m capital is what this is about, it’s not the most important thing. Capital is a tool that helps us keep up our growth momentum so that the products and services we build can scale beyond what we could do organically alone. As I have learned, there are a few more complexities and more expenses when doing hardware, rather than just the software company background that I was used to. Over the last couple years we have been privileged to have some truly amazing investment partners and that has only continued with this most recent round of capital injection.

Steve and Jean Case were in our first round of investment, and after they visited Nairobi with President Obama in the summer of this year, they decided to reinvest. The same happened with our partners out of the UK, Synergy Energy. New investors are made up of some truly fantastic people that have a world of experience and connections in the worlds that we work in. For example, Jim Sorenson’s experience in building companies that scale, TED’s network and influence, MKS Alternative Investments brings us some fantastic manufacturing and network out of Europe and JP-IK has a world of experience in EdTech. We are truly honored to be working with them and appreciate their faith in us in growing BRCK.

The BRCK company will use these additional funds as we scale up production and distribution for BRCK Education products and services, and as we continue to build out the next generation of products for the company. There will be additional hires, primarily on the product teams (hardware/software), but also on the operations and business teams as we move forward. We’re looking for the best that Kenya has to offer.

The Press Release

Kenyan technology start up, BRCK, secures USD 3 million in funding from international investors

Nairobi, Kenya, 6 January, 2016: BRCK Inc, one of Africa’s most innovative startups, today announced that it has closed a Ksh 300 million (USD 3 million) funding round. This significant capital raise included investment from former AOL executives Jean and Steve Case, along with other participating international investors including Jim Sorenson, TED, MKS Alternative Investments, Synergy Energy and others. This amount is additional to the previous USD 1.2 million the company raised through seed funding last year.

Speaking on the equity injection, BRCK CEO Erik Hersman commented, “As a fairly young company based in Kenya, it’s incredible to have such a range of powerhouse investors backing us with their support. The investor interest we have received throughout the year has marked how far we’ve come from our Kickstarter and seed funding days. This new capital will catapult our efforts of improving the way information flows in the world.”

BRCK Ltd., founded in 2013, created the BRCK – a device seeking to solve problems of electricity and internet connections in low-infrastructure environments. Physically tough in design with smart technology and enough backup power to survive a blackout for 8-hours, the BRCK can provide failsafe internet connectivity in almost any situation.

Since the initial funding, BRCK Ltd. has evolved to sell the product in 54 countries across 5 continents and has also begun to revolutionise the Kenyan primary education system through the launch of BRCK Education with its flagship products, the Kio tablet and the Kio Kit – a digital classroom in a box. The new capital of USD 3 million will help expand the company’s operations, its ability to manufacture additional inventory, new designs of the devices and distribution across the continent and globally.

“As early investors in BRCK, we’ve had the benefit of observing first-hand the success the company has had in managing rapid yet sustainable growth as it fulfils its mission to keep Africans connected and drive the global digital revolution,” stated Jean Case, CEO of the Case Foundation. “We are excited to support BRCK as it enters its next phase of expansion, both improving and enhancing its product offerings uniquely suited to emerging market internet subscribers, and growing the company’s global footprint.”

Jessica Dick, Investment Manager for Synergy Energy said, “We are delighted to be participating in this round and to be supporting BRCK with the disruptive and inspiring work they are doing in technology and education”. Laurent Haig, partner at MKS Alternative Investments, followed up by saying, “At a time when education and information have never been so critical to the future of the world, connecting the 4 billion people that are not yet on the internet is a top priority. BRCK is taking on this challenge from a unique perspective, fuelled by deep knowledge of the realities of emerging countries’ infrastructure and users. We are proud to join this adventure, and work alongside the BRCK team to bring the benefits of information technologies to millions of people.”

The breadth of investor appeal was also highlighted at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit in Nairobi last year, when BRCK was one of the few companies that successfully secured funding at the event. Speaking on why BRCK stood out to him as a bankable business, world-renowned entrepreneur, business leader and societal innovator, Jim Sorenson commented, “BRCK’s roots are Kenyan, but its solutions know no borders. What the team offers is internet connectivity for the complex world we live in, and I’m excited to be a part of helping make that reality all the more possible.”

ENDS

About BRCK
BRCK is a hardware and services tech company based in Nairobi, Kenya. As the first company to pursue ground up design and engineering of consumer electronics in East Africa, it has developed a connectivity device also known as BRCK, which is designed to work in harsh environment where electricity is intermittent. BRCK can support up to 40 devices, has an 8-hour battery life when the power is out, and can jump from Ethernet, to WiFi, to 3G seamlessly. The initial BRCK units started shipping in July of 2014 and by February of 2015, thousands of BRCK’s had been sold to 54 countries around the world.

BRCK is a spin-off from the world acclaimed Ushahidi, a Kenyan technology company which builds open source software tools and which has received accolades for the impact that its creative and cutting-edge solutions are having around the world.

In August 2015, BRCK signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Kenyatta University that covers joint collaboration in the design and development of innovative technological solutions, research, advocacy and stakeholder engagements, content development and training and capacity building. Through the partnership, the two institutions will roll -out cutting edge digital solutions that will transform the way education is delivered.

A year ago, I coined a phrase that grounded my passion for human centered design and is the reason I wake up every morning. “Africa cannot afford un-contextualized design, the stakes are simply too high” never is this so true than in education.

One of the reasons I joined and love BRCK is because BRCK dares to go where others won’t. This week we’re in northern Kenya, a remote place with many challenges. Many don’t go to these extreme environments because of the geographical, social and economic constraints. However, we at BRCK hold a different point of view, that they matter and it makes both social and economic sense to design for the real Africa.

Mark Kamau taking quick notes as the teachers learn the Kio Kit

Tirrim Primary School is a good example. It is school in the desert, a long way up from Isiolo town, and has been the top primary school in testing in Marsabit County since 2008 sending their graduates to the most prestigious schools in the country. It is a charity school paid for by missionaries and has 620 pupils. Their dream, according to one of the teachers, is to become the “RVA (Erik’s former school) of the desert.” It is a lofty and worthy goal, especially considering people of Korr think on themselves as ‘Kenya B’ because of the sense of isolation and neglect of this desert folk feel from the rest of the country. Despite their limited access, these kids are expected to sit the same national exam and pitted against the same yardstick tablet wielding, smartphone trending students in Nairobi.

As a human centered designer with a passion for Africa, this is amazing territory. The Kio Kit sets out to answer a fundamental design question. ‘How can we convert any rural classroom into a digital classroom?’

In tackling this difficult challenge we made some assumption and learnt some lessons these are specific to this expedition.

1. CONTEXTUALIZED GUIDES

We set out to create guides for using the Kio Kit is English as it is the national language upon which all examinations are taken, but the role of local language in education, even when explaining technology is simply too effective to ignore. Today I observed a nuanced but interesting example. One teacher was trying to explain to a class of lower primary kids what the back button was on the tablet using conventional English and it took him a while to get them on board. Another said please click the “Khonjor” and all the students understood it immediately.

Some Rendille children on the Kio tablets

In the Rendille language Khonjor is a sickle, one the kids grow seeing their parents use for cutting plants. This shape allowed them to understand the reference as the blade points “back”. I also observed that even a few miles apart, the nuanced pronunciation of the same word meant the difference in understanding of things. While it is means more work, we have to contextualize the Kio Kit guides in localized videos.

2. COLLABORATIVE EXPERIENCES

With tablets, the idea is that students each get a tablet and are able to access content individually. In this construct, it is easy to diminish the importance of collaborative learning. The younger students are, the more they learn from observing and collaborating with each other. The content and games on the Kio Kit that we tested emphasized the need to have even more experiences in the Kio Kit that take advantage of this collaboration.

A teacher with the Kio tablet

2. AUTHORITY CHALLENGE

The typical construct of a normal Kenyan school is that the teacher has the authority, they dictate what happens in the classroom and assume leadership, responsibility and authority. The tablet presents a different paradigm because with the tablet in their hands, the students have more responsibility than listening and writing. They play a more active role in their own learning. Handling this shift is challenging to teachers and their usual classroom control skills don’t directly apply. We therefore need to invest more time on classroom management training with technology.

There are many more lessons we have learnt from technical centered challenges to human centered challenges that energize us as we ride back home to make the Kio Kit work even better. Most of all, interacting with people motivates us to want to do even better.

Yesterday, while staying with the Samburu near Kalama, I had the opportunity to ride into Archer’s Post with my new Samburu friend Mike. Mike has the distinction of being the seconds tallest Samburu and his size brings with it an equally warm disposition. We loaded in the Land Rover – with an old man from the village who just tagged along for a free ride to do his shopping – and headed across the sandy track that meanders some 20km back to the tarmac.

Tall Mike and myself with the village kids

As we bounced along I turned up the radio and Mr. Marley was singing about “One Love”. Mike asked me if I liked reggae, which I quickly confirmed. I asked him the same question and he said he did, particularly Alpha Blondy. I was shocked that he even knew who Alpha Blondy is and so I quickly switched to my Alpha collection. For those of you who don’t know Alpha Blondy – and it would seem that I have grossly underestimated his popularity – he is a reggae artist from Cote d’Ivoire. Having spent 4 years in Cote d’Ivoire for secondary school had given me a huge appreciation for Alpha Blondy and The Solar System. This was the local music of my youth and something that I and my friends hold dearly to as part of our heritage.

Here I was driving through a land that is completely unlike the terrain of West Africa listening the singing of ja man from a Mande tribe that is nothing like the Nilotic Samburu people who were hosting me. Their dress is different. Their customs are wildly different. Yet, here we were singing about political oppression as loud as we could to drown out the rumbling noise of the diesel engine. Mike starts to explain to me that the words of the song – which is partially sung in the Jula language – sound to him like they are talking about camels resting. He sings the lyrics and describes how he understands them in either Samburu or Swahili. Of course Alpha Blondy doesn’t sing about camels but Mike doesn’t care and it certainly won’t detract from his intense enjoyment of the music.

How is it that people from such differing backgrounds could so easily bond over the simple expression of ideas through music?

Music is not alone in providing such a practical cultural bridge. Technology has just as much potential to be a cultural equalizer. However, just like the mistranslated lyrics, technology is easily misunderstood as it transitions between cultures. A big part of our job at BRCK is to ensure that technology is well optimized to serve as an enabler for cultural exchange. We want to equip these children with the capacity and the skill set to be globally competitive. We are striving to use technology as a tool for enabling this realization. Some aspects of this task are easy – kids from every culture are captivated by animated lessons on handheld tablets. Others are far more difficult – getting the teacher to understand the distraction that comes from putting a long coveted gadget into the hands of students for the first time. We can’t just rework the equation to solve out the bad from the good – unfortunately it all comes in the same glossy, irresistible package.

Elders are elders

Our self-imposed mandate at BRCK is to be champions for culturally relevant technology. To invest ourselves in designing and building platforms and tools that transcend the boundaries of our differences to bring about a unity of purpose for educating children from every socioeconomic strata. This Expedition has been a powerful reminder of how essential the human-to-human connection is to make this happen. If we want to change the entire concept of digital education in the African classroom then we – and everyone else who has a similar objective – needs to spend us much time as possible in the dirty, dusty, sandy recesses of this continent to get to know the students and teachers and find the common grounds of understanding that enables us – as technologist – to build the bridges between our different (yet not so different) cultures.

Children at Kiltamany Primary school

On the road to Korr

Philip fords a sand river in an old BMW R80G/S

Peter shares his love of photography