Beneath its ruggedly harsh exterior, Mathare Valley boasts  a vibrant and creative pool of young talent. Using basic tools like smartphones, these dancers, musicians, actors and comedians create and post  content on social media hoping to become famous. They understand that with fame comes an opportunity to earn more money and a bigger platform to raise their community’s voice in a society that has long neglected it and a real opportunity to rise out of poverty.  

Unfortunately, local content creation is poorly monetized making it hard for creatives to make lots of high value and relevant content. Once they create it, they generally monetize through affiliate marketing, Google Adsense, and sponsorships. The first two options require some form of bank facility, either wire transfer or credit card details to disburse earnings. A significant portion of the Kenyan population is unbanked leaving many content creators unable to leverage content monetization on popular platforms such as Youtube, Tidal and iTunes and even then, they would need thousands of subscribers to make any kind of real earnings. The same goes for Sponsorships where a content creator’s value is based on their reach.  Lack of  money in the pockets of Kenyan consumers so they cannot or will not pay for premium and paywalled content is another obvious barrier to monetization.

Moja WiFi’s approach to Content Monetization

Moja WiFi provides affordable internet and content to people in low-income areas. Working with five local content creators to develop exclusive content for Moja, we are leveraging Moja’s existing user base in Mathare to create a sustainable web monetization model that truly benefits local content creators. We do this in partnership with Grant For The Web and through our existing premium content model. Moja users earn Moja points by performing digital engagements on the Moja platform and can then use these points to pay for the premium content they want to see.  The content creator receives payment in XRP to their crypto wallets, which they learned about and created during their Web Monetization training. The content creator is free to either hold the XRP as a store of value in itself which may appreciate, or cash out with MPESA.

Over a 3 month pilot period, we hope to prove:

1. Low-income Kenyans are willing to “pay” for creative content when given a mechanism to do so that doesn’t break the bank. 
2. There is real earning potential for local content creators through web Monetization.
3. When content creators realize the earning potential of web monetization, they will become digital activists for the same, encouraging other artists to create and earn online. 

We want to engage with more creatives to put their art on our network and continue commercializing the Moja network so we can offer more monetary rewards to content creators. For every hundred Moja points a creative is awarded by Moja users, they will earn 160 Kshs.

We are encouraging all organizations interested in engaging with young Kenyans to think creatively about leveraging the Moja platform: advocacy and awareness campaigns; short polls and long surveys; and brand awareness. These kinds of commercial engagements with organizations and brands help us offer more monetization opportunities for the creatives on our platform.

By Nivi Sharma & Loyce Chole

Mathare Valley is one of the oldest, poorest, most densely populated slums in the world. Despite having over 60,000 people living per km² (in contrast to the national average of 82 persons per km²⁾, many people in Kenya are not aware of the poor living conditions in the region. It’s rare for people in the rest of the world to even know about Mathare Valley, let alone understand the impact of the digital divide on their livelihoods.

BRCK has connected more than 2 million people to the internet over the past 3 years. This year, we have embarked on a bold and ambitious project in partnership with the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH. Within the framework of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) funding program develoPPP, GIZ and BRCK joined forces to bring Moja free WiFi to Mathare Valley. The partners are installing a technical infrastructure that connects the entire slum population of at least 600,000 people. This infrastructure is the largest mesh network in Africa where residents are able to access the internet at no direct cost. Using their smartphones, users perform digital tasks on the Moja platform like watching an ad or filling out a survey to earn Moja points that they can then use as credit to access the internet. Moja is also a repository for health and education information that is disseminated to residents, helping them cope with the economic impacts of the pandemic. 

5,000 SMEs and entrepreneurs are being trained by our partners, Shining Hope for Communities (SHOFCO). SHOFCO, is a Kenyan, grassroots non-profit that aims to build urban promise from urban poverty. SHOFCO are training Mathare business owners on how to leverage the free Internet service to unlock the potential of digital access to jump start or grow their businesses; and digital services to gain business skills as well as take advantage of government and social services. A further 5,000 residents of Mathare will be trained on basic digital skills giving them the tools to participate in the global economy.

BRCK’s innovation lies in using mesh technology to improve network coverage and resilience in Mathare by allowing access points to intelligently connect to each other and fail over in case of network issues. In order to provide high quality, affordable connectivity, BRCK has developed the SupaMESH WiFi Access Point. This device has been co-created by BRCK, Ignitenet and Facebook Connectivity to enable large mesh networks (>100 Sites) in challenging environments. 

Deploying and maintaining a network infrastructure in Mathare Valley is not without challenges. Power is a major issue at most sites – it’s neither reliable, nor clean. Theft and vandalism are also a risk we foresee. However, having rolled out a quarter of the planned network so far, we see how much the youth value the service and we’re confidently counting on them to continue to protect the “bright yellow WiFi squares” that have dotted the Valley. We are especially grateful for the support from Community Based Organizations and Youth Groups like Mathare Social Justice Centre, Pamoja Twaweza Community Project, Shantit and Muoroto.

One of the biggest concerns that young people brought to BRCKs attention was that there are not enough points earning activities for them. In short, they want more digital tasks on the platform from organizations who value their time or their eyeballs. These are the first important steps towards giving the youth the opportunity to earn from real digital work: we are encouraging all organizations interested in engaging with these young people to think creatively about leveraging the Moja platform: advocacy and awareness campaigns; short polls and long surveys; and brand awareness. With Moja WiFi, the youth of Mathare Valley now have the opportunity to be active participants and beneficiaries of the digital economy.

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. 

BRCK has successfully run its Moja Wi-Fi platform on public buses in Kigali, Rwanda for just under two years now. Moja, delivered through our SupaBRCK, has been deployed in about 300 buses in partnership with a local Rwanda ICT group that specializes in smart and interactive IT solutions for the transport sector. The service, providing free access to the internet, has been popular with local commuters. Things have been looking up for the Rwandese as they easily engage on digital social platforms, gain access to educational material, government services, e-commerce, entertainment, and occasionally browse through offline content available on the SupaBRCK CDN. However, since the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown in Rwanda began, things have been challenging for most Rwandese, especially those in low-income neighborhoods.

COVID-19 in Rwanda

Rwanda confirmed its first COVID-19 case on the 14th of March and one week later, the government imposed a two-week countrywide lockdown, allowing only minimal movement, mostly for essential services, such as buying food and medication. As the country approached the end of the 14-day lockdown, the government issued extensions up to the 30th of April, as new infection cases are being reported.

In Kigali there are about 400 health workers stationed at the Kigali Convention Centre tasked with coordinating the control and management of the virus spread. The main designated testing and treatment center is at the Kanyinya Health Centre in the capital and other district isolation centres around the country. Several hotels have been designated as quarantine centres as well. Up to 500 daily tests are conducted.

Initial incidences of misinformation on social media platforms to the masses confined at home were curbed early on by the deployment of drones to disseminate correct information around the country. The WHO also intervened by collaborating with Facebook (who own the Whatsapp platform) to minimize the possible number of message forwards.

Connectivity Inequity

During this lockdown, the wide digital divide has vividly come into play as a big chunk of the population in the low-income neighborhoods in urban areas miss out on information available on digital platforms. High data costs prohibit this section of the citizenry from access to important news, contact with friends and relatives, and generally participating in conversations on social networks. This shows how a crisis can severely impact the less privileged to the point of denying some very basic human rights enjoyed in democracies around the world.

Buses with Moja WiFi, parked and not currently in use in Kigali, Rwanda.

Schools and colleges, including both public and private universities have remained closed since the 16th March for an initial two-week duration. Many students have been accessing e-learning material from online platforms. Data costs have been prohibitive, though, and many students from poor backgrounds also do not have the user equipment to connect to the resources provided. Even though on the 25th March some telcos like MTN partnered with both the Ministries of ICT and Education to afford the learners zero data charges, many will still miss out on this opportunity for lack of the right equipment like smartphones and/or computers.

Higher internet traffic has also been registered from online shoppers for delivery of foodstuffs, medicine, and other merchandise. Many Rwandese have in this period made an increased use of the few available fintech platforms from their homes as well, as queues in banking halls continue to dwindle.

BRCK’s Rwanda Team

As things started slowing down a few days before the total lockdown in Rwanda, the BRCK field team in Kigali had put in place apt measures to suit their new ways of doing things under the increasingly changing circumstances. The team observed the WHO recommended regulations of keeping safe distances, and usage of precautionary items like face masks and gloves. They also slowed down on field visit frequency. The team kept busy collating helpful COVID-19 related content in the local language, a few of which ran on the BRCK COVID-19 platform on the Kigali network. Unfortunately, the network was switched off in the advent of the lockdown.

Overall, the lockdown does seem to be having a positive impact on limiting infection and death rates from the virus. The government is due to review the lockdown situation soon, as the ordinary Rwandese hold their breath, hoping for at least some gradual opening up, especially for the business community. As the whole world grapples with what the new normal post COVID-19 will be, there is still an air of optimism among the Rwandese.  The lockdown period has taught many how to leverage and potentially improve the existing digital platforms and infrastructure to do things in different and largely better and more efficient ways.

I love the “moonshot” ideology, a type of thinking that aims to achieve something that is generally believed to be impossible.  I first came across this concept with Google X and their way of thinking about hard problems. Who wouldn’t get inspired by solving a massive challenge using next generation technology? Especially when it’s backed with enough money to see if it will actually work. Of all the projects, I love Loon the most – connectivity by high altitude balloons that use wind patterns intelligently.  It’s just that right mix of insanity and brilliance that epitomizes solving a massive problem by trying something incredibly lateral.

Like many others, I too am driven to use my time on this earth to solve big problems. My mixture of background and experience ideally suits me to do technology work in Africa, and my personality means I end up building new things, new companies, instead of working for others. By the nature of those three things (entrepreneurship + tech + Africa), I tend to be resource constrained when it comes to moonshots. Instead, along with great partners and co-founders, I’ve built organizations that utilize crowd sourcing, foster innovation grounded in the African context, provide funds to tech startups, and create space to collaboratively build and rapidly prototype new technology.

My most recent endeavor has been building BRCK, which is 6 years old, trying to solve for how to create a real onramp to the internet for people who can’t pay for it.

Moonshots and Groundshots

As I look at this odd mixture of companies, I realize that, while I’m a moonshot thinker, I’m a groundshot operator.  I’m trying to solve big problems that impact many people across the world using the last generation’s technology in different ways, and coming up with a new pattern or model for everyone to benefit. In short, I don’t have the resources to build a Loon or StarLink, but what I can do is figure out how to make something that meets ordinary people where they are with what they have, and not just for profit, but also to make the world a slightly better place.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot as we’re dealing with the current coronavirus pandemic. Google’s Loon was first-level approved to work in Kenya last year, and then just this week was given a final green light by the Kenyan government to operate. This is great news, and I’m excited that we have four of their balloons sitting over Kenya right now. I’m also concerned that it’s only going to solve part of the problem.

You see, connectivity is a mixture of signal and devices, AND affordability. Loon solves for the difficulty of signal in rural Africa, where building mobile phone towers has too low of an ROI for the mobile operators to be interested. Devices are getting cheap enough that we’re seeing a deep density of (low-end) smartphones across many countries. However, affordability is a BIG hairy problem, made only bigger as the economic hits start coming during and after this pandemic.

Loon uses the LTE spectrum of Kenya’s Telkom operator, so anyone who has the Telkom SIM card can receive that signal from the balloon and be connected. The problem is that you have to pay the data rates that Telkom charges, which isn’t much by middle-class standards, but most rural people aren’t middle class and their wallets are much more rigid.

That’s the problem we started working to solve in a little room beneath the iHub back in 2014. “How do you get everyone in Africa online if they can’t pay?”

The answer was a bit humbling for us techies to swallow, but it turned out that the business model was as important as the technology – maybe more so. We started grinding on this problem, which culminated in our Moja platform, now operating in Kenya and Rwanda. So far, it has brought 2 million users online for free. The answer was found in us saying, “What if the internet becomes free for consumers everywhere? The internet isn’t free to deliver, so what is the business model for that?” The mental model we were left with meant we had to find other parties to pay, which led us down the B-to-B-to-C model that we currently use and are finding quite successful.

So… What is a Groundshot Then?

I think it’s the glue that connects the amazing wizardry of the moonshot with the grounded business models and older technology found in most people’s pockets.

We’re rapidly expanding our Moja network, and I’m glad to work with our backhaul partners in terrestrial fibre internet and mobile operators. But I’m equally excited to take these moonshots like Loon or StarLink and connect them to real people on the ground in Africa. With a ground game like ours, and air support like theirs, it’s a magical combination.

BRCK started Moja Free Wi-Fi because we saw that people had trouble connecting to the internet — and this was often due to an affordability barrier, along with an accessibility barrier. Specifically in the African context, we have observed for some time that, despite significant mobile phone penetration, people are still struggling to pay for the internet. With our new current reality of social distancing and quarantining (which may last anywhere from weeks to months), the importance of connecting to the internet has become even more obvious. And recent studies and reports are showing that Moja Free WiFi is uniquely addressing a very real need. 

The Affordability Barrier

On October 30, 2019, the World Bank released the Kenya Economic Update: Accelerating Kenya’s Digital Economy publication. It stated that 44% of the urban population has access to the internet, compared to 17% in rural areas. Just a month earlier, the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) conducted a national census, the results of which indicated that 75.1% of all Kenyans are below 35 years and 68.9% of them live in rural areas. So the majority of young people live in rural areas and only a fraction of them have consistent access to the internet. 

Why is it then, that 35.7 million youths — who are typically early adopters of technology — live in areas with the lowest internet penetration rates? The obvious answer would be barriers to access. But can we really claim this when, at the same time, the Ministry of ICT’s Digital Economy Blueprint acknowledges Kenya as a world leader in driving financial inclusion through the use of digital finance solutions? These include M-Pesa, Mula, Pesalink and Pesapal, solutions which have gained traction mostly due to the over 100% mobile subscriptions penetration rate (due to multiple SIM card ownership).

Indeed even census officials, for the first time ever, adopted the use of mobile technology to collect and transmit data. KNBS data also showed that mobile phone ownership is highest in rural areas (12 million) compared to urban areas, which account for 8 million users. So we have the highest number of youth, with a higher probability of phone ownership. And, yet, they’re not regularly able to access the internet. 

Mo… Mo… Mobile Phones

If Kenyans from all walks of life have widely adopted mobile technology, why can’t we get the internet onto those phones? And if other barriers to access still exist, how can organizations like Moja, who are at the forefront of bridging the connectivity gap in Africa, leverage these statistics to bring more of these 35.7 million youths into the internet age? This is Moja Wi-Fi’s perennial question. 

Less than 10 years ago, during a typical work week, most people who were busy commuting from their homes to schools or places of employment may not have had the time to access the internet because it meant stopping by an internet cafe.  Thanks to 3G and 4G mobile technology, the time problem was mitigated. Users could enjoy internet services from any place with a decent mobile network signal. Moja capitalized on this by deploying internet services to over 700 matatus in the country. Users could then access the internet as part of, rather than in addition to, their daily commute.  

Uncharted Terrain and Opportunities

But what about the money? Obviously the cost of internet relative to user income levels remains a challenge for many Kenyans.  There are several organizations that offer free internet services to users as a response, only to be faced with the high network set up and maintenance costs. That, coupled with regulatory challenges, gaps in electricity supply, and a slow rate of user adoption (Kenyans are typically wary of free products and services), have made smaller players pivot or close shop altogether. This explains why, out of 72 network service providers in Kenya, only half of those are operational.  

Still, opportunity continues to knock on Kenya’s connectivity door and Moja is one of the organizations who continue to answer. In addition to the mobile network, we have expanded into 1,300 fixed network hotspots across both rural and urban areas, specifically to reach users in rural and semi-urban areas. 

Boda Boda operators in Ngong town.

From the university student who is able to complete their homework assignment from their hostel room to the boda boda operator who can now connect with customers on his ride-share app,  to the office employee who is suddenly required to work from home, Moja is charting a way to overcome the affordability barrier. We are slowly but impactfully contributing to the narrative of digital inclusion, with the hope that by the time the next census rolls by, more youth and people in rural areas will be leading the growth trends. 

BRCK’s Moja network covers 2 million people and has 8 million+ sessions per month, making it one of the largest public WiFi networks on the continent.  With that kind of reach, we realized we could do something to help spread the information that’s so necessary during this crisis in order to flatten the African curve.

• First, we’re making sure people who want to get online watch approved coronavirus educational videos in order to earn their free internet time.  This mechanism isn’t available almost anywhere else, so it provides a great opportunity to push the right information in front of people. 
• Second, we have a whole channel dedicated to information, contacts, and alerts/updates on the coronavirus. You can see the current COVID-19 channel here. 
• Third, we’ve created an educational channel for all ECD, primary, and secondary content so that children can continue learning when they’re not at school. You can see the current BRCK Education content aggregated here.

Educating Through Moja

The work Moja is doing today can have a huge impact on the non-pharmaceutical interventions to stop the spread. Moja is an outdoor public WiFi network that connects almost 1 million people in Africa to the internet for free every month. We reward our users for their attention and engagement with a digital currency called Moja points. Moja points can be used to connect to the internet. 

Our users, like many people in Africa with smartphones, want to connect to the internet, the largest, greatest network of knowledge and information in the world. And they can afford to spend time, but not money, to get online. These incentives and connections are the pipelines through which we have now started disseminating locally relevant educational content about COVID-19. 

Information about COVID-19 is the first thing users see upon connecting to Moja WiFi. Users connected to Moja can watch an educational video to earn points to go online. 

People in urban Africa are no longer huddled around radios and TV sets waiting for the government to tell them what to do. They are looking to find information and connect with others on their smartphones. Unlike everyone reading this blogspot, and learning from other online sources, not everyone has the privilege of digital access. Not everyone has the privilege of being perpetually and ubiquitously online.  The 4 barriers to connectivity are:

1. Access (to a signal and/or a smartphone)
2. Digital literacy
3. Relevance of content (local languages, and accessible for the illiterate, etc.) 
4. Affordability

Because Moja addresses all 4 of those barriers, we are playing a growing role in bridging the digital divide. We are using that bridge to:

• Disseminate to our users as soon as they land on our captive portal the many PSAs in English and local languages about COVID-19, tactics, and strategies to stop the spread.

• Give our users the latest official and verified updates from government bodies and WHO.

• Provide an education content portal for learners, parents, and teachers. We had already done a lot of thinking during our Kio Kit days about the most relevant content for Kenyan students.

Looking Ahead

The challenge we have now is to use these tools to drive behavioural change by helping our continent understand why these changes are crucial to saving millions of lives. Because the paternalistic “what and how” approach simply won’t work. We need creative ways of communicating these messages effectively to people who may not even have a primary or secondary school education. 

If you have content to share with our users, please click here.

We have a lot of work to do, and the work of the technology sector must include connecting 800 million people in Africa to the information they need to both understand and fight this pandemic. 

The pipelines we build today will continue to bridge the digital divide for our young, entrepreneurial, and astute population that lacks access to the global digital economy today. 

The world shifted last week, and a new reality sits in front of us. We always paid lip-service to how important the internet was when everything was normal. We’ve all just realized it’s absolutely critical when things go upside down at a global level.

“There are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen.”
– Lenin

What we’re seeing with the onset of COVID-19 and the tightening of borders, the closing of schools, and the social distancing that’s being forced upon us is that there is a massive uptick in demand for connectivity. Even in richer countries, the response leaves a digital gap, where those who have it are able to keep working, learning, and entertaining themselves, while those who don’t are left behind. In poorer countries, it gets worse.

This is our new reality. It won’t be a short-lived one, and the effects across our society set a generational mark, just as 9/11 did in America, the Berlin Wall and Iron Curtain coming down in Europe and the bombing of Hiroshima in Japan. But this time we’re all feeling it at the same time. And the global economic downturn and lingering commercial malaise will last long enough to mar my daughters’ generation with a very different future than they thought they had even one week ago.

As I was watching the servers in China groan under the weight of students learning and parents working from home, I had a realization that those in businesses such as connectivity, cloud services, telemedicine, streaming entertainment, and gaming were about to get a lot busier. This is true, and it’s a good chance for both organizations and governments around the world to step forward on setting the basic foundations of the internet – the infrastructure we need to be online.

You can’t be a 21st Century economy without power and connectivity. This is more true today than it was even one week ago. More business, more education, more news, more entertainment will be online than ever before. If your country has even a small percentage of its population offline due to lack of affordability or access to signal, then you’re setting yourself up for failure. But this is a solvable problem and one that isn’t nearly as expensive as it was a few years ago. More importantly, investing in this now is not nearly as expensive as being left behind economically because you don’t support and subsidize it today.

The larger the digital divide in your country, the more you’ll be left behind. If you don’t have a strong foundation of data connectivity, then the pillars of eGovernment services, business opportunities, education options, healthcare solutions, entertainment industry, and many more won’t reach their potential. Not in-country, and definitely not internationally.

This then is one of the great challenges of our time: connecting everyone everywhere, affordably.

I’m excited about what we’ve been doing at BRCK with the Moja network and platform, cracking the problem of affordable public WiFi that has brought 2 million East Africans online for free, and thinking through the hard business model problems that make it work — for consumers and for businesses. We think that what we have is something special and that it needs to rapidly scale. We can drastically change the fabric of a country, person by person and business by business, as we grow.

However, it’s not enough.

• We also need more terrestrial fibre options for the far greater load of heavy internet traffic and the larger video streaming services that are being used.
• We need more creativity and long-term thinking by regulators around spectrum licensing so that both satellite signals and data signals can be deployed at a cost that is open to new, smaller companies that offer more unconventional solutions than the oligopolies made of mobile operators and ISPs that wall off the space for innovation.
• We need governments and bi-lateral institutions, through funding, to catalyze incredibly rapid deployment of more undersea, terrestrial and satellite backhaul.

We often hear that in great challenges lie great opportunities. That has never been more true than today. Coronavirus is a global kick in the rear, reminding us that even if we’re not all yet connected online, we are still connected as humans. The chaos of the past few weeks and months lays bare the real dangers of the digital divide, yet it also uncovers an important opportunity and the promise of greatness that stand before us if we meet it head-on.

I’m committed to building this new future. Let’s do it together.