A random seating assignment by a friend on an airplane leads to an email intro, which leads to a meeting in Nairobi. Two years later and I find out that that random person on the airplane, now one of my friends, a business partner, and someone I deeply respect has passed away unexpectedly.

Vanu Bose passed away on a peaceful Saturday morning while I was concurrently on a chaotic 11-hour motorcycle ride down one of East Africa’s most dangerous roads, praying that I would arrive home safely. That irony is not lost on me.

There are certain people in this world who have a special magnetic personality; a way that they connect and spend time with others that makes everyone feel appreciated and who leave with their spirits lifted. Vanu was one of these lodestones. He attracted amazing talent to his team, and great men and women of the world wanted to be near him and have him near them at their times of decision making. He was also a strong leader, a deep thinker, a clear communicator, had a tenacious will to see things through to the end, and maybe most importantly had an infectious laugh. In short, I respected him greatly.

Vanu’s vision was that everyone can and should have economically sustainable wireless coverage. He understood the impact that phones and connectivity have on all of us, and spent his years focusing on the hardest part of that problem, creating a service that could work even in the sparsely populated regions of the world. I was fortunate enough to work with him on this problem in Rwanda, but he was equally active in India, Alaska, and most recently in pouring his heart and company’s resources into getting the Puerto Rico population back on their phones after the hurricane devastated that island.

We shared a common goal, and he and I met at the beginning of BRCK’s road to solving free public WiFi, which would mean that there were many deep conversations held from Kigali to Nairobi, from Boston to Barcelona, and Cape Town to San Francisco. We were focused on solving a difficult problem, but we both brought that optimism unique to entrepreneurs who wouldn’t take “no” for an answer.

It always impressed me that he was so technical, with his PhD and could hold his own with anyone on that front, but at the same time had such a firm grasp on the business side of what he did and what the market was, that he could see past where so many others in the mobile industry got stuck. I joked with my co-founders at BRCK that it would take any two of us in a room to equal what he could do alone.

He sharpened what I understood about the mobile networks, what the gaps were, and what was important for us all to focus on. I’d like to think I brought some new ideas to him as well, coming from a completely different background in life. However, I have to admit that I took a lot more from Vanu than I gave him. And this, I think, is where a measure of a man should be held: Does he give more to the world than he takes? In Vanu’s case the answer is a resounding “yes!”

Vanu was generous and gracious, and had a desire to see the world a better place. Many people desire this, but few act on it. Vanu acted and put a dent in the world while he still lived, one that those of us who worked with him will continue to pound on and make bigger.

In the end, our lives were made richer due to Vanu, and many across multiple continents had their lives improved by him without even realizing who he was.

Thank you, Vanu. Go in peace.

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.

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.

Loading up the Kio Kits for our education expedition to Samburu

The trip from Nairobi went well, as you can expect when you’re on the best roads in Kenya. There was only one small problem with a fuel line on the tired out old 1981 R80G/S when we got to Archer’s Post. I’m not bitter at all that my much nicer 2007 Suzuki DR650 is constantly overlooked by everyone as they drool over the old Beemer. We fixed the fuel line by finding a local motorcycle mechanic and raiding his parts bin.

Fixing a fuel line on the 1981 BMW

Shortly after, we shunted off of the main road into the dirt and made our way past Kalama town. Kiltamany Primary School lies about 15km past Kalama, and is the education facility for 170 children. We rolled into the school as the sun was setting, to the singing of the women in the community and the elders waiting for us for initial introductions.

An unexpected outcome of the evening was that we were going to be shown how the women are learning. Sylvester, the younger Samburu man who was responsible for this program, explained that he had built this program to teach the older women and mothers in the community how to read and do basic maths in order for them to understand the value of it. This encourages them to send their girls to school for the full first 8 years of primary school, and possibly beyond.

What was encouraging to see was just how hungry for learning the women in the community were. Sylvester asked us to be the teachers for the evening, so Nivi took over the classroom and worked through some mathematics with the ladies.

The Kio Kit was brought from the vehicle and the ladies watched a video on counting and number placement in Kiswahili. It’s by one of our partners, Ubongo Kids, out of Tanzania. This is one of the great values of the digital education kit, and our content agnostic approach, since we can partner with specialists on education content from anywhere and help get distribution of their content to the far edges of the country.

The Kio Kit about to be introduced to Samburu women

We ended the night with the Samburu elders showing us a luga (dry riverbed) and leaving us to camp for the night. Most places don’t have great connectivity, but we’re getting fairly strong 3g reception here and are able to do posts like this fairly easily.

Day 2 is going to be spent with the children from the school. Focusing on training up the teachers on digital tools like the Kio Kit and making sure that they’re comfortable, then doing some classroom exercises with the students.

This morning finds us on the road north of Nairobi, heading to Samburu country in northern Kenya. [Actually, it finds us delayed by 2 hours as we troubleshoot a bit of the new education software, but that’s besides the point!]

Each year we do an expedition, last year we did a trip to Uganda testing around education. The year before that we went up to the shores of Lake Turkana. Here’s a video from our trip last year to South Africa overland:

Kenya to South Africa / Nairobi to Johannesburg from BRCK on Vimeo.

Samburu Schools

This year we’re going up to Samburu county to do two installations of our BRCK Education school system called the Kio Kit. This kit comes with 40 seven-inch tablets that are all wirelessly charged and the BRCK device acts as the brains of the network, loading content supplied by a number of different partners. All the info on the Kio Kit is in this video below.

We Introduce the Kio Kit from BRCK on Vimeo.

The trip north takes us to a school near Archer’s Post, and then a couple days later to one near Korr. Both of them are well off the road, but have been electrified by the Kenya government’s school electrification program. So, while we’re going with some extra solar kits, we’re expecting to be able to use the school’s power system.

On this trip is Mark (UX), Jeff (Design), Nivi (Education), Janet (Ops), Rufus (Customer Service) as well as Philip, myself, Juliana and Peter. It’s a full roster and we’re looking forward to having an adventurous road trip.

We’ll be posting on this trip for the next few days, so you can follow along here on our blog, on our Twitter account @BRCKnet and on our Instagram account @BRCKnet.

There’s a press release (which always seem boring to me, but have added it to the bottom of the page) about Nivi Mukherjee, the founder of eLimu and long-time iHub member, joining the BRCK team offically. I’ve had the pleasure of seeing her grow her company from nothing, getting out ahead of the curve to create a new way to learn, study and test for the big KCPE exam that every kid in Kenya takes in 8th grade. She’s fought and shown the scrappy leader that she is for 4 years, so when we started looking at BRCK Education more seriously six months ago, Nivi was the one I went to for help. While we know a lot about tech and hardware, she knows a lot about education, teachers and students. She also taught us new fancy words, such as “pedagogy“.

The past 4 months have seen us working closely together with the eLimu team on some great projects, and without her understanding of how the education system works we wouldn’t be where we are today.

Nivi is now the President of BRCK Education, a new business unit for us that focuses school-based solutions where the BRCK software and hardware can be used to make a real difference. We’ve seen this happening in Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya as more schools get started with tablets and computers. Nivi’s job will be to fulfill on this in our own backyard here in Kenya, and also to take it to the rest of Africa and the world.

More news on this front soon…!

Press Release

BRCK appoints its Education President
Nairobi, 4 August 2015 – BRCK, a local hardware and services technology company based in Nairobi, has announced the appointment of Nivi Mukherjee as the head of its newly created division, BRCK Education.
Ms Mukherjee will be charged with driving BRCK’s efforts to provide hardware and software solutions to enable online and offline learning.

Commenting on the appointment, BRCK Board Member and Ushahidi Executive Director Juliana Rotich said:
“We are delighted to welcome onboard Ms Mukherjee who has a wealth of knowledge and expertise to take over the Education division. Through this division, we aim to creatively and effectively deliver 21st century technology that will revolutionize the education sector and eventually take digital literacy in Kenya and in the African continent to the next level.”

Ms Mukherjee joins BRCK from eLimu, one of the most talked about EdTech innovations in Africa where she spearheaded the digitization of KCPE curriculum content for Kenyan upper primary students and the development of a literacy application in English and Kiswahili.

The new president is expected to leverage the BRCK, a pioneering connectivity device that is designed to work in environments where electricity and internet connections are problematic. The BRCK is a WiFi access point with an 8-hour battery-life and the ability to store up to 2 terabytes of educational content.

“I am excited to join this great team that has demonstrated its ability to innovate effectively for Africa. I am privileged to be able to leverage this game-changing device, which will enable instantaneous access for up to 40 devices, to promote digital access in education. What remains now is to curate localized and culturally relevant digital content that will improve the learning experience and outcomes for millions of students on the continent,” Ms Mukherjee said.

She reinforced BRCK’s user-driven commitment towards developing sustainable and interactive tools adding that the organization is keen and ready to partner with teachers, parents, students, like-minded organisations and government institutions in order to bring far-reaching changes in the way education is delivered.

Notes to Editors
About Nivi Mukherjee
Nivi is a social entrepreneur, technophile, community volunteer and 2014 East African Acumen Fellow. She is passionate about educational initiatives that foster development and fun. She has spoken as an expert on eLearning, the African tech scene and innovation at: TEDxStellenbosch, South By South West – Austin TX, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Sloan Business Conference Africa Innovate as well as appearing on Al Jazeera, CNN, Euronews and being featured on BBC and The Economist. In her spare time, Nivi organizes cultural festivals, bakes, knits, runs half marathons, folds origami and plays Fusball.

About BRCK
BRCK is a connectivity device designed in Kenya to meet the demanding challenges of life and work in harsh environments where electricity is intermittent and the internet is spotty. BRCK works to alleviate these issues by delivering a redundant data connection combined with a reliable power source to ensure that nothing gets in the way of getting the information you need. 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, to 4G seamlessly.

BRCK is the first company to pursue and deliver using entirely ground up design and engineering of consumer electronics in East Africa. The initial BRCK units started shipping in July of 2014 and by February of 2015, thousands of BRCKs had been sold in 54 countries around the world, in both developed and developing markets.

The company 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.

The heritage of BRCK is that we were born out of Ushahidi, which builds platforms for changing the way information flows in crisis and disasters events globally. It shouldn’t be a surprise then that we think a lot about how BRCK hardware can help extend the ability of disaster response teams around the world.

BRCK+Pi – new design concept for production

1: A Rugged Microserver

With the recent development of the BRCK+Pi, which marries a RaspberryPi + hard drive + 8-hour battery, to the BRCK in a simple package (full specs below), it gave us a chance to think through what could happen beyond just connectivity in tough environments. After all, with this extra computing power it turns the device into a remote microserver, where you can cache content locally and do stuff even when in an offline mode.

In short, the BRCK+Pi allows not just the standard BRCK connectivity, but now also the ability for content and computing in a small, rugged form factor that can be used anywhere.

2: Software for Disaster Response Teams

This allows us to provide a stack of disaster-related software that could be loaded onto the device. The goal being to have a core software stack available on BRCK+Pi devices to humanitarian response organizations globally. The purpose being to help speed recovery after a crisis, making first responder’s lives more efficient and making technology work where it normally doesn’t.

While anyone who makes these tools can put some time into making their tool work on the microserver, I was thinking to list out the full grouping that came out of a discussion on the CrisisMappers network recently, and then prioritize them into foundational tools that could be made into a “package” to download onto your own BRCK+Pi and which would help the broadest set of disaster responders. I asked the following questions:
   

• What ideas do you have that would fit on BRCK+Pi?
• Which problems could this help with?
• Are there any software packages that you’d find valuable in the Crisis Stack?

3: What Goes in the Box?

First pass on this is about a set of basic tools that we can think of as a “core package”. We had an open call with members of the CrisisMappers community where we talked about the types of software needed and use cases for it. The initial tool list looks like this, though the repository is open on Github and can be changed, added to, or just plain branched in the future:

• OSM tiles (Light) – (Ex: Haiti Browser)
• OSM Sync – Make a mark on a map served off the BRCK+Pi and synchronize with OSM API occasionally
• SMSsync – Use the BRCK wireless modem to allow for text messaging, rewritten to be native on the BRCK Device
• LDLN – An inexpensive, distributed local data hub, with mobile apps to address damaged communication infrastructures after natural disasters
• Sahana Eden – A suite of tools designed specifically for organizations during disasters, including organization registry, project tracking, asset tracking and more.
• Cellular Coverage Mapping – Find a tool to report the signal strength measured if connected to cell network to contribute to existing project (see: http://www.ebola-cellular-map.resudox.net/)
• Etherpad Lite – The most basic and simple communications tool we know of
• Image sharing tool – Still to be determined, but could be BitTorent Sync for file management (protocol for local sync, not for normal torrenting activities)

Secondary applications to consider are:

ONA – http://ona.io/
Enketo – https://enketo.org/
FrontlineSMS -http://www.frontlinesms.com/
Ping – http://pingapp.io/
DragonForce – http://www.drakontas.com/
Ushahidi – http://ushahidi.com
WordPress – http://wordpress.org
Flickr or YouTube Sync
Wiki  – Gollum, Dokuwiki or Mediawiki
VPN service

4: Getting Stuff Done & How You Can Help

An idea, once outlined, is good but not enough. Now it’s time to build something. This week the BRCK and Ushahidi teams have been working on getting the basic libraries to run the “core package” onto the device. We’ve also setup a Github repo for Crisis Stack that is open for others to join. Beyond that, the team is getting Etherpad and Ushahidi 2.x working on the device.

Mikel Maron of Open Street Map was on the call and is helping to get the OSM tiles working.
Praneeth Bodduluri of Sahana also joined us and is helping to make Sahana Eden available.
I’m in contact with the LDLN team and we hope to have them also contributing to the core package.

We’re on the way to getting an alpha of Crisis Stack out by mid-February, we need the community in the disaster response space to help to make it happen.

If you’re a software engineer and would like to be involved, check out the repository and get involved with one of the projects that’s being put on the device.

If you’re a first responder, let us know what we is really needed on the device. We’ll need testers on this front as well, of course, but that won’t happen until we get some basic items working on it.

—————————————————–

BRCK+Pi specs

BRCK+Pi – initial working prototype

• IP51 water and dust ingress protection
• Dimensions: 132mm (5.18 inches) by 72mm (2.82 inches) by 45mm (1.77 inches)
• Native Raspberry Pi network connectivity when connected to BRCK
• Input voltage 5 – 18V, 0.1 – 3A charge current.
• Solar compatible charging
• Over voltage and reverse polarity protected inputs
• Dual USB connection to BRCK+Pi for Keyboard or Mouse (500mA)
• Mini-HDMI Video Out
• SDXC support (up to 2TB of SD storage), normally ships with 16GB
• BCM2835 SoC
• 4GB native storage (upgradeable to 500GB with extra cost)
• 512MB RAM
• 3.7V 8,000 mAH battery
• Can be preconfigured with Raspbian, but compatible with any Raspberry Pi distribution.
• Connects to the BRCK by stacking underneath, screws on for security


You can find the BRCK specs here.

Farms and Ranch WiFi

I took off this weekend to test some BRCKs out in some of the more rural parts of Kenya. In this case, I was invited by Michael Nicholson who runs the cattle part of the El Karama Ranch situated near Nanyuki at the foot of Mount Kenya. The ranch is approximately 17,000 acres, and it has both a safari lodge and a lot of wildlife on it, as well as a 700-head cattle ranch. It’s an impressively well-run operation, and I got to see much of it.

The tower and gate at El Karama Ranch

It turns out that the ranch is about 13 kilometers from the nearest mobile phone tower, and with a normal phone sitting out at their gate, you can get some spotty edge connectivity. Fortunately, Michael is a tech-oriented type of rancher, so he was already familiar with modems and routers, and had educated himself on the types of antennas and WiFi repeaters he’d need. There was a lookout tower at the gate that already had two of Poynting’s amazing long-range directional antennas (which we call “swords” as they look like a weapon from a fantasy game).

He had a working setup, but his biggest problem was the modem would randomly shut off. This isn’t a problem on the BRCK, because as soon as the modem loses connectivity, we tell it to search again and reset and reconnect. A simple solution would be for Michael to replace his current Safaricom modem with the BRCK (see below).

Switching out a Safaricom modem with a BRCK

Heading into the Bush

The next day I took off up further north, past Isiolo to the Samburu area around Archer’s Post. This is a dusty, dry and hot land fed by the Ewaso Nyiro River. The wildlife research teams at the Grevy Zebra Trust and the Ewaso Lions had asked if we could test out if they could get connectivity.

This elephant isn’t friendly, he took off after us for a bit

Grevy Zebra – endangered

It turns out that to get to their camps you have to drive through the Samburu National Wildlife Reserve, which is amazing and has plenty of animals of all sorts. We saw everything from crocs and elephant to Grevy zebra and oryx. As fun as that was, it took us 1.5 hours to get through the park and many kilometers beyond to get to their camps. These teams are in real bush country with no towers anywhere around them.

Me, standing at that ONE tree where you can get network signal

However, like almost anywhere you go in Kenya, there’s always some random tree that you can stand under and get connectivity (that’s me at said tree, above). They knew where these were, so we started to visit the locations to see what might work. Of the 5 areas we tested, one had a strong signal but was a couple kilometers from the camp. Another had a weak and usable signal near camp, and one had a possible signal in the middle of the Ewaso Lions camp. Very positive, and doable!

In the testing kit, I take a couple directional antennas as well as a small omnidirectional antenna to walk around with. On top of this, I have a way to mount an amplifier (booster) in the car to increase the signal gain on the antennas. It’s a great bit of testing kit, and it proved out incredibly well.

My suggestion to them is that they’ll need to raise a small pole on the top of their hill. Add a Poynting antenna, Voltaic solar panels for power, a BRCK and an amplifier. If they do this, we’ll likely test out our BRCK Extender at this location as well, which increases the WiFi range from about a 10m radius to approximately 900m. Since both the Extender and the amplifier need external power, there will need to be a small battery which is charged via solar. This whole concoction will run just over $1000 and should be fairly hands-free once setup.

BRCK and Poynting antenna

Andrew helping with antenna holding

Using an Android app with the BRCK to test signal in the vehicle

Summary

It turns out that BRCKs end up being a great solution for some of these rural and off-grid type places. While we can’t drive everywhere to do testing for everyone, we do try to get out and see what’s going on and see if we can help. It gives us a better understanding of our customers knowledge, and also a better feel for their pain points.

We set the price for the BRCK in 2013 in our Kickstarter campaign, well before many changes to the product, upgrades and final delivery of the device a year later. We’ve kept to that initial $199 pricing through the end of 2014 as a commitment to our first customers.

On Feb 1, the retail price for a BRCK will change to $249.99. This new price allows us to include an omnidirectional antenna in every box, as well as the new micro and nano SIM card adapters to make it easier for people who have a hard time finding full-sized data enabled SIM cards. Anyone who buys a BRCK before Feb 1, 2015 will get it for the current $199 on the BRCK store.

The increase in pricing helps by giving us more realistic margins to allow us to invest more into improving the BRCK product.

As a Kenyan company based in Nairobi, we know first-hand the challenges of dealing with power cuts. So we built a router that stays online when the lights go out.

Juliana, when the lights went out, in Tanzania

Our team was down in South Africa, a couple weeks ago, which has some power issues that they’re working through. This means different neighborhoods have their electricity turned off at different times to save energy, also known as load-shedding. It seemed that not too many South Africans have had to deal with this kind of problem, unlike the rest of us in the rest of Africa. They didn’t have a fallback plan for when the power went out.

In-built Power, by Design

Each BRCK has a full 8-hours of power up-time and a smart charge controller that keeps the battery topped up and ready for the unexpected. Designed for seamless failover between Ethernet and 3G, the BRCK can connect to your primary ISP and then automatically switch to a 3G provider when it senses that your internet has been interrupted.

BRCK was designed to survive the rigors of Africa. Here we suffer daily with power outages, brown outs and power surges. From day one we realized we needed to work hard to help smooth this out to make the internet work the way you want it, when you want it.

BRCK has built in 8000mAh of battery, enough to charge your phone or tablet more than twice. This battery provides power to the 3G, WiFi and Ethernet capabilities of the BRCK, which isn’t a small hotspot, but enough to connect 20 device to and running at full speed.

The use of micro-USB cables also allows your device to be charged from your laptop, wall plug, iphone charger, power bank or even another BRCK. We’ve included a USB charging port as well to allow you to charge your phone or tablet from your BRCK.

BRCK’s protected supply is unique in that it will continue to work from 4V right through to 18V from a standard 5V micro-USB connector. And if you go above, below or somehow reverse the wiring BRCK will pause charging, but keep running until the power comes back again. We’ve even optimized the charging circuit to run off raw solar panels without a step up or inverter.

All this charging ruggedness, combined with BRCKs proprietary network switching and fail over means you and your colleagues can keep on doing what you need to do even when the lights go off.