BRCK has been known for developing products for the edge of the network and very remote regions of the world. Lately our products have been pushing even what we as BRCKers consider the edge.

One of our biggest themes is the “if it works in Africa, it can work anywhere.” And that was never more apparent to us than when we recently found ourselves on a very small outboard motor boat hopping from one Solomon Island to another. The size of craft did not warrant being in this ocean infamously called the ironbottom sound. “Ironbottom Sound” is the name given by Allied sailors to Savo Sound, the stretch of water at the southern end of The Slot between Guadalcanal, Savo Island, and Florida Island of the Solomon Islands, because of the dozens of ships and planes that sank there during the Battle of Guadalcanal in 1942-43.

We were on our way there because the Savo Island School in 2016 is also the new home for a Kio Kit. Our most remote school in Kenya has been in the Kalama Conservancy and in an interesting play on words, the school in Savo is named Kalaka school.

Upon safe passage through to the island,  we were greeted by an amazing group of teachers and students alike. Savo island is beautiful, volcanic hot springs and rivers, palm farming and with a population of approximately 2000 people, the Kalaka school offers Primary, Secondary and Vocational training.

With no electricity and connectivity, getting access to research and technology for education through the Kio Kit becomes a major boost to the community and the future.

As we did the teacher training, it was apparent that our visit to the areas our products are used informs us on how to make a world class product but also localized enough to bring value at the regional level. For example; Content is a major aspect of the Kio Kit and education in general. Part of our commitment in the Kio Kit is to help communities grow. That being said, the growing pains of one community can differ widely from another. The Kio Kits in Africa have very good content on issues like cholera and sanitation, while the South Pacific Islanders were asking for more information on tsunami preparedness and diabetes awareness. While in Kalama we build for dusty conditions, in Kalaka we have to consider humidity and sea salt. Galvanization is now a new discussion in our UX and engineering departments. Going local helps us address local issues.

On this trip we also did visit a 2nd grade classroom in Canberra ACT region Australia, the contrast in classroom technology a mere 3 hours away from Savo island is mind boggling. But it is because of this that we are putting our best foot forward, in Africa, Asia, the Pacific, the Americas and beyond. Together we can narrow the gap in digital education, research and libraries around the world.

As we move forward, we also would like to recognize the amazing partnerships that we have on the ground and in the region without which this new frontier for BRCK would not be possible.

At BRCK, we are people first, design second and then technology brings it all together.

The reason why I like today is because we really got to do the people part really well.

Be helpful
On expeditions we keep to a very tight schedule in order to complete all our scheduled stops and tasks. However this morning we got a call to go rescue a truck that was stuck in the mud after heavy rains had swamped the road.

This was a bitter sweet call, sweet because it is great to be called to save the day, bitter because the swampy conditions were on the same road we had to travel today. When we got to the scene we understood the severity of the situation. The land cruiser had sunk to the diffs. To get it out it took a high lift jack, several individuals and TWO Land Rovers.

Lending a hand

Our kind gesture was also returned in the form of geographical intelligence which informed our route adjustments for the day.

Ask for help.
The road today was full of beautiful scenery, some questionable roads, very many river bed crossings and very few towns. When we finally got to a town, we needed several things, food, drinks and fuel. Towns off the beaten path have no gas stations but you can always find a local supplier who sells petrol or diesel from a small shop.
I was designated the chapati guy on this trip because no matter where we went, I was able to find the freshest off the pan chapatis. This was a challenge in this town because they didn’t have restaurants, however after asking, I was directed to a Masaai manyatta and although they didn’t have any ready chapati, asking for a referral led me to a second manyatta that had 9 off the pan chapos.
The last request was asked by Erik who inquired about the availability of a cell service signal in the area. We gave a local guy a ride and several kilometers away from the town and under a tree, voila, Philip was on the phone with his family and we had a great picnic under said tree for lunch.

The connectivity tree

Delegation intelligence
Our company motto is “we can do hard things”. We often have and overcome challenges of different magnitudes. We learn from every situation. A big part of overcoming challenges is to deligate duties according to people’s strengths.
When dinner time came, Philip was appointed/volunteered to make the sauce for the spaghetti. It was very flavorful however we all agreed that we gave the right job to the wrong person. Philip has many strengths but pasta sauce might not be one of them. Every bite was an expedition into breakfast, lunch and dinner since the recipe included bacon, beans, scotch, wine and peanut butter to name a few things. It was an experience in world cuisines all in one meal.
Live a little
Tonight is our second to last night, the area of the country we are in is the most beautiful part of Kenya that I have been so far, to try and explain it to you would be difficult and pictures do it no justice. Whatever emotions are invoked when one mentions Bali are what I’m feeling right now. There are 5 individual mountains surrounding this river Beach Front property that I pitched my tent on, no soul in sight for a while then a few boys come with a soccer ball and we play together, then some younger kids come to swim.

God’s country

Best ideas win
This expedition comes as I’m about to celebrate my first year with BRCK. Both at the office and outside, we foster a tradition of collaboration and dialogue that helps the best ideas to rise to the top. Rufus has challenged us with his vast knowledge of diverse subjects in music, literature and world trivia. It is this ability to research and be well read that makes him such a great customer service and support guru.

Dinner time

It has been a great expedition, many lessons learned, I finally earned my expedition badge alongside Jeff and Rufus, a BRCK team tradition. I also did cave in and shaved my beard by the river, the itchy 5 day scruff was driving me crazy. stay tuned.

BRCK is at it again. Over the past 48 hours, much has been said about “BRCK Education’s” launch of their flagship products the Kio and the Kio Kit.  The Kio is a ruggedized tablet for African schools and the Kio Kit is a revolutionary digital classroom in a box. It consisting of 40 tablets plus a BRCK+PI acting as a Micro server and then there is the genius behind the packaging that brings it all together. Journalists from every corner of the earth, on Forbes, Quartz, ZDNet, techweez , the blogosphere and techies in general got their fix on juicy tech stats and congratulatory messages galore ensued.

This blog is for the non-techies, the behind the scenes of an Apple-esque product launch, what the product is and why it is a big deal.

The journey starts 3.5 years ago with the birth of BRCK a Nairobi consumer electronic company that decided to design and engineer connectivity devices for Africa. Africa has it’s fair share of infrastructure, power and environmental curve balls that make electronics made for other places as severely handicapped as my golf game. So several years later, the BRCK, a ruggedized, dust/drop proof, connectivity-source-agnostic, modem + router has been sold in 54 countries worldwide in 5 continents. It has an 8 hour battery life with 20 devices connected to it making it the ideal way to connect in the Masai Mara, some places in the Scottish highlands and right now as I sit at a Java house at Adams Arcade Nairobi, generally one of the most reliable Wi-Fi locations in Nairobi but today I am greeted by a “Limited access” message on the Wi-Fi screen.

For the backstage pass to the launch, let’s start a year and a half ago, we the BRCK team at this point are working in schools in Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya solving connectivity issues using the BRCK in schools at the edge of the network. The lessons learned from this super cool pilots is that by using the BRCK to cache content, the students got to experience better digital learning. The education space is a dynamic space. We needed a platform that kids could surf infinite amounts of information from the web but cache it on the BRCK. We also needed a platform that could be remotely updated; as we all know PLUTO has A.D.D., it could be a planet, demoted to a moon and partially re-promoted to a dwarf planet in a span of a few months. Whatever that means, kids in a school by the Serengeti should be able to enjoy the drama unfold just as much as kids in New York.

So BRCK did what it does best. People first, Design second and then Technology brings it all together. The BRCK team does no less than 5000 Miles of “adventure” trips a year to make sure that they understand the environment in which they design for. So visiting schools in Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania became a staple for the team. The outcome was the two products that I mentioned earlier. The Tablet was named Kio, and then many designs later, after dropping, breaking, igniting and crashing several iterations, the Kio was ready for prime time. How do we then introduce it to the world? How better than to make a “Tough Mudder” type of video to showcase its robustness. Drop it from over 2ft/70cm onto concrete, pour a glass of water on to it, into dust, finish off with sticky chewing gum fingers, the Kio is ready for whatever Africa can throw at it and it fits perfectly into the hands of a 7 year old.

“But building the Kio is climbing half the mountain” – Erik Hersman. BRCK needed to make sure that these Kios are housed, charged and have a “brainiac” of a mother onboard to take care of the children. So a Kio Kit was designed, hardy, waterproof, portable, intelligent, in a couple of words, beautifully rugged. A class in a box that has one power button each to bring both the BRCK+PI and the Kios to life. When turned on, the wireless, induction charging is what techies would call sexy.

After many sleepless nights, globetrotting to find the best partners in tech and content, the likes of Intel, Mozilla, JP, Pearson, e-limu, eKitabu the Kio Kit was ready to be launched. So now the hard work to find the venue, Event Company, set up design and execution.

For product launches, there are generally two schools of thought, the first and mostly applied, is to throw a big party, get everyone totally partied-up and boozed up. The problem is that you get to be the most talked about company in town but for the party and not the product. The second approach, which is what Apple and Tesla do and BRCK is following closely which is to unveil your product in a well-choreographed event and let the product speak for itself.

Enter Nivi, President of BRCK Education and Angie, the Program Manager, the two most efficient machines in multi tasking, planning and coordination. Several white boarding sessions later and a 22 page excel spreadsheet of plans nothing is left to fate. Invitations, guest lists, venue, program, transport, catering, lights, camera and action all accounted for. Then the larger BRCK family went to work gnawing at the huge launch piece by piece. Design, print, packing, moving, building, decorating, early mornings, late nights, a diet of coffee and pizzas, pretty soon the day was upon us.

The event went on with the precision of a world class event, Forbes, Quartz, Twitter and the gambit in attendance, you can go there for the glitz and glam. As a behind the scenes blog, I will dwell on the things that were not going as planned. The first thing to cause us a sleepless night was the foam plastic K from the big BRCK logo tumbled off stage breaking into a million pieces at 4pm the day before the launch, our fabricators had to perform magic to replace the K. This is just one of several more hurdles to jump, dry runs, team meetings, more pizza, several ubers and we went to sleep really late.

Early Tuesday Morning, Erik Hersman the CEO sent a wake-up call to everyone at 6:27am. An hour later the team was applying final touches to the space, fresh coffee from Pete’s a much welcome kick-starter but that big locomotive of an espresso machine tripped the whole electricity system crashing it minutes before the event started. Saved by the bell, the awesome event company (HomeBoyz) came through again by providing fusing and stop gaps. Another disaster averted.

The guests came in ready for the BRCK Yellow carpet. Many smiling faces, friends, family, the press in large numbers, guests from all walks of life including the class one school children from our piloting schools. Soon the show and tell was in full force, partners being recognized, product unveiling, a few loud EDM songs, captivating presentations and wowing videos.

Finally how better to showcase the product than walking out of the auditorium to find a full classroom set up with the kids learning, growing and playing on the Kios with the Kio Kit in full display. Everyone had a chance to look, touch, feel and get up-close with the products. The BRCK team at the ready to answer all the questions.

In conclusion, Education in Africa will never be the same again. It is time for a kid in sub-Saharan Africa to be able to enjoy videos of Africa’s child Elon Musk’s rockets going to the space station just like the kids in the Palo Alto area. A few people were concerned about the way to finance these Kits but I am not afraid of that. Already there is exciting interest from some schools, the awesome CHASE BANK KE has a no interest loan to schools and several pioneers like African Wildlife Fund are deploying Kio Kits to schools in Uganda, Ethiopia, Congo and beyond. I was quick to remind people that the Kenyan citizen is called Mwanainchi which means “child of the country/soil/earth” so together, we will see this dream of digitizing our children through to fruition. END

At BRCK we are fanatical about User Experience (UX) and Quality Analysis (QA). That is why last week, we took the fantastic 5 to Kajiado to spend a day with one of our BRCKs in the wild.

Kajiado is a town located 80 kilometres south of Nairobi, along the Nairobi – Arusha highway (A104 road). Local people are predominantly of the Maasai tribe and we consider it the kind of place that we build for. Though located just south of Nairobi, Kajiado is a nevertheless a challenge get to.

Our trip began at 8am, a mistake because rain, traffic and the “scenic route” turned a 1 hour journey into a strenuous 3 hour ordeal. Luckily, we came prepared with a pair of land rovers, as the road conditions deteriorated continuously and we were soon off-roading in some of the prettiest landscapes in Kenya.

Our amazing host and BRCK owner met us at a gas station in Kajiado and we followed him to their beautiful home where we were welcomed with freshly made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, yum. Originally from Texas, our hosts say Kajiado is similar to their home in many ways. Landscapes, temperature, rainfall, or lack thereof, etc…

Getting down to business, we ran several tests, from understanding how they unboxed the BRCK and the way our instructions flowed, to testing connectivity, set up, the cloud management system, and even comparing other connectivity solutions to the BRCK. We do this is because, as a 2 year old company, we need to keep designing and building for the future. Any intelligence we can get makes us smarter. Most importantly, unlike many Modem and Router Hardware companies, we build for the fringes of connectivity and work our way in. For us to say we want to connect the 800 million unconnected in Africa, we need to stay situationally intelligent.

After several hours of work, we went back into Kajiado to a restaurant called Texas where we had some of the yummiest Bar-B-Q. Any objections of comparing Kajiado to Texas were put to rest.

Our research in Kajiado has been the talk of the BRCK office for several days now and with those conversations we move towards a better BRCK. The SuperBRCK. Stay tuned.

The Rhino Charge is an annual off-roading competition in Kenya where racers are required to visit a number of checkpoints while traveling the shortest possible distance across difficult, trackless terrain, where speed is not a necessity although you have to complete the race before 5:30pm. You can see some of our coverage from last year and how we helped the Rhino Charge HQ get internet here.

Due to the ruggedness and remoteness of the event, the BRCK team sponsors a car and we use this opportunity to go test our connectivity in the wild (plus, it’s just a fun thing to do). This year the event took us north past the equator, 100 miles past Isiolo and 40 miles into the semi-desert region of Kalepo (Namunyak Conservancy) in Samburu, Northern Kenya. The drive there is beautiful but the distance and heat can take a toll on the vehicles. For those who follow our blog, we are sorry to disappoint, there will be no vehicular breakdown drama on this trip. The Landrover performed like a champ partly due to the relentless efforts of Reg to make sure the car was properly serviced and ready for the task.

BRCK CTO Reg Orton at the Rhino Charge 2015

The drive into the conservancy is amazing. When we got there we found a very upbeat crowd with everyone looking forward to a great race. There were two ways to connect to the internet, the first and closest to the race headquarters was Liquid Telecom’s satellite backhaul connectivity. They had an impressive show of technology and branding however as is often the case with connectivity at events the system kept getting choked due to the volumes of people trying to get on at the same time. The second provider was a special Safaricom tower 200 meters away from the headquarters that had Edge (2g) connectivity. We drove there and it was very interesting to see how many locals and event staff were huddled under a tree next to the tower surfing the internet.

A mobile phone signal where there wasn’t one before

Back at the campsite, the connectivity was even slower and no sooner had we turned on the BRCK did someone shout, “there is a WiFi signal here and it is very strong!” After dinner and around the campfire, we started discussions around the previous year Rhino Charge event, to up the ante, I told everyone that they can use the BRCK to watch the highlights from 2014 race.

We had pre-loaded the BRCK with a number of videos, including last year’s Rhino Charge as well as some other offroad racing videos. Several people jumped on and were amazed at the speed and quality of our remote data offering. One person asked whether the Rhino charge was the toughest race and we were able to watch different videos with the conversation talking about the difference between rhino charge and Superkarpata a European offroad 3 day challenge through a dozen countries.

Race day came on Sunday. We were up bright and early to visit the checkpoints as we chased BRCK vehicle (the #18 Range Rover) to provide moral support. Several hours after the race started we made our way to the “gauntlet”, where they put 3 checkpoints close to each other for spectator enjoyment. As we waited for the next car, a bunch of guys asked us why BRCK was here and the connectivity was slow and I run back to our truck and came back with several BRCK devices and the complaining guys were soon glued to their phones streaming content from our WiFi connection. Big win for team BRCK.

We soon relocated to the last checkpoint to welcome our truck at the finish line. We had our BRCK out so that we could follow the GPS coordinates of #18 and our connection was much faster than the available options at the checkpoint.

We were soon getting twitter updates of the race progress, other cars on fire, evacuations and finishers. 67 meters to the end of the race, our #18 car which was out of brakes, broken engine mounts, lost wheel nuts, the starter caught on fire, frying the whole electrical system and that was the end of the race.

To add to the excitement, just as we were getting this news on our car, car #64 finished the race just as the whole bottom end lit up on fire… two bottles of fire extinguishers later, they officially punched in their completion ticket. Crazy times indeed!

It was so nice to see all the competitors leaving it all on the field. I however was aware of the lack of native Kenyan spectators at the event. We should be aware that statistics have proven that conservation of any kind in any continent cannot be achieved by a select segment of the population. I hope that the Rhino Charge does more to get local spectators back to the race next year. See you again in 2016.