[kictanet] Here’s the Real Way to Get Internet to the Next 4 Billion People

[Brian Munyao Longwe]

Hi all,

I was quite excited to see this article by Wired! Featured in it is the
work I've been doing for Oxfam's Internet Now! project in Northern Uganda
over the past 2 and a half years. (the guy in the photo is one of the
wireless internet engineers from the local community that we have trained
and equipped to bridge the last mile with low cost wireless technology).

We established a social enterprise that is using internet technologies to
improve livelihoods for communities in this post-conflict regions. This is
mainly through making high speed broadband available to rural communities
at low cost. So far we have been able to establish points-of-presence in
the towns of Gulu, Lira, Soroti and Mbale - NGOs, corporates and
individuals alike have been flocking to take up the broadband services
after years of poor quality and expensive services from the mobile
operators who sell mainly data bundles that have poor performance. We ride
on Uganda's national optical fiber network (owned by the ministry of ICT's
National IT Authority - NITA-U). and from Kampala interconnect with a
variety of bulk providers (Seacom, Liquid Telecom, Simbanet, BCS) who are
connected to submarine networks via Mombasa. Our service approach has
greatly challenged the internet services paradigm and scored greatly with
our subscribers, many of whom enjoy better services in these rural towns
than their colleagues/counterparts in the capital Kampala.

We also provide employment to members of the local community through a
specialized form on business process outsourcing known as impact sourcing
or more commonly as microwork. We have an average of about 60 young people
working daily to deliver digitial jobs to companies in the USA, mostly
Sillicon Valley. Most of them are based at a BPO delivery center we have
established at Gulu University with 75 workstation while others work in
their villages via centers that we have established in 20 sub-counties
across 5 districts that offer 5 workstation dedicated to BPO.

We're very happy with the impact that the social enterprise is having in
the communities and I am now in the process of winding up my programme
management role and handing over the reins to a competent management team
that we have established to run the social enterprise.

Best regards,

Brian


On Wed, Sep 16, 2015 at 9:28 PM, Watila Alex via kictanet <
kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke> wrote:

>
>
>
> Deploy Internet the old-fashioned way.
>
> “It’s not so sexy to build roads, but we’re not going to overcome the
> challenge of missing infrastructure with flying cars,”
>
>
> http://www.wired.com/2015/09/heres-real-way-get-internet-next-4-billion-people/
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