Connected Villages in Tanzania

"We solved the challenge of access!"
Tanzania was our first site in Africa to make the impossible happen, connect to the Internet where nobody believed you could connect. Thanks to the "Non-discriminating access for digital inclusion" (DigI project, 2017-2020), we connected four villages. Selela and Izazi were selected as they were impossible to reach, Esilalei due to the lack of electricity, and Migoli to include both a school and the community centre through one access.

The pre-requisite for development are energy, access to information and information itself. We have developed an infrastructure for free access to information, the InfoSpot, a wireless information hotspot for schools, health stations, and community centres.

Selela

In Selela the market place got connected, reaching to a tower more than 20 km away. Demonstrating the capability to provide Internet access in areas with no mobile broadband coverage.

Izazi

We selected Izazi, one of the villages in the Iringa district in Tanzania, as a pilot site for providing Internet Lite for All. Izazi is located at the Mtera dam, and it's only about 11 km to the 3G mobile towers in Migoli. Though, as hidden behind the mountain ridge, there is no mobile broadband coverage in Izazi. We connected the community building in 90 min, and from there reached out to the primary health station.

Esilalei

Esilalei (Lat -3.46945, Long 35.97469) - received 3G Tigo coverage Jun2018, and got our equipment in Mar2019. It was our first installation in Tanzania, using a 120 W solar panel to power the village hot-spot, and enlighten the community building.

The only place with lights all around - at the community centre in Esilalei, powered through solar and battery from our InfoSpot

School connectivity

We support GIGA, connecting all schools in the world through our InfoSpot solution. Our vision is that every child in this world has free access to educational content at their school, fostering the digital and economic future of the young generation.

Migoli

In Migoli both Halotel and Vodacom provide 3G networks, with towers being provided right within the village. About 2.5 km east of the village is the Nyerere High School, with 1271 children and 34 teachers. Thus, bringing an information spot to the school will allow for education in digital matters.

The InfoSpot receives the mobile network, creates a local network and spreads the network to both village and the school areas (top antennas)

Ongoing activities

Since the DigI project we connected more than 200 schools, achieved the "Affordable Access for Education, Health and Empowerment" (AA4EDU) with Vodacom Foundation, and have a flowering activities in several communities. Our local communities, supported by the team of African Child Projects (ACP), does a fanstatic jobb - and allows us to connect a school for USD 1,000 - that means a bit more than 1 USD/child for providing digital inclusion. We need your help in connecting all schools in Tanzania.

In Bagamoyo, we are connecting 12 out of 20 schools thanks to Rashid Ally.

In Usevya, we connected a Secondary School, Youth Center and Health Center in collaboration with Usevya Development Society thanks to Eden Ezekiel Wayimba (UDESO).

"Non-discriminating access for digital inclusion" (DigI)

The three year project was funded by the Research Council of Norway, and was the start of our connectivity work in Africa.

The main objective of providing non-discriminating access is supported through deployments and validation in Tanzania and Mali, focussing on the following sub-objectives:

• Bridging the digital divide by providing the InfoSpot infrastructure and digital access.
• Provision of customised content for education and health purposes, thus creating the basis for jobs, as well as financial and social inclusion
• A cost-effective, open and scalable Wifi extension of the mobile network for the low-income group, enabling (mobile) operators to provide digital services, education, health and entrepreneurship for women and youth empowerment as representatives of the vulnerable society groups.

We would like to thank our collaboration partners in Tanzania. Through the combined effort of the government (Ministry of Health, Universal Communication Service Access Funds (UCSAF), National Institute for Medical Research), Academia (Sokoine University of Agriculture, Muhumbili University), Mobile Operators (especially Tigo and Vodacom), and the communities we achieved our goals of bringing “free access to information for everyone”.

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