Lokole (Portable Web & Email Network)

1. Close to half of the world population cannot afford access to Internet.The majority of these populations live with less than US$2 a day. This situation jeopardises education, health and social-economic development, especially during this uncertain time of COVID-19 pandemic.

2. We have developed Lokole device to help these marginalized populations to access digital educational contents in an affordable and sustainable way.

3. Lokole device will help school:

a) to create full email network communications between teachers, administrators, students and the world. 100 people and more can share just a US$1 to send unlimited emails with attachments.

b) for students to access full of educational content of Khan Academy material, Wikipedia, literature and medical information.

Lokole works in an offline mode and connects intermittently to Internet for updates through our main server hosted by Microsoft Azure.

1) The price of mobile data is very high which makes internet access unaffordable for the individual and many small organizations. For example, in the DRC, 60 MB of data for one day costs 1.00 USD (Vodacom), almost as much as the average local daily income: 1.19 USD (World Bank).

2) There are very few internet cafes outside of the big cities The Lokole solves this problem via our custom hardware and software. We enable an entire community to pool its resources, thus enabling everyone to access

email at a sustainable price. If 100 people share one Lokole device, the daily price of operation is just 0.01USD per person (same price as 50 grams of cassava). This is affordable for everyone.

Beyond efficient communications, the Lokole also solves the more general problem of knowledge access in rural areas: every Lokole is designed with a web platform which enables to download a rich variety of read-only offline web resources such as Wikipedia, Khan Academy, Project Gutenberg and so forth.

Moreover, the Lokole creates opportunities for new small businesses. For example: - Mini-internet cafe renting out wifi-capable devices so that people can use the Lokole. - Email Services.

Lokole is our custom software-and-hardware device named after a traditional congolese long-distance ceremonial slim drum instrument.

The Lokole uses extremely cheap and yet general-purpose computer

hardware called Raspberry Pi. Via our custom software, enables a community to share the costs of mobile data, to purchase mobile data "pay-as-you-go"

How does this work?

The Lokole device creates a local wireless network that can be accessed via any wifi capable device within a range of 25 meters or more. While on this network, users can use the free apps hosted on the Lokole device, send and receive email and offline web reader. All of these interactions only use local computation so no bandwidth costs are incurred. On scheduled time, the Lokole purchases some mobile bandwidth and exchanges data with our server in the cloud on Microsoft Azure. In this way, emails written on the Lokole are sent into the world and email sent to users on the Lokole device are received. We use compression algorithms to further reduce the bandwidth necessary to perform this exchange, saving even more money. This keeps the day-to-day cost of operating the Lokole device for all of its users at 1 USD.

Our solution serves firstly marginalized women and children. (We signed an agreement with ALVFEA, an organization which takes care of education of abandoned children and women.) Secondly, we serve all type people who are in the following situations: (a) User with no access to Information Communication Technology (ICT); (b) User who cannot afford the current cost of Internet services (e.g. internet cafe or mobile data plan); (c) User who does not have good Internet quality (slow connection); (d) User with a lower performing computer; (e) User in communities that lack telephone lines or other ICT infrastructure (e.g. internet cafe); (f) User who does not have ICT physical infrastructure (e.g.laptop, phone); (g) User who lack skills to use the ICT tools; (h) User who does not have adaptable and appropriate information contents; (i) People of all age, since the Lokole has a general purpose and is built to be very easy to use by everyone.

Our CEO is from the DRC and he is in constant contact with various organizations, friends and members of the extended family who tell him day to day how difficult and expensive to access Internet and suggest give suggestions on how to improve the situation.

Our solution serves firstly marginalized women and girls. That is the reason we signed an agreement to run our pilot project with ALVFEA, an organization which takes care of education of abandoned children and women.

We know, if there are new opportunities in the community, women and girls are left behind. Yet they are the basis of any society, for the nurture the family. Once they are properly trained, the community they transform the community they live in for prosperity.

Note that our device Lokole can also be used to anyone who is affected by digital divide problems. 

Let’s discuss why Lokole is a transformative innovation using the example of the Congolese city Basankusu.
Basankusu is a relatively large city (population 30,000, territorial headquarter). As such, there are relatively good services there, e.g. local internet service providers (ISP) such as Vodacom cover the city. However, there are no internet cafes or other ways for locals to leverage the presence of the internet in the city! Why is this the case? As we mentioned throughout all of our application, the problem is the low local purchasing power which
makes the ISP services unaffordable and makes opening internet cafes a risky proposition for local entrepreneurs as there will be low demand for the high-price services. Therefore, the issue of internet/email access in Basankusu is not technological but it’s socio-economical. This is where the Lokole project fits in: we use technology to tackle at the root these specific socio-economical problems that the local communities reported to us. Lokole is a bottom-up solution, whose innovative nature relies on its technical simplicity and effectiveness. We didn’t reinvent the wheel, but we used existing technologies and services (Python, cellular modems, cloud storage, compression, batching, single-board computers) and adapted them to the real needs of rural people (expensive internet access).As such, Lokole is the only affordable solution to the problem at hand and thus a breakthrough solution for bridging the digital divide in the DRC and the whole Africa and the world.

The Lokole project consists of two main pieces: (1) The “Lokole device” hardware and software This is a cheap single-board computer that is deployed in a rural community. The Lokole device creates a local WiFi network. When people access this network from their laptop or phone, they access the Lokole email and web application where they can read and write emails. Lokole device uses USB mobile modem to upload the emails written on the device to cloud storage and download new emails for users on the device from the cloud storage.
The USB modem is managed by usb-modeswitch. The bandwidth is purchased via a local SIM card, such as Vodacom in the DRC, or via a global bandwidth provider like the Hologram.io startup. The cloud storage can
be any file-based storage like Azure Blob Storage. The remaining software like the email client and scheduled upload tasks are custom-built using Python and Flask. All the source code is open source and available at
https://github.com/ascoderu. (2) The “Lokole cloud server” software is a set of programs deployed to cloud infrastructure. The goal of the Lokole cloud server is to connect the Lokole devices to the rest of the world.
The Lokole cloud server downloads the email data uploaded from the Lokole devices and manages the mailboxes associated with the users from the devices. As such, the Lokole cloud server is responsible for sending the emails from the Lokole devices to the world, receiving emails from the world and routing them to the Lokole devices.

Lokole software is now being used by and organization called Internet-In-A-Box (http://internet-in-a-box.org/) in more than 20 countries.

Change occurs when a community find a new way of doing things or open opportunity to thinks they could not afford before. This is the change impact our device, Lokole will create in the world where it is going to be implemented. Today most of private and government organizations, school, universities in Africa do not have local area network email communications because they cannot afford it due to electricity blackout, cost of equipment. With Lokole all these organizations can afford local area network email communications an build strong and sustainable administration. Because Lokole is portable, powers up with internal battery and can be charged with both electricity and solar. This is the change we are talking about.

Not Applicable

Full-time staff = 0

Part-time staff = 6

Sporadic Volunteers

We all have our full-time paying job besides Lokole project because this project still in its beginning stage. We hope to win Solve challenge to help us with business coaching to build a sustainable organization and to work full-time in Lokole project. Now it is taking a long time to develop Lokole because we are not full-time.

We have many other software/code developer professionals and students volunteers who time to time to help with Lokole application development.

Nzola Swasisa is an electronics technician, native of the DRC in Africa who now lives in Victoria, Canada. He has 19 years experience of communications device in the DRC, Angola, Namibia, RSA, Zambia and Mozambique. 

Clemens Wolff is a full-stack software developer, who lived in Togo, Mali Zambia, Canada and is now based in New York, USA. He honed his software chops working on large-scale projects at Amazon and Microsoft and on open-source projects such as the sharing platform yunity. 

Laura Barluzzi is a self-taught developer. She worked at the British Columbia Council for International Cooperation (BCCIC) and for Amnesty International in Canada.

Shaun Bathgate is a software developer and electronics technologist. Employee with the National Defense department in Canada.

We are partnering with an organization in the Democratic Republic of the Congo "DRC" called ALVFEA "Association de Lutte contre les Violences des Valeurs de la Femme et des Enfants Abandonnes". "Association for Combating Violence against the Values of Women and Abandoned Children".We are working with them to implement Lokole pilot project in the DRC. ALVFEA has 10 thousand members across the DRC.

We are collaborating with Internet-In-A-Box "internet-in-a-box.org" in the code development. Internet In A Box has incorporated Lokole application in their box. Internet In A Box operate in more than 20 countries around the world. 

We think to run an Hybrid profit-not for profit organization.

We are running an Hybrid profit-not for profitt venture. As a non-profit, our model of operation is sustainable because we have two streams of incoming revenue and only one stream of outgoing expenses. If someone is interested in the Lokole services and can afford its costs (e.g. a NGO like Susila Dharma International), they purchase the Lokole hardware from us and will pay us a small mark-up on top of the costs of operation per month. If someone is interested in the Lokole but can’t afford its costs (e.g. a school in a rural area), we use the buffer of money collected from the above plus donations that Ascoderu collects to subsidize the cost of the hardware for the school (e.g. via reduction in price and/or micro-credit). The daily operational costs are low enough so that each school can cover them independently (e.g. $1 per day). As such, Ascoderu as an organization has no long-term costs for Lokole hardware. Our only long-term costs are operation of our cloud infrastructure for the email servers which we cover via donations from big tech companies (e.g. we currently receive $10000 per year in free Azure credits from Microsoft Vancouver).

We are applying to solve, because Solve has the expertise to build startups and we need to take advantage of this opportunity.

Not Applicable

We do not have specific names. Any help to advance Lokole project will be welcomed.

Lokole is a device build to help access to Internet application any person or communities who are excluded from. Internet and digital equipment and digital applications due to poverty and social class. Refugees are included in this statement, because they are most of time marginalized. Lokole is build for them.

Our partner in the DRC is ALVFEA, an organization which takes care of the value of women and abandoned children. Together with ALVFEA, we plan to train women to assemble Lokole boxes and to become administrators of Lokoles.

Our partner in the DRC is ALVFEA, an organization which takes care of the value of women and abandoned children. Together with ALVFEA, we plan to train women to assemble Lokole boxes and to become administrators of Lokoles.

Lokole box will include built in educational materials, medical info and Wikipedia apps to help girls and women in learning.

Lokole is an educational box for anyone including adults, because it will include lessons materials such as mat, science, languages and others.

We are a not for profit organization. Our sole objective is to help humanity to prosper. Because we are advocating for the people who live in poverty, who are marginalized and who are abandoned.

Our solution is hybrid not for profit and profit as well. We plan to run profit venture and the profit we get we use some for the people in need.