E-Artifacts

The African continent faces the highest rates of digital exclusion as only 28.6% of its inhabitants have access to the internet (ITS, 2021). This persists due to the lack of digital education and infrastructure. Improved digital literacy is crucial for matters such as gender equality because it increases women’s access to information regarding their rights and allows them to participate in decision-making processes. E-Artifacts will recycle E-waste and refurbish personal computer components to repurpose them according to customers’ needs. The goal will be to decrease the cost of accessing appropriate equipment while increasing its accessibility. Additionally, we will provide fixed wireless internet to promote connectivity. The internet will be provided using satellite connectivity from Starlink systems that reach even the most remote areas. Providing equitable access to affordable equipment and digital tools in remote areas will decrease digital illiteracy that contributes to the global gendered digital divide.

Digital exclusion is evident in the developing world as only 28.6% of the African population has access to the internet (ITS, 2021). In 2017, only 21% of Rwandan individuals had regular access to internet connectivity (World Bank Data). In contrast, up to 87% of individuals in high income countries in the Global North use the internet (World Bank Data). Additionally, this digital exclusion is not just racialized and class-based, it is gendered. Across the African continent, only 20.2% of women have access to the internet compared to 37.1 % of their male counterparts (ITS, 2021). By focusing on Rwanda in its first year of operation, E-Artifacts seeks to address on a micro-level the global divide between high and low income countries in terms of digital literacy and inclusion. E-Artifact’s goal is to reduce the digital gap in low income communities, as well as the gendered gap between men and women. Our mandate is to increase the number of internet users in African households while reducing the gender gap, so that Africans may have tools to take advantage of the internet revolution.

To increase the use of digital tools we’ve identified two necessary components. Firstly, E-Artifacts will be providing computers and tablets to households at an affordable price. This will be achieved by refurbishing old personal computers collected through donations from the government, private organizations, and individuals. We will set up a collection page on our website with the necessary information to donate the hardware in the same way as other big organizations such as Recycles.org or Electronics Recycling in North Carolina | Powerhouse Recycling. E-Artifacts will ensure total transparency by providing holistic information regarding how monetary and recycled donations will be used. A decentralized system for the delivery of digital tools will also be in place to boost the local e-commerce.

Additionally, we will provide fixed wireless internet using satellite connectivity provided by Starlink with a bandwidth in downloads up to 100Mbps in the early stage and later on of 1Gbps. The users will only have to install an antenna on their roof and have access to electricity. We will provide proper guidance throughout the minimal installation process and the internet bill will be split between the community and our organization.

Located in the Southern Province of Rwanda, Nyanza’s district features low digital literacy rates, particularly among women. In this region, only 0.8% of households have access to personal computers and this number is even lower among young women (Nyanza DDS, 2018). Furthermore, only 22% of the district's residents receive secondary education (Nyanza DDS, 2018). Due to a lack of resources, this secondary education itself does not ensure extensive IT skills among the youth. Thus, E-Artifacts seeks to address this divide by targeting low-income women ranging from 18 to 35 years old. 

In order to address the gendered and class-based digital divide, E-Artifacts will have to employ a socio-economically informed technical approach. By collaborating with the district’s office and local women-led cooperatives, we will raise awareness about E-Artifacts and encourage participation among young women. On-site observations and interviews in Kinyarwanda will be conducted in Nyanza to ensure that the team understands the gap while centering the women’s voices. 

Ultimately, E-Artifacts aims to improve digital literacy among young women to give them access to better decision-making tools that allow for increased social mobility.

This solution is well aligned with the digital inclusion problem because it takes into account many aspects of accessing the digital economy in remote areas, especially those located in developing countries. In Rwanda, it is crucial to increase the population's access to connectivity especially in cities such as Nyanza where only 0.8% of the citizens have a computer and 14% have access to the internet. This slows down the economy and isolates underserved communities, notably, young women. Due to limited access to information and wage labor, their opportunities for social mobility are minimal. 

We chose concept because we currently have prototypes of recycled E-waste and single-board computers (Raspberry Pi 4). We have designed a solution that will use low-latency satellite internet and relay it to several individuals within a village. It will take some time to be implemented but once the main providers will serve the region the speed of implementation will be exponential. Until then, we use GDPRS (3G) internet in order to connect the target population. The price is still affordable as well as the equipment. Our pilot program will consist of impacting at least 10 individuals aged between 18-30 with at least 7 women at first. We plan to walk through them using our solution and make sure it'll have a positive impact on their lives. We hope that with us they will broaden their perspective. The pilot program will begin July 2021 and will last 1 month.

Our solution provides a new and significantly improved approach to address the lack of connectivity in underserved regions in Rwanda as we will offer recycled & refurbished computers and accessible internet at a low price. The combination of these two has yet to be done on a national level and for remote communities. This will increase access to the digital economy. E-Artifacts’ solution is catalytic because it will speed the growth of certain rural infrastructures, formalize the informal economy, promote gender inclusion, increase access to education via online platforms, and facilitate communication between family members across the nation. These positive outcomes will ensure the well-being and economic growth of Rwandan rural communities.

Subsequently, the solution will also change the market dynamics in rural areas as there will be increased access to information. For instance, farmers will have knowledge regarding the current price of given products on the market, learn new methods of crop production leading to higher yields, therefore enabling their economic mobility.  

Our solution is still at the prototype stage. The pilot program will serve 10 individuals. After one year, we aim to serve 300 individuals more. After 5 years, 5000-7000 individuals.

E-Artifacts will employ a gender-sensitive approach to measure our progress. To analyze the impact of our solution we will apply quantitative methods of data analysis. First, we will use a network monitoring tool to surveil the bandwidth. By doing so, we can know the peak time of consumption and whether certain devices consume more than others. Secondly, we will investigate whether there is an increase in the number of collected resources and impacted individuals. Our solution will first be used by a limited number of people in Kigali and Nyanza, but we plan to extend it to more rural areas in Rwanda to gain as many users as possible. However, to humanize our solution and ensure a connection between our team and our target population, E-Artifacts will also conduct qualitative research. Our team will administer interviews and polls to evaluate user satisfaction. Our project does not only seek to digitize rural areas, it hopes to center women’s financial and social stability by ensuring that they are as happy and familiar with our resources as possible. These qualitative interviews will also aim to analyze whether there has been a change in relationships between employers and young women as a result of increased digital literacy. We will ask the questions: “Is there a correlation between higher employability and female digital literacy?” and “Is there a correlation between female digital literacy and increased social mobility?” Lastly, we will study what skills young women are gaining by carrying out semester evaluations in small groups. 

We are currently 5 active members working together. Two of us have technical backgrounds, we understand how the solution will work and we have prepared a detailed plan to achieve the desired results. One other member specializes in business planning while the rest focus on the social side.

Our team consists of five young Rwandans with diverse skill sets that will contribute to the implementation of this project. Our strongest suit is that half the team is located in Rwanda, where they can carry out interviews with the target population in Kinyarwanda. Our founder, Chris Kagabe, a computer science, and engineering student, believes that access to virtual information could be a key component in allowing female social mobility and development. Kenny Ingabire is a student at the African Leadership University specializing in promoting the 4th industrial revolution whilst centering women’s participation. As a young woman in tech, she has an intimate connection to the project as she has seen gendered digital exclusion first-hand. Furthermore, our project seeks to emphasize the importance of cultural sensitivity while addressing an issue that is directly connected to patriarchal institutions. Thus, Derrick Kanyonya plans to instill the “agaciro” (giving oneself value) framework to guide E-Artifacts. E-Artifacts wants to help young women in rural areas assert their agaciro by giving them access to decision-making tools. Dally Mugema and Marie Reine Mukazayire, located in Canada, hope to promote collaboration between young Rwandans on the continent and those in the diaspora to promote the country’s development. Mugema is an engineer with strong project management skills that will play a central role in running E-Artifacts. On the other hand, Mukazayire has experience working with nonprofit organizations so she will be focusing on the social determinants that need to be addressed to ensure the project’s success.

To ensure a diverse, equitable, and inclusive leadership team, E-Artifacts took several factors into consideration. We made sure that the team was composed of young people from diverse backgrounds yet who share the same objective. E-Artifacts prioritized a Rwandan team to promote digital inclusion within Rwandan low-income communities. Our solution seeks to leverage lived experiences because we understand that there are various forms of knowledge-making and promotion. By hiring a Rwandan team, we are also centering the communities we seek to work for and ensuring that our solution is accessible through the use of local language and a culturally sensitive framework. Furthermore, E-Artifacts recognizes that rural areas are the most underserved communities in this rapidly changing digital world. Thus, our solution will work to create an environment in which young women in rural areas feel valued and seen. Our solution will not be framed in a savior complex, rather it hopes to give a platform to young women in rural Rwanda so that they may tailor our services according to their needs. While our policies and practices are designed to provide people of all backgrounds with the opportunities to thrive, E-Artifacts will specifically invite and center young women as they are more likely to be marginalized within their communities. Similarly, within the leadership team, E-Artifacts values and promotes the voices of the young women that compose it.

As African-driven youth, Solve will help us introduce and reinforce the 4th industrial revolution in the African countries that we will be working with. Through Solve, E-Artifacts will have access to mentorship and strategic advice from experts regarding our solution, as well as ways to build impact measurement practices. Since we are passionate about promoting digital inclusion, Solve is the best way to gain exposure and guidance on how to effectively attain our goals in boosting gender equality. Furthermore, the exposure we gain from Solve will facilitate donation and collaboration with like-minded social entrepreneurs and organizations. 

Solve will also help us promote a more sustainable digital world, as recycling and refurbishing personal computers reduces e-waste. It will simultaneously increase access to information, thereby empower young women socially and economically.

• Legal aspect: As an NGO there is a lot of legal work that requires a strong understanding of governmental bureaucracies which our team does not have experience with. 
• Financial: We have a team member that has some financial experience, but we will still need expert help to make sure we are making the right assumption for our costs, cash flow, and much more.
• Monitoring/ Evaluation: Our second biggest task after the implementation of our solution is gaining data from our clientele, so we can know how to better tailor the solution to them. Therefore, we need to ensure we are making the right decisions from the start. We need training on how to collect efficient and constructive data, reporting the data, and measuring the impact of the information collected.

E-Artifacts would like to collaborate with both governmental and non-governmental institutions to ensure the best results. To do so, we hope to work with MINICT, Rwanda's Ministry of ICT and Innovation. One of their main goals is to promote ICT for development which aligns with E-Artifacts' mandate. This collaboration would help our project advance as having governmental data and help would facilitate implementation. Furthermore, subsidies from this ministry would encourage E-Artifacts' growth across the country. 

Furthermore, E-Artifacts will prioritize cooperations with local NGOs like Safi Life and These Numbers Have a Face. Both organizations promote female advancement by granting university scholarships to selected young women. E-Artifacts wants to create a bridge between these organizations and our participants. By giving young women digital literacy tools and connecting them with higher education opportunities, E-Artifacts would ensure a long-term plan that promotes female social mobility. 

 E-Artifacts also hopes to work with Giz, a German NGO located in Rwanda. Giz has worked to promote digitalization in Rwanda for several years now. With their expansive knowledge, E-Artifacts would benefit from consulting with them regarding technical issues and working with ICT public institutions. 

Lastly, E-Artifacts hopes to work with past Solve projects like iamtheCODE. Through this collaboration, iamtheCODE would achieve its goal to build a generation of 1 million women coders while helping us promote digital literacy in Rwanda. E-Artifacts wants to help young women acquire practical digital tools that would promote their employability such as coding skills. 

Our solution seeks to advance digital inclusion first in rural Rwanda, and more African countries like Kenya in the future. We hope to leverage digital literacy as a tool to facilitate access to economic opportunities and promote inclusion. E-Artifacts recognizes that within Rwanda and Africa as a whole, there exists socioeconomic gaps exacerbated by intersecting marginalized identities. The continent faces a dual challenge: not only is there a digital divide between Global North and South countries, within the continent, there exists a rural-urban divide. Both these power imbalances intersect with issues of race, gender, ethnicity, class, and much more.

E-Artifacts seeks to take a gendered lens in order to promote digital inclusion in Rwanda and fight against the disenfranchisement of young women. The funds from this prize would contribute to creating an antiracist digital world that promotes the inclusion of young Black women. Using the prize money, E-Artifacts would have access to more personal computers while reaching a greater population in terms of bandwidth. Furthermore, the HP prize would allow E-Artifacts to expand in terms of workers on the field teaching young women digital skills as well as events we could organize. 

E-Artifacts is specifically looking to work with young African women to promote their digital literacy. By doing so we will be expanding their access to information regarding self-advocacy and empowerment, work opportunities, higher education opportunities, and more. We will use the money to furnish the young women with computers, fund their access to the internet, carry out digital literacy boot camps and online courses, and finally to organize district-wide community sessions that seek to reaffirm the benefits of digital literacy while combating against patriarchal ideologies. 

We plan to use Governance tokens to allow token holders to shape the future of E-Artifacts. Every individual that will serve will be able to earn governance tokens and influence decisions concerning the project such as proposing or deciding on new feature proposals. This will allow any individuals including women to participate in decision-making processes. We plan to participate in several DAO in order to gain visibility and contribute to protocols that can improve people lives including those who aren't aware of the up-and-coming decentralized economy.