The Lokole

Lokole is an offline portable web and email network device which provides email and web applications to the unconnected communities.

While mobile Internet technology is improving educational system with new apps being created every day, yet there is nearly half of the world population still cannot afford or access Internet to take advantage these apps. For instance the following countries: Burundi, Chad, Central Africa Republic, The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eritrea, Guinea-Bissau have less then 10 percent Internet users (https://www.internetworldstats...). Not being connected on Internet in the 21st century, means missing a huge part of life's learning advancement through technology. This is were the Lokole comes in.

The Lokole is a device that enables and empowers students and educators who are impaired by the poor communication infrastructure anywhere in the world to access digitized educational materials in a sustainable and affordable way: - The student who has to walk to access a school can participate in distance education via email. Educators can retrieve information via email in preparation of their teaching. -School in remote area can setup a local digital mobile library where students and educators can access vital information instead of having to travel to the main town.  Generally, the access to efficient communication is very important for sustainable learning development “beyond survival”, as highlighted by the UN SDG 9 and Kofi Anan: “The capacity to receive, download and share information through electronic networks, the freedom to communicate freely across national boundaries -- these must become realities for all people”.

The main problem solved by the Lokole is the high price of access to communication technology and mobile data. We tackle this problem in two ways. Firstly, we use extremely cheap and yet general-purpose computer hardware for the Lokole device such as Raspberry Pi 3. This means that our total cost per unit is below 200 USD. The cost of these devices can be covered via crowd-funding or donations so that the units can be heavily subsidized when deployed in sub-Saharan communities. Note that a single device can be shared by an entire community, e.g. of 100 people, so that even in the absence of subsidies, the hardware is still affordable for most. Secondly, the Lokole device, via our custom software, enables a community to share the costs of mobile data and to purchase mobile data when the prices are lowest.

The issue of internet/email access in rural Africa is not technological but it’s socio-economical. This is where the Lokole project fits in: 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 to access knolwledge).
There are no internet cafes or other ways for locals to leverage the presence of the internet in many cities in Sub-Saharan Africa!

The Lokole project has 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 provides email/app access in developing countries at a sustainable price by minimizing bandwidth utilization. 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 applications where they can read and write emails.(2) The Lokole cloud server downloads the emails uploaded from the Lokole devices and manages the mailboxes associated with the users from the devices.

In the next 12 months, I would like to run a pilot project in Basankusu village, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in Africa. Find local and international partners to join the project and establish the Lokole ambassadors and school tele-center kiosk in different cities/villages to promote the Lokole technology. I plan to run informative conference about the Lokole.

Adapt Lokole technology to local social-economic needs. Specifically:-to create a template for an income-generation business-model for schools tele-center kiosks. Students and educators can pay a very low fee for sending emails and navigating web educational applications. This is more reliable and safe than internet cafes for the cost of running can be lowered and fixed to US$1 per day. No risk for the kiosk to lose more money than this. - To train 2 local “ambassador” per school and to brainstorm the best local-solution. -To write detailed manual in the local languages  to help learn the technology and to maintain

(1) Use existing contacts from many years of working in a variety of sub-Saharan African countries. (2) Establish free Lokole hotspots in some key villages in those countries, to give people the chance to see the value of the device. (3) Produce market material adapted to target various communities. (4) Collect marketing material from the 2018-deployment so that people interested in Lokole can hear testimonies from real users. (5) Use digital social and communications media platforms. (6) Select and train local Lokole ambassadors in the targeted countries to create grassroots bottom-up organic growth for the project.

So far, our project is still a prototype, which works. We are now preparing for a pilot project by the end of 2018.

Note that the Lokole is our second generation prototype. Back in the year 2013 and 2015 we conducted a successful test of our first generation device with the local telecommunications carriers (Vodacom and Orange) in the Congo DRC to confirm the compatibility of the technology and assess the need of the population. Our device worked with these carries without any problems and we had 36 users registered within 2 weeks without any ad on the public media.

In the next 12 months we plan to serve Basankusu, which is a relatively large city (population 30,000, territorial headquarter). There are not any Internet cafe there. (too expensive run)
We plan to adapt the Lokole technology to the people’s social-economic needs. Specifically, we will: (1) Create income-generation business-model for tele-center kiosk where people can pay a very low fee for sending emails and accessing educational materials. This business model is more reliable and safe than internet cafes, since the cost of running can be lowered up and fixed to US$1 per day.

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

We are running a non-profit 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).

Solve advances lasting solutions from tech entrepreneurs to address the world's most pressing problems.  

Solve deploys global community to form partnerships these Solver teams need to scale their impact.

I believe Solve can advance my project, the Lokole, because I am solving one of the pressing problem in the world "digital divide".

My Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visit in MIT to address in the Solve, has encouraged me to apply as well.

Our barriers are:

1) Finding software developers for collaboration.

2) Accessing funding to deploy our pilot project in the field.