Digital Literacy for the Masses

The problem we are trying to solve is the high cost of mobile internet access and the lack of digital literacy among the population, particularly in Bangladesh.

The reason cellular internet is expensive is the regulatory environment and competitive environment. The quality of cellular is also not up to the mark as Bangladesh stands 118 among 140 countries in terms of internet speed according to ookla speedtest. For fixed broadband the ranking is 104 among 180 countries. Quality cable broadband is also expensive due to inefficiencies and lack of business innovation in local ISPs.

Locally, millions of individuals in Bangladesh face barriers to accessing affordable internet and lack the necessary digital skills to utilize it effectively. Globally, similar challenges are prevalent in many developing regions, hindering economic and social development.

The pilot project aims to scale up to 100,000 plus users, targeting specific groups such as the national university system of Bangladesh with 3 million students, female RMG workers, areas near high schools with many first-time internet user,s and also school children affected by poverty or inaccessibility. The problem potentially affects millions of people in Bangladesh and similar communities globally.

Factors contributing to the problem include the high cost of mobile internet, lack of digital literacy, limited access to internet services in rural areas, gender disparity in internet usage, cybersecurity issues, mental health concerns, and power supply reliability. 

The solution addresses these factors by providing free Wi-Fi through a sustainable business model, offering educational content on internet usage, cybersecurity, mental health, and partnering with ISPs and brands to reach a wider audience.

Our solution addresses the challenge of high-cost mobile internet and limited digital literacy by deploying large-scale public Wi-Fi hotspots supported by brand advertisements. Through our initiative, we aim to provide affordable internet access and educate users on internet and smartphone usage behaviors.

How it Works:

We set up content-driven free Wi-Fi hotspots in student communities/hostels, tea shops, micro-merchants, and residential areas of RMG workers. These hotspots are strategically located near high schools in rural areas to target first-time internet users.

Within these Wi-Fi hotspots, we provide educational content on effective internet usage, cybersecurity awareness, mental health, and the effective use of AI tools. This content is accessible through a well-designed captive portal and is funded by captive portal advertisements by large and small brands.

Our technology stack includes Freeradius-driven AAA Server, Custom OSS BSS system, Captive Portal, Content Management System, and Advertisement Management System. Smartphone apps for both field forces and customers facilitate system interactions. Additionally, we utilize big data techniques to find optimal deployment locations and ensure targeted content advertisement.

We address the challenge of managing large-scale networks by implementing a digital twin for physical hardware stack, integrated with our existing network monitoring system. This enables efficient monitoring and management of hardware conditions, including fiber and wireless networks.

We employ a combination of Layer 3 to Layer 7 network communication techniques, utilizing FreeRadius for AAA, Python, PHP, and Linux Shell Scripts for backend software and network automation, and Android apps for enabling system interactions.

As we scale up our network, we anticipate encountering and fixing bugs in our existing system, as well as adding new features based on user requirements. We plan to continue sharing our experiences and solutions at various conferences to foster knowledge sharing and collaboration within the industry. Our user interface is optimized for lower education populations, ensuring ease of operation without extensive instruction.

Broadband in Bangladesh costs 5% of the average monthly income for the bottom of the pyramid population.

Our business model allows ISPs and Micro Merchants to place Free Wi-Fi Hotspots in low-income communities, paid for by brands who can place advertisements in the Captive Portal of that hotspot. Users have to watch the advertisement content and answer a question before getting access to the free internet. This model reduces the cost of mobile internet by 25X compared to cellular.

Target Population:

National University System of Bangladesh: With over 3 million students, including a significant number of female students, this population lacks access to public Wi-Fi on their campuses. By providing free Wi-Fi hotspots and educational content, we empower students to utilize the Internet for academic research, skill development, and personal growth.

Homes of Female RMG Workers: Female RMG workers, primarily from lower-income backgrounds, often face limited access to internet services. By deploying Wi-Fi hotspots in their residential areas and offering digital literacy programs, we enable these women to access online resources for personal development, financial management, and social connectivity.

High Schools with First-Time Internet Users: Teenagers in rural areas, especially those accessing the internet for the first time, lack guidance on safe and productive internet usage. Through our initiative, we provide free Wi-Fi near high schools and deliver digital literacy education, equipping these students with essential skills for navigating the online world responsibly.

Our solution aims to directly impact the lives of the target population in several significant ways:

Enhanced Access to Information and Opportunities: By providing high-quality, low-cost internet access, individuals in underserved communities gain access to a wealth of information, educational resources, and job opportunities that were previously out of reach. This access opens doors to personal growth, skill development, and economic empowerment.

Empowerment through Digital Literacy: Through comprehensive digital literacy programs, individuals acquire essential skills and knowledge to navigate the online world safely and effectively. They learn how to utilize the Internet for research, education, communication, and financial transactions, empowering them to make informed decisions and participate more actively in the digital economy.

Improved Social Connectivity and Well-being: Access to free Wi-Fi and educational content fosters greater social connectivity and community engagement. Individuals can stay connected with friends and family, access mental health resources, and participate in online communities, contributing to improved overall well-being and social cohesion.

Economic Empowerment: By bridging the digital divide and providing access to online marketplaces and entrepreneurial resources, our solution empowers individuals to explore income-generating opportunities, start their own businesses, and improve their financial stability. This economic empowerment has a ripple effect, benefiting not only individuals but also their families and communities.

Gender Inclusion and Equality: By specifically targeting underserved female populations, such as female RMG workers and female students, our solution promotes gender inclusion and equality in access to technology and digital resources. It enables women to overcome barriers to internet access and participate more actively in educational, economic, and social spheres.

Our team is uniquely positioned to design and deliver this solution to the target population due to our deep understanding of Bangladesh's internet landscape and our personal connections spanning from tier 1 ISPs to village-level ISPs. As founders of this project, we come from the bottom of the pyramid community ourselves, and we attribute much of our personal and professional success to the transformative power of the internet. This personal connection drives our passion and commitment to serving the needs of underserved communities.

The team comprises individuals with diverse expertise and experience, including fintech experts with a background in equity research, project management professionals from leading tech companies, and capable network engineers. This diverse skill set enables us to approach the solution from multiple angles and ensures that our decisions are data-driven, innovative, and grounded in real-world insights.

In designing and implementing our solution, community input, ideas, and agendas are at the forefront. We collect feedback from ISPs, micro-merchants, customers, and our own team members, ensuring that our decisions are informed by the needs and realities of the communities we serve. Our decision-making process is transparent and inclusive, with input from all stakeholders and a commitment to data-driven innovation. 

We have already built a home grown software stack that does not require us to pay subscription fees, so we can scale this model however we like. Also we have experience of network automation in large scale ISP with 150,000 retail customer and 7,00,000 end user.

Continuously prioritizing improvement and training for our team members to ensure that they are equipped with the knowledge and skills needed to deliver high-quality service. Our engineers and designers regularly visit ground deployments to engage directly with users and gather firsthand insights. Additionally, our field force team undergoes intense training on internet technologies, while our engineering team receives regular training on technology and team management.

We are committed to promoting digital literacy not only among our target population but also within the broader internet user community. Through our captive portal, we've delivered educational videos on essential topics such as internet usage efficiency, cybersecurity, and COVID-19 safety measures. These educational messages have been seamlessly integrated into our platform, ensuring that users receive valuable information alongside their internet access. Furthermore, we actively participate in industry events and conferences, sharing our knowledge and experiences with the wider community through paper submissions and presentations.

Since initiating our pilot project in 2021, we have made significant strides in addressing the challenge of high-cost mobile internet access in Bangladesh and promoting digital literacy among underserved communities. Through our innovative business model, we have achieved the following milestones:

Deployment of Free Wi-Fi Hotspots: We have successfully deployed free Wi-Fi hotspots in 25 low-income communities across Bangladesh. These hotspots are strategically placed in areas with limited access to affordable internet services.

Educational Content: Through our captive portal, we deliver educational videos and messages to first-time internet users on various essential topics, including internet usage, cybersecurity, mental health, and wellness. These educational resources are designed to empower users with the digital skills needed to navigate the online world safely and effectively.

Awareness Campaigns: During the COVID-19 pandemic, we ran campaigns on our captive portal to raise awareness about safety and wellness measures. These campaigns aimed to educate users about preventive measures against the virus, promoting health and safety within the community.

Partnerships with ISPs and Micro Merchants: Our business model involves partnerships with ISPs and micro-merchants to facilitate the placement of free Wi-Fi hotspots. These partnerships have been instrumental in expanding our network and reaching underserved communities.

Advertisement Revenue: Brands have shown interest in our captive portal advertisement platform, enabling us to generate revenue from advertisements displayed to users accessing the free Wi-Fi hotspots. This revenue model has proven to be financially sustainable, contributing to the scalability of our solution.

User Engagement: Our pilot project has demonstrated strong user engagement, with approximately 200 unique users accessing the free Wi-Fi hotspots on a regular basis. Additionally, we have recorded over 1000 ad views per access point monthly, indicating a high level of user interaction with the advertisement content.

Cost Reduction: By offering free Wi-Fi access supported by advertising revenue, we have successfully reduced the cost of mobile internet by 25 times compared to cellular data plans. This cost reduction has made internet access more accessible to low-income communities, addressing the affordability barrier.

Overall, our accomplishments signify tangible progress towards our goal of providing high-quality, low-cost internet access and promoting digital literacy among the masses in Bangladesh. Through our pilot project, we have demonstrated the viability and scalability of our solution, laying the foundation for broader impact in the future.

Our Biggest challenge is bringing in large brands to fund these free wifi hotspot deployments across Bangladesh at scale in our target communities. This requires significant capital expenditure on hardware purchase and field force deployment to convince the local ISPs to partner with us. This requires raising money, also having access to the very top level of these FMCG brands will significantly help us. If these brands are ready to give us a large pre-payment to place hotspot hardware in their desired locations, we won't even have to raise further capital. Also, there are a lot of NGOs and Non-Profits who want to reach these same communities with educational messages, if we get access to this non-profit community we can certainly scale it up quickly within Bangladesh, also we can take this solution to Africa and Parts of Asia as well. Solve has a lot of projects in their network already that are working with similar target audiences all across the globe, also Solve has access to a donor network of very large non-profits who have beneficiary NGOs in Bangladesh, through which we can partner with these NGOs and reach to absolute rural areas where our service is needed the most. These same large Non-Profits also have investments in the largest Digital Financial System(DFS) in Bangladesh, with that DFS we can have a mutually beneficial partnership and help them onboard more customers in their DFS merchant locations.

The key innovation of the business model is incentivizing ISPs, Micro Merchants, Brands and End users to come to the content-based Wi-Fi platform for the things they need.

Innovative Targeting

• The project is targeted towards a young audience, male and female from the bottom of the pyramid community. The innovative part here is targeting national universities, and high schools where it is easy to get access to these people, where you can make an impact in their education and growth. A significant impact in the life of these young people will mean a significant impact in the economic future of their family and in turn the whole bottom of the pyramid community in Bangladesh.

• Gender equality in our users is a priority for us, and we are targeting female dormitories where there is no fixed broadband available

Building Relationships With ISPs:

• We found ISPs need more automation in setup, monitoring and management in their network, so we have already built up a software system that helps us build a relationship with a lot of ISPs.

• We are working with a nationwide transmission provider to build relationships with a lot of ISPs in a short period of time.

• Our content-based Wi-Fi system can be used by the ISPs to brand themselves in their community as well, which will grow their business and increase dependency on the system.

Building Relationship With the Brands

• We have directly built relationships with brands because we are offering an alternative channel for advertisement. When we talk to these brands they tell us their reason for reaching out to us is all the other advertisement channels are saturated and not yielding them enough results. 

• As we are going after young students, with a high ratio of females, brands are very much interested, because they won't be able to reach these people otherwise through online methods, as these income and age groups are not very easy to find online.

• Also as it is ADs with a life changing utility and education, these brands can show this expense as CSR expense increasing their tax benefits and giving them good rapport with the govt.

Homegrown software

• Our homegrown software stack includes an OSS BSS System, Content Management System, mobile apps in Bengali Language for easy deployment, and an Operating System for Access Points. 

• It also includes a network diagnosis system that allows a layman to hit a button in a mobile app and find problems with the wifi system, preventing physical visits by an engineer.

Micro Merchant Incentivization

• Micro Merchants are incentivized to help onboard users because of the cash benefit they get.

• Micro Merchants usually run Digital Financial Service Operation which requires internet for both Micro Merchant and their customers, this free wifi captive portal environment gives them a very very easy and low cost way to connect and do their transaction.

Primary Goal of the project is to take the content based free Wi-Fi with Digital Literacy to scale. For this We need to:

Goals

• Goal 1: Make the advertisement marketplace work in our targeted lower income community. The marketplace should have a large-scale access point network with a large user base to attract large brands, it should have enough ISPs to place free Wi-Fi access points with captive portals in locations where advertisers want to show ads.

• Goal 2: Provide effective Digital Literacy to the majority of the users, teaching them about Productive Use of the Internet, Personal Cybersecurity, Mental Health education, and effective AI Usage.

• Goal 3: Reach Underserved Female Students, High School children, National university students  & RMG Worker community with free Wi-Fi internet and Digital Literacy.

• Goal 4: Set Up a supply chain through which Wi-Fi & Power Backup hardware can be acquired at scale at lower than market price in Bangladesh, by being a direct importer.

• Goal 5: Prove that the software system that has been built already works at scale with a lot of customers and nodes.

• Goal 6: Document and share the knowledge with the broader internet community.

By providing free Wi-Fi access and educational content, we aim to create immediate outputs and longer-term outcomes that benefit our target population.

Immediate Output:

• Deployment of Wi-Fi hotspots in targeted areas, including national universities, high schools, and female dormitories.

• Onboarding of ISPs and brands onto the content-based Wi-Fi platform, facilitating access to free internet and educational content for users.

• Creation and dissemination of educational videos on internet usage, cybersecurity, and awareness measures through captive portal technology.

• Procurement and deployment of Wi-Fi and power backup hardware to support the network infrastructure.

Long-term Outcomes:

• Increased access to affordable internet among lower-income communities, validated through the utilization of the new business model.

• Enhanced digital literacy and economic empowerment among users, leading to improved economic opportunities and community development.

• Scalability of the technical architecture, demonstrated through the successful operation of the network with a large user base.

• Broader societal impacts, including reduced digital divide, improved educational outcomes, and enhanced technological innovation.

• Sustainable growth and replication of the model in other underserved regions, facilitated by documented knowledge sharing and partnerships.

Impact Goals/Indicators

• We want to set up in 100 different Locations with 500 Access Points. Of these access points 300 will be funded by this grant, and 200 of them will be funded by ISPs and Advertisers, proving the capability of the project to sustain and grow on its own. Each of these Access points should generate USD 3 per month revenue through Advertisements at the last 2 months of the project.

• Each access point will serve on average 200 unique users during project duration. Meaning total unique end users of free Wi-Fi should be more than 100 thousand people. These users should consume on average 4GB of data per user throughout the project period with our network, totalling a 800 TeraByte data consumption through the network during the project period.

• Out of this user base, at least 30,000 users will be female.

• Out of 100 locations at least 50 locations should be serving National University students, meaning they will be hosted by micro merchants, restaurants, shops and dormitories. Another 20 of these locations should be serving female RMG workers. Rest will be placed in rural low income areas with large marketplaces.

• 10 Distinct advertising Brands and 10 Individual small and large ISPs will be part of the content based free Wi-Fi marketplace. 

• Number of short educational videos produced for consumption should be 50. 

• At least 70% of the users should watch at least 1 education video. At least 20% of people who watched educational videos should take action based on that new knowledge. 

• Education video should be at least 20% of the video watched by the users..

• Access point uptime should be 99%, software uptime should be 99.999%

• Number of hardware imported directly with own Import Registration Certificate Should be at least 100

• 
  

How will we Track the Metrics

• We will collect content viewership logs, radius session data, hardware uptime data, server uptime data, netflow data, and device geolocation data.

• We also will run surveys in our captive portal to collect age and gender data of the user, rewarding them with free bandwidth when they fillup the form.

• We are able to calculate how many users we have, which content they watched, how much data they consumed in very granular details, per user basis.

• We can also understand how much impact a educational content had in multiple ways

  • One is the rate of improvement of the user over time in terms of quiz answering after watching a video.

  • Another way is we show them tutorial content of a web service that is not using a cloudflare proxy, when the user is visiting that site, we can track how much time they spent on the site with netflow data, allowing us to know if the tutorial we showed had any impact in conversion.

  • We also get conversion data from our advertising partners, they share how many people visited their website after watching their content on the captive portal, allowing us to understand impact

• Our technology stack already includes Freeradius driven AAA Server, our Custom OSS BSS system, Well Designed Captive Portal, Content Management System, Advertisement Management System for Brands, Smartphone app for Field Forces, Smartphone App for Customers, Sales Monitoring Dashboard for ISP Partners and Network Management, Log server for regulatory purposes & Hardware Monitoring System for our Engineers and ISP Partners.

• When we scale up our network, it is highly likely we will be finding lot of bugs in our existing system and we will be fixing those bugs. As more users use these systems, there will be more feature requirements from them, we will be adding them.

• One of the biggest pain points that we have seen is managing large scale networks is monitoring and managing all physical hardware, specially the condition of fiber network and wireless network. We will build a digital twin for physical hardware stack, plotted in a GIS. This solution will help our ISP partners deploy and manage large scale public Wi-Fi networks combining outdoor access points and indoor guest networks. This will be integrated with our existing network monitoring system, and we will visualize hardware status data that we are getting from our NMS to the GIS system.

• We are using a combination of Layer 3 to Layer 7 network communication techniques. We are using FreeRadius for AAA, Python and PHP for backend software and network automation, Linux Shell Scripts for Customizing Router configs, and Android Apps to enable ISP, Micro-Merchant and Internet Users for system interactions.

• Our android app sends config to a consumer grade wi-fi router and transforms it to a AAA capable router, the router can then talk to our AAA cloud and identify users and their available balance.

• We will also use big data techniques to find optimal locations for deployment

• We have a content server that allows content advertisement targeting user location and demographics.

• Any addition that we are making to our software and business stack we tell their story in various conferences, we already have done it at APNIC 52, Ripe 82, Ripe 87, BDNOG 15 and APRICOT 2024. We intend to continue telling our stories in upcoming RIR and NOG conferences.

• The user interface is/will be optimized for lower education population, so anybody can operate the system without much instruction.

• Please look at slide 5 and 8 in this file for further explanation https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cqeyM3FNhDRLu_GsoXV3M6_ZNiCcNKQT/view

• We have Microsoft Certified Data Analyst, Certified Network Professionals, Capable Full stack and Mobile Application Engineers and Certified Financial Analysts that have built the system and business model.

• Full-time: 9 
• Part-time: 2

Key Members: 

• Mainul Hasan Alin, CEO
• Monoshita Ayruani, COO
• Ovick Alam, Advisor
• Quazi Khairuz Zaman, Chief Advisor
• Maksudul Haque Chowdhury, Advisor
• Sheikh MD Seum, Senior Network Research Engineer
• Marline Zaman, Business Development Executive
• MD Minhazul Alam Chowdhury, FullStack Engineer
• Moinul Islam, FullStack Developer
• Mahadi Hasan Taronno, FullStack Developer

4 years+

• We are aiming to hire more female network engineers, Business development person and field force. We will need significant female participation in these roles for achieving our 30,000 female user goals.

• We have people from the Garo, Pronoy Eugin Khalko, Indigenous community in our project team. He is a very active member in our business development team contributing significantly in our deployment effort.

• Lot of our employees come from the bottom of the pyramid community and national university itself. Listening to their stories from their educational life made us realize that Digital Literacy in these communities needs to change significantly.

In terms of business model, we are an advertisement marketplace, where we bring in ad viewers on captive portal login pages of open wifi hotspots, people watch ads to get free internet afterwards. These are people with very low internet connectivity, so they are very valuable to advertisers with digital advertising budget, as this audience is mostly unavailable through other digital ads platforms. We sell these ad views to large brands who wants to distribute their products and services to these communities; this includes large fmcg brands with physical products who places video ads, or brands with digital products such as mobile apps who can incentivize users to use their product, in return they get free internet in our wifi hotspots.

We have so far run on Investor capital, Revenue from Advertisers and a grant by APNIC foundation. But we have proved that advertisement based wifi is sustainable in our pilot. We have seen on average 1000 plus video ad views with quizzes per month from a shop hosting a wifi hotspot, these ad views has a market price of USD 8 in Bangladesh if we compare with facebook and google rates of similar ads. Also we are providing a utility of high quality free internet, which attracts a lot of brands for CSR purposes. Also we get discount in monthly internet prices from ISPs because we place ISP ads on the Wi-Fi captive portal as well. Everything combined we have e 30% gross margin, which we use to pay the engineering and other stuff fees. With sufficient scale, we can bring in more users and advertisers in our ecosystem, increasing the ads prices, which increases the margin and revenue which will eventually result in net profit. We intend to raise more grants and equity capital because we want to scale up this model fast. Our only barrier to growth now is more hotspot in more location, which requires hardware capex and fieldforce. Large brands with the biggest advertising budget looks for very large ad viewer base, otherwise they don't want to engage with a cheque.