Moja WiFi

Time is of the essence to leverage alternate communication channels and networks to reach a broad segment of the Kenyan population with the key information and education to prevent the rapid spread of COVId-19. Connectivity is the tool that brings content-rich message into the hands of the most people but the current economics of data costs within Kenya and Africa at large means that the most at-risk populations are the least likely to receive up to date information to prevent the onward spread of the virus.  BRCK has successfully deployed a free to the consumer public Wi-Fi network, Moja, consisting of 2700 hotspots that have connected over 2 million people in Kenya.  We believe that the Moja network is ideally suited to continue being a reliable and free channel for people to access vital information as well as connect to the internet.

Although Kenya enjoys a robust connectivity network in urban, peri-urban and some rural areas, a swath of the population does not have reliable access to digital information due to the disproportionate cost of data connectivity within the country With the rapidly evolving spread of COVID-19, it is practically impossible for government, NGOs, and frontline health workers to disseminate accurate health information rapidly enough to definitely alter the proliferation of the disease.

A secondary issue has arisen, which is the closing of schools. Wealthier nations have infrastructure and most individual families have digital access allowing for remote classrooms and learning to continue.  African countries currently lack this ubiquitous connectivity which means that learning will stop when children can no longer gather in a classroom.

The Moja network is a full stack of hardware and software that provides network access across an entire geographic area using industry standard technologies to commonly available end-user devices (cheap smartphones).The Moja infrastructure is similar to a traditional Mobile Network Operator, but designed with technology that has been optimised for the emerging market and lowers the overall cost of installation and operation. The network is specifically data-only and does not provide for traditional voice and SMS services.  Moja is a smart network of distributed edge data servers and wireless hotspots that provides for a highly optimised information caching infrastructure in order to reduce the overall bandwidth of the network usage while still maximizing the performance of the users’ experience on the network.  Once a Moja user is registered on the system,they will be able to start participating in micro-tasks that earn them points.Users can spend these points to access the internet and to purchase food goods, micro-insurance or access content. The initial types of micro-tasks available to the user include activities like watching an advertisement and sponsored content, taking surveys, tagging images and other digital micro-work available on the Moja portal.

Moja targets the Bottom of the Pyramid consumer; users who have smartphones but struggle to maintain a perpetual data connection due to their financial constraints. This population segment is asked to make hard choice between purchasing essential goods or data. Moja provides them with unrestricted access to the internet. Our users are located in urban and peri-urban areas in Kenya and Rwanda, they are predominately male (65%) and are between the ages of 18 and 34 (78%). We've strived to build our solution with the user's need at the center. Our UX team is regularly in the field working with our users as well as our partners (agents, bus drivers) to garner feedback about their on-platform experience, the content and products they would like to access on Moja. As a company, we have a field day each month where all staff are required to go to the field and engage with users. Moja currently has a user base of +800k unique users/month accounting for over 8.5M sessions/month.  Moja provides this segment of the population with a reliable and always available channel to access vital information during this pandemic.

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