Lifeline Energy Foundation

Say hello to YouTube for audio.

Making a positive and lasting difference in the lives of poor and often illiterate people who do not have easy access to information or new sources of knowledge is my life’s work. Information poverty brings dire, life-long, and often life-threatening consequences.  African women and girls in rural areas will be my initial focus, extending and building on my work of the past two decades to expand access to radio technologies.

The funding will create the world’s first open-source, comprehensive and searchable library of curated audio content for African listeners. My idea, Radio Voice Bank (RVB), is a podcasting platform that builds on rich traditions of oral history and enables individuals, community groups, health, agriculture, and education providers to easily search, download and learn from trustworthy content via smart and feature phones. It will permit rebroadcasting of content by radio stations.

Phase 1 includes: In-depth research on user information needs of underserved farming and livestock-keeping communities in three underserved Kenyan counties; testing and refining platform operability; content translation/curation, uploading and feedback protocols; establishing content creator partnerships; and planning for scale-up. Costs include: project management; data collection/analysis; reporting; finance; communications, and technology expertise.

Thirty years ago, I emigrated from California to South Africa. On a corporate sabbatical in 1999, I had an opportunity to establish a non-profit to deliver ground-breaking wind-up radios to at-risk, vulnerable African populations where conflicts and HIV/AIDS were wreaking devastation. Radio was often the only way to communicate with people.

Three months quickly turned into 22+ years. This work has taken me to 34 of Africa’s 54 countries. I've seen how creativity shows up in the most unexpected places and how Africans everywhere find joy in their lives.

Having worked with some of Africa's most marginalized (Rwandan child-headed families, children orphaned by HIV/AIDS, women farmer groups, populations displaced by disaster or conflict, nomadic pastoralists, women in prisons), I’ve repeatedly witnessed the difference made by having access to radio information in a voice you trust and in a language you understand - especially for rural women, the least likely to have attended school.

The balance of my working life will be devoted to creating new information and knowledge opportunities to build skills and livelihoods, keep cultural wisdom alive, improve health outcomes, increase educational options, promote equity, and navigate climate change in collaboration with allies who share this vision globally.

The problem we aim to solve is limited access to information by reversioning, translating, and distributing existing and new audio content. Information is a universal human right and integral to realizing the SDGs, improving and saving lives.

Information poverty plagues rural Africa. Women, in particular, are disenfranchised and disempowered due to lower literacy (and digital literacy) levels, access to the means of communication, and lack of content in languages they understand, severely limiting their ability to take up new knowledge and technologies.

Without information, people cannot respond effectively to what happens around them. Dangerous misinformation/fake news is proliferating and can be more influential than factual information.

This global issue affects developing countries most, where contributing factors include media capture by state/vested interests, lack of electricity, under-resourced education infrastructure, and cultural norms that disadvantage women. 

Our focus will first be Africa, and Kenya specifically, where 70% of the population live in rural areas. The demographics of our target areas are representative of East Africa and beyond. Community radio remains a key source of information. The importance of mobile internet importance is growing. 40% of Kenya’s population is already mobile internet-connected. The greatest barrier to mobile internet use for women is literacy.

I’m a serial social entrepreneur committed to collaborative systems change approaches and human-centered design. I pioneered the wind-up radio sector for development and emergency response, revolutionizing radio access for millions of marginalized people. Previously, lack of electricity or disposable batteries precluded the poorest, especially women and children, from listening.

My Lifeline Radio (first winner of the Tech Museum of Innovation Award), brought to market the first radio designed/engineered for humanitarian use (particularly children) creating a market sector that previously didn’t exist.  My LifeplayerMP3 (2011 Index: Design for Life Awards finalist), brought to market the first power-independent radio/recorder/MP3 player enabling content to be pre-recorded and played on demand, is used extensively by teachers and farmer groups.  

Currently, no platform and protocols exist that content creators (communications NGOs, community radio stations, commercial media, government ministries, and UN agencies) can use to permanently archive and distribute audio content in a free and user-friendly way. Non-literate and isolated populations cannot easily obtain the information they need either via mainstream media or in their mother tongue. Together RVB and a mobile phone will change that.

RVB is a simple way of accessing audio content on-demand, delivering convenience, control and diversity, with minimal literacy required.

Lifeline Energy has a two-decade proven track record of innovation, delivery, and impact. We pioneered the power-independent radio space, bringing fit-for-purpose products to market with design briefs created by end-users (African children, teachers, women), distributing over 700,000 radio/MP3 sets and reaching many millions of listeners.

A human-centered, demand-driven approach also characterizes RVB. Our women-driven project team includes:

·  Kenyan radio broadcasters, content producers, scriptwriters, and researchers

·  Strathmore University (Nairobi), conducting user demand and preference research

·  Prague-based technology non-profit, Sourcefabric, highly experienced in media development and unique design/technical expertise to rapidly prototype and evolve the podcast platform based on research findings, and user feedback. 

We are currently securing institutional buy-in from content creators and by sharing the concept with donors.

Our approach will ensure RVB is more relevant, comprehensive, and user-friendly than platforms like SoundCloud, Spotify and iTunes—and less data-hungry than YouTube. African audiences are relatively new to podcasts but they are growing in popularity.

In the first phase, RVB will directly engage 3,000 women and girls to research information needs and user experiences. Prototype platform trials will potentially reach 500,000 females in target areas—and inform learning, adaptation, and scaling across Kenya, East Africa, sub-Saharan Africa and beyond.