Rural-Tech Development (RTD Program)

Rural Community Organizations play a major role in the development of the country by working with different aid institutions for their development. Malawi has over 400 community organizations (women and youth inclusive) with massive potential for development if given information and capacity to excel in business, school development and women empowerment projects. The project plans to equip these organizations with capacity in terms of resources (ICT resources and applications) knowledge through training and mentorship to allow them to be sustainable by accessing different funding opportunities, online services, scholarship and training opportunities to actively participate in shaping their social, economic, environment and political future. Using already established community organizations, the model can be adopted by many countries using ICT resources to uplift rural communities globally.

The major problem is lack of access to ICT services that will assist with solutions to sustainable rural community development. International Telecommunications Union (ITU) states that only 13.8% of Malawians have access to ICT services with over 16,000,000 Malawians with no access. 56.1% of the world's population has internet access with Africa being the least which means there is a lot to be done for Africa’s internet-based development. The factors that contribute to little use of ICT in Malawi are:

• Poverty- Malawi is one of the poorest countries in the world with 50.7% of the population living below the poverty line and 25% living in extreme poverty. This has led a lot of communities prioritizing handouts over development.      
• Structures and coverage- There are not many structures available to allow access to ICT services and in some areas coverage is minimal.
• High Internet tariffs- the ITU listed Malawi as the most expensive internet user in the world with 56.29% of average monthly earnings. This is too high for a developing country. This is an area that we plan to advocate for in the future.

Our approach will target over 400 established rural community organizations in 32 districts in Malawi. Each rural based organization works within a radius of 500- 5,000 community members and they will have capacity to introduce, expand and bring ICT based development and opportunities in their communities reaching out to more than 1 million people in Malawi. The project will introduce ICT equipment (phones, computers and their use), designed applications for business in rural communities, platforms for sharing funding opportunities and development models. We aim at building their capacity and helping them grow into independent structures that will continuously develop their community members. 

For our pilot, we are working with 4 schools in Malawi and have built capacity of 50 teachers in internet-based solutions and grants for development. Over 3,000 students might benefit with ICT equipment for educational purpose if the grants are awarded.

The first initial contact is through meetings where we shared our vision and plans. This is followed by sessions that allow us to understand their needs, challenges and their possible solutions to the challenges. This helps us connect the needs to proper ICT solutions.

We are using ICT services, funding and development programs to achieve rural community sustainable development. We are focusing on how ICT solutions can contribute to achieving the 4 pillars of sustainable development namely social, political, economic and environmental.

• ICT- With funding, we aim at equipping rural community organizations with ICT equipment (computers, cellphones) and connections to allow them to access ICT services. For business groups, cellphones with android facilities will be used to access different markets. In other areas, we will bring e-wallet services closer through the groups to reduce distance community members travel to access money and other services.  
• Trainings- We are offering community development, grants and ICT training by introducing them to different funding and scholarship opportunities, ICT services like mobile and internet banking, E-wallet service and how they are used.
• Access to Information- We are giving the platforms and linking them to information on business, markets, funding and development. Depending on each community organization, we will offer tailored made information to specifically deal with the need. 

How to reach the Community organizations- We will work with the district councils to obtain list of all rural community-based organizations in their districts and engage Traditional Authorities to ensure registered community organizations are the main organizations to work with. All beneficiaries will be monitored to track their progress in the use of the technology provided for development.

ICT programs and community development activities play a major role in development if applied together. What makes our solution innovative is the combination of 3 key development elements thus providing ICT solutions together with tailor-made trainings and funding opportunities to ensure sustainability of rural projects. Working with community organizations for over 7 years made me realize that rural communities lack capacity to access opportunities in absence of other organizations. The fact that they cannot access opportunities on their own defeats the purpose of community development. Our solution will ensure that they can access opportunities through ICT designed and existing applications.

We are dealing with the issue of "unavailability of ICT equipment" to making them available and making sure they are used to bring development to rural communities and finally teaching them ways of sustaining that development.

All this is centered on our theme "within the community, for the community" meaning ideas are emanating from the community for their development. Our goal is to provide the same platform and opportunities as urban communities to enhance strong, prosperous, and inclusive communities. This will help develop rural communities into mini-cities and achieve the connected citizens’ idea in which all citizens actively participating in shaping their social, economic, and political future. The use of ICT platforms established in rural communities will allow technologies that can facilitate development. This sets us apart from others providing IT services or trainings to communities. Our innovation provides opportunities to allow rural communities be socially active and inclusive.

Our solution will use ICT equipment (computers and cellphones), ICT packages (SMS, USSD,internet services, application software, mobile applications e.g freeware, communications and web based platforms) to provide rural communities with ICT services and development opportunities.

Short Message Services- To pass information in very remote areas with poor internet or cellular connections.

USSD- The service will be used by business groups for mobile baking, e-wallet services in business transactions.

Mobile Applications- Common in Malawi is WhatsApp where communities will be introduced to Android Cellphones to share information on business, development, funding opportunities and many more through WhatsApp created groups. We are also in the process of developing a business application in local language that will help rural communities trade farm produce within their communities and beyond.

Web Platforms- Will be introduced to all communities with special focus to youth groups and schools to access learning materials and information for development.

Our project will develop a database of different funding and development opportunities and other internet based solutions that will be shared with rural communities through these platforms.

Capacity building- Our approach will equip rural organizations with development opportunities and ICT solutions. We will build capacity of over 400 community organizations in 5 years.

Mentoring- Organization will receive continuous assistance in grants application process, platforms for professional trainings, opportunities for partnership and development, guidance on developmental issues, opportunities for individual to community development and information and understanding of donor aid processes. We will help develop community organizations knowledge, skills and understanding on funding and development. It is expected to serve 80 community organizations (with average of 10 members per group) in a year influencing development of over 40,000 community members (average of 500 community members within the groups reach).

ICT Knowledge- Organizations will receive starter pack ICT equipment and training services. We will help solve lack of ICT and provide access to ICT community development opportunities. Rural organizations will have access to mobile banking services, trade platforms, educational information and many more. It’s expected to reach over 800 community organization members who can assist over 40,000 people in a year with individual and community development activities.

Other Activities- Other established organizations and start-up will receive consultancy services in grants management. It is expected to reach out to 20 organizations a year with grants training and proposal writing sessions. We will develop competent proposal writers and grants managers.  

Currently:Our pilot targeted 4 community schools to build their capacity to access a Public Diplomacy Grant. Our 3 steps of building capacity have been done thus provide resources, provide training and empowering them to take up the initiatives themselves. Over 50 teachers have knowledge of the use of computers and internet for development. The grants applications if awarded will improve the lives of over 3,000 students with modern learning technologies and access to the digital world.

In one year: Malawi has over 400 rural community-based organizations established in all the 32 districts. With funding available we can reach out to 80 community organizations a year ( with average of 10 members per group)  equivalent to 800 people with capacity building programs and ICT solutions.  

In 5 years: We aim at reaching all 400 organizations in 5 years thus 4,000 community group members. 

With Community Development Officers in focused areas, the potential to impact more communities is huge as the community organizations are already established and are aware of their community needs. 

Short term- In the next months, we plan to organize one group training for 50 rural youth groups registered under the Ministry of youth in proposal writing for development, ICT services and business mindset. We plan to launch a women development program to teach rural women how to use mobile applications to do business and have access to markets.

Register with Grants Association Programs and  start processing for trainings and certifications. Our goal is to be certified as a grants training institution to assist other organizations with grant solutions. We aim to be a member of the Federal Grants Association and other funding institutions. This will allow us to grow beyond Malawi and build our revenue.

Long term-Partner will IT Solutions companies or individuals to develop applications, programs and software that will facilitate easy information sharing with our community based organization projects and use the applications for trade, sharing ideas and development. We would like to develop a business software for rural community women in local languages to facilitate easy trade.

We aspire to host a Malawi grants and development seminar that will bring our community based organization team, investors and funders together to discuss rural community development.   

Capital- Challenges of funding and scaling up. The business is in its developmental stage and operate with personal funds. This has allowed us to only provide training on grants and development. Our focus is to help our clients obtain equipment grant to help us facilitate other aspects of the project.

Technical- We anticipate resistance from non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and other stakeholders that work directly with funders and donors as the project my result in building community organizations into huge institution therefore affecting their operations.

ICT Challenge- It might take time for rural communities to adopt the technology and they will require continuous monitoring to help them understand the technology.

Capital- Through grants and accelerator opportunities. We have grants management and business marketing background that will help us source fund. As consultants, we will offer paid services to different organizations, groups and individuals on grants activities and proposal writing. Registrations and certifications will allow us to organize trainings and workshops on grant related activities with a fee and attract organizations and individuals in the field. 

Technical- We will work with NGOs and other stakeholders to help empower local communities and help them identify projects that can be directly given to communities to manage. Our role is to help complement NGOs and other stakeholders work and we will highlight such points.We will work on finding solutions together of incorporating ICT to help with community needs and solutions. E.g. NGOs might use platforms provided to collect data, pass information, arrange trainings directly with the community and other services.

ICT Challenge- We will employ Community Development Officers to work with the community members and assist them in understanding the technology and use. 

Not Applicable

Full Time- We are just getting started and have 2 full time employees. Consolata Chaluluka Kambani the Founder and Executive Director of the project  and  Mphatso Chaluluka, the Co-Founder of the project.

Part Time- David Chikusiwa a student doing computer networking and programming with years of experience in photography, web designing, computer programming and applications. 

Volunteers- We get 2 to 7 volunteers depending on the work. We plan to employee full time employees with availability of funds. 

My co-founder is an expert in marketing and communications, a seasoned practitioner and a holder of an MBA in Marketing Management. He has over 15 years’ experience in marketing, communications, IT solutions, advertising, website development, digital marketing and development. With his skills and experience, we are developing a marketing strategy that will allow us to develop the organization further and project our goals for the next 5 years. The marketing strategy will also outline a revenue generation plan for the organization to support its core business of empowering organizations and their communities. With his marketing experience, we were able to position the organization to target local communities and work on a good revenue plan to sustain our organization.

I am a grants specialist with vast experience in managing different donor funded projects with special focus on USAID projects. I hold an MBA in Human Resource Management and recently was accepted for an MBA in Sustainable International Development at Brandeis University-USA (Fall 2020 program) and I have over 7 years experience in proposal writing, funding strategies, grants management, evaluation and review of federal grants and training in federal grants management of contract and cooperative agreements. 

My donor engagement experience will allow the team develop funding proposals to bring sustainable international development through ICT solutions to Malawi rural communities. I believe we are a team of individuals that can develop this project beyond imagination.

We currently have no partners but have applied for different funding opportunities in hope for partnership and funding as follows:

• The Jack Ma African Netprenuer Prize to be announced August 2019
• The USAID Women Connect Challenge to  be announced in August 2019
• Unilever Young Entrepreneur to be announced in August 2019
• Cartier Women Initiative Prize- (still in process)
• US Embassy Public Diplomacy Grant  to be announced in September 2019
• US Embassy Self Help fund- For our school development project 
• F6S Land Accelerator program to be announced in July 2019
• Malawi Growth Accelerator (in progress)

Our approach - Based on the peer to peer business model where we will act as consultants working with organizations linking them to developmental opportunities with use of ICT solutions and funding opportunities. 

Our Business- Offering 2 services and 1 product. ICT equipment as a product and skills to achieve or use ICT services for development and opportunities for development as services. The product is provided by distribution or purchase by the community members or groups. The services are provided through technologies like SMS, USSD, web, internet etc.

Target Customers- individuals, organizations and communities using and accessing all these services and products. Service providers (cellphone network providers, banks, e-wallet providers, micro financing services, NGOs and other institutions working with the communities) 

Main beneficiaries- Community organizations who will be assisted with services that will help them gain access to ICT services, training and development opportunities. 

Rural Community Organizations are our future revenue source as they grow into big organizations. We are planning ahead with a vision of developing over 400 community organizations to into structures that will in return use our consultancy services and help bring massive revenue to our organization. With our planned certification process to different grants certification boards and being identified as the member of the federal grants association, we will be providing services to over 50 organizations and companies in Malawi and beyond aside the 400 developed community organizations. 

Consultation fee charge: Organizations will be charged a consultation fee and charges will range from $20 per day to $500 depending on type of consultancy and duration. With the rural program, the fee will be budgeted in their proposal and be made available after being successful in their application. An agreement detailing how much percentage will be paid to our organization for the expertise will be put in place in a MoU.

Training and mentorship: We will organize trainings to different organizations in grants management, community development and providing guidance and screening applications before submission. Trainings will range from $25 per person to group trainings of $250-$500 depending of type of training and duration. We intend to specialize in these grant critical areas: 

• Grant Writing Consulting - funding research, opportunity analysis, proposal design and types, grant writing skills
• Grants Budgets – development of budgets, allowability of cost and analysis, justification and interpretation of budgets
• Other Funding Opportunities - government loans, tax credits and incentives and many more 
• Administration of Grants - invoicing, reporting, cost share, cash flow management, amendments, Bid/Procurement opportunities, accounting systems and many more 
• Community Development- Critical areas that needs development, areas focused in the Malawi Sustainable Development Goals report, needs assessment and many more. 

Subscription Fee: With certifications attained as grants professionals, organizations will be charged membership fee to subscribe to our services or to be members

Opportunity- We would like to have the opportunity to let the world know about our project and how it can bring massive technology, community and social development to rural communities in Malawi and meet funders, advisers and fellow solvers. We would like to have the platform to learn on how best we can advance, finance and upscale our project. We were excited to notice the network that SOLVE has and just to be part of it will open many doors for our organization.

Set Up- We were interested with how SOLVE is set up. The fact that fellow applicants, funders, Solvers will have an opportunity to contribute to our application and share ideas on how to perfect it is a plus. We are open to ideas, advise and the platform SOLVE has offered is priceless and we would like to be part of it.  SOLVE will help us strategically position ourselves and the organization.

Partnerships- SOLVE has a pool of highly valued partners, funders and speakers and we will be grateful to learn how we can develop meaningful partnerships within and beyond SOLVE.  

The Package- We would like to be part of the selected Solver team to join the group of funders and experts who will help with mentorship and strategic advice and above all to be part of the May 2020 challenge and with high hopes to receive access to more than $1.5 million in prize funding. This is our overall goal.

Not Applicable

We are looking for organizations that are:

Technology based- IT solutions who can help us design applications that can enhance networking of community based organizations to give room for learning, trade and networking.

Grants Program- Those offering training, mentorship and certification on grants like National Grants Management Association , Grants Professionals Association and Grants Professionals Certification Institution. Our overall goal is to be the member of the association leader for Federal Grants Professionals.We would like to go through their training program and be certified grant management organization. Our vision is to set up a Malawi National Grants Management Association/Program with tailor made trainings in grants and finance. We would like to certify grant managers to be recognized in the field. 

Independent Proposal Consultant- We would like to partner with Gary Mason a highly valued proposal consultant with over 14 years experience in proposal writing and management winning over $20 Billions of funding with organizations and individual contracts. We believe Gary can mentor our team and work on providing a workshop in Malawi to entrepreneurs.  https://www.linkedin.com/in/ga...

we do not meet the requirements.

We are a startup organization with an innovative way of dealing with issues of social inclusion focusing on the 4 pillars of sustainability and ICT services. With this prize, $10,000 will be used for setting up our organization outreach programs to rural communities through the district councils. This exercise will allow us introduce our program to rural communities through the District Council, Traditional Authorities and then the community organizations and initiatives. This will help us ensure security of the equipment shared with community organizations and develop an understanding on how they equipment can be monitored.

The $40,000 will be used for our rural community schools’ campaign to introduce computers technologies for educational purposes. More than 80% of the population in Malawi lives in rural communities and only 13% of the population has access to the internet. This means almost all rural based community members have little to no access to computer and internet-based opportunities for development. With this background, we would like to target rural community schools by providing them computer technology and training. Our goal is to help youth in rural areas to be computer literate and access opportunities through them.

A computer and internet connection is $550, and $40,000 is 72 computers. With an average of 4 per school, 18 rural community schools will be assisted. The average capacity of students per school is 800 and overall 14,400 students will benefit from the development each year making it 72,000 in 5 years. 

We plan is to empower already established rural women groups in Malawi that are business focused to access ICT services. Under this program, we will provide modern cellphones and solar power chargers to women groups to give them opportunity to do business. In Malawi, a lot of rural women rely on farming and small businesses to earn a living. The challenge experienced is long distances to sale their produce and opportunities to directly connect to the buyers which leaves them with unsold farm produce that affects their capital. The cellphones will allow them to join or form business forum where they will find markets using different mobile platforms that will be introduced to them. This will allow them to take their products directly to the buyer as a result they will have access to capital, markets and networks with other women entrepreneurs. 

The initiative will also help women share best business lessons and farming methods adopted in different areas. The mobile phones will facilitate easy money transfer to avoid women traveling long distances to sale product. The produce can be sent to the buyers or markets.  Working in women groups will help them organize transport together and reduce traveling cost therefore saving on their profits.

With $50,000, 830 cellphones can be purchased and targeting 2 cellphones per group will result into over 400 women entrepreneur groups with average of 10 per group accessing ICT business opportunities. Over 4,000 women can benefit from this technology in a year.

We do not meet the requirements.

We do not meet the requirements.

We are a start up organization with an innovative way of dealing with issues of social inclusion focusing on the 4 pillars of sustainability and ICT services. The prize in this category will be used for two purposes. The $5,000 will be used for setting up our organization with website and outreach programs to rural communities through the district councils. This exercise will allow us to gather information of all registered community organizations in each district in Malawi. 

The $20,000 will be used for our rural community schools’ campaign to introduce computers technologies for educational purposes. More than 80% of the population in Malawi lives in rural communities and only 13% of the population has access to the internet. This means almost all rural based community members have little to no access to internet-based opportunities for development. With this background, we would like to target rural community schools by providing them computers and routers and offering computer trainings. Through this, we would like to encourage youth to use the platform to seek opportunities for development, trainings and study.

A computer and internet connection is $550, and $20,000 is 36 computers. With an average of 4 per school, 9 rural community schools will be assisted. The average capacity of students per school is 800 and overall 7,200 students will benefit from the development each year making it 36,000 in 5 years. 

We do not meet the requirements.