Moon : Access the world

In areas with insufficient electricity and connectivity networks, children are impacted by risks to health caused by kerosene lamps, candles and torches, and suffer from the lack of education opportunities and tools their parents and communities can offer.

Moon offers to Subsaharan households access to digital, energy and financial inclusion, thanks to an affordable Solar Home System (SHS) and a smartphone acquired through PAYG and mobile money. The "Moonphone" comes with a suite of apps dedicated to health, in particular maternal and child health, as well as education, and revenue generation, working offline and adapted to developing countries. 

If scaled in West Africa only, where the average household has 8 people and where under-five children represent 8% of the population, our solution could contribute to improved health and education for 25 million under-five children. With better health and education, all the countries would benefit from improved socio-economic development.

In developing countries, millions of children under the age of five meet 3 main issues:

• Living in an unsafe environment as kerosene lamps cause health, environmental and safety hazards.
• They may face health issues, as their families and communities have insufficient access to nutritive and sanitary information.
• Household environment offering limited cognitive and physical development opportunities: lack of stimulation (insufficient toys, games and time from their parents), of knowledge and tools that could support education and contribute to children’s development.

In Senegal where Moon operates, population is mainly rural (8.6 million people), living offgrid (66% of the rural population) with no 3G coverage. With over 8% of the overall population being under 5, this means that more than 1 million under-5 children living in rural areas are affected by these issues.

Although women from these areas have traditional knowledge about motherhood, occasional access to medical resources, and benefit from community support, they are mainly on their own to take care of their children, in addition to other activities. Limited access to energy represents a direct obstacle to information that could be useful for raising their children, as it makes usage of smartphones and computers impossible. 

Moon works with rural populations of Casamance, living off farming activities with less than 3$ a day. The average household has 8 people, with 80% having at least one child under 15, if not more. Those populations have received extremely limited education, if any, and that is especially true for women.

Moon’s office is in Ziguinchor, close to its target market.

To ensure our products respond to customers’ needs, our door-to-door agents provide us with their feedback, while our call center monitors product usage and satisfaction rate. Our social studies center regularly contacts prospects and customers to understand their needs, and follow the impact of our solutions. Finally, Moon is able to follow the application usage and adapt its offer accordingly.

Customers confirm the need for an affordable and reliable energy source allowing smartphone charging, otherwise impossible, and applications that function offline. An important time is spent on applications such as health, cooking, games and applications to learn music, counting, reading and writing, which confirms the will of families to improve their level of life, and in particular health and education for their children. Customers also frequently mention how a high-quality lighting contributes to their children’s studying.  

Moon’s mission is to provide energy, digital and financial inclusion to rural and underserved households in off grid regions of Africa. Our utopia is providing and rolling out an innovative solution that will enable to meet the objectives of the SDGs, for energy access, and for poverty alleviation, education, health, equality …

Through its last mile distribution network comprising of boutiques and field agents, Moon proposes solar home system combined with a smartphone called “MoonPhone”, both integrated with PAYG and mobile money features.

The SHS is a high-quality resistant system, easy to install, with one to five lamps to meet all financing capacities, providing healthy and reliable lighting.

The “MoonPhone” developed in-house is the cornerstone of the solution, enabling our clients to access selected relevant and free content, and to use a wallet linked to mobile money accounts for easily reimbursing the kit. It is the way into financial inclusion, giving access to other selected goods and services.

Applications, all free and working offline, include Maternal Health, Period calendar, Health tips (such as Teeth brushing), Stop Malaria (a game with tips to limit malaria propagation), School at home, and various languages, maths, reading and writing applications. In addition, the customer has access to general applications such as social networks, budget management, maps and search engines.

Moon makes ongoing reviews of existing applications which contribute to our customers’ well-being, and is willing to identify applications focusing on early childhood development to include them in the MoonPhone’s suite, such as “Do You Promise” which gamifies daily tasks, or “Touch and Learn Emotions” to help children identify emotions and body language.

Moon works with partners to propose additional goods and services through the MoonPhone, and these could include products contributing to early childhood development such as nutrition and sanitation products, educative products and services, and toys.

We include a smartphone with the PAYG, mobile money solar kit : The PAYG model makes the solar kit and MoonPhone affordable to all households, including those living below the poverty line, and creates a first level of financial inclusion thanks to the mobile money account created by the Moon field agents for customers who do not have it yet.

We propose a smartphone and contents adapted to the local context: the MoonPhone includes relevant applications, focusing on health and education, that can be useful tools for parents. Moon puts in the hands of these customers a functional device, that responds both to the market demand for smartphones and the need to communicate with these otherwise excluded populations. It can send to its customers up-to-date information such as communication on health campaigns, tips and good practices, etc, but also realize interactions such as surveys, and collect their answers to them.

We facilitate access to Last Mile populations thanks to our digital approach : digital tools are a way to optimize fees both for Moon, by reducing costs linked to distribution, communication and customer follow up, and for customers, who can reimburse their kits without spending money and time in transportation. 

Moon’s solution :

• is an Android-based solution developed inhouse,
• customized for no and low connectivity,
• linked to our cloud interface,
• allowing advanced cloud computing and analytics,
• and integrating mobile money wallets.

• Regarding bad lighting solutions : The SHS provides good working, cooking, and studying conditions since it removes health risks linked to bad lighting quality from candles and torches, and lung and skin diseases linked to inhalation of smoke caused by traditional lighting sources, as well as security hazards of kerosene lamps and candles. 
• Lack of stimulation and access to education: The MoonPhone gives our customers the tools to get involved in their children’s development and education (through apps to learn music, counting, speaking, etc), as well as on activities that stimulate and improve their skills (eg. How to build a ball out of scraps of plastic or fabric, and other activities).
• The MoonPhones includes applications focused on health, giving parents tips to take care of children, with health information, including nutrition and maternal health. 

We currently serve 20,000 people through our 2,500 customers, with an objective of 5,000 customers by the end of the year and 100,000 in 2022.

Moon’s general objective is to enrich its customers and prove digital has a strong positive impact on lives and supports remote household development.

Moon aims to enrich its customers by allowing them to make savings on energy expenditure and generate additional revenues, thanks to the applications, services and goods provided through the Moon solution. 

By putting digital and energy tools in excluded populations' hands, through an accessible mechanism, Moon enables them to improve their quality of life, by providing access to up-to-date information. 

In terms of geographical expansion, Moon aims to expand to neighbouring regions as well as neighbouring countries and to widen its range of smartphones. 

The main barriers we meet is the high working capital that PAYG initially requires as goods that are handed out are not repaid immediately, but over the next 6 to 24 months, and the lack of existing skilled staff where Moon is operating.

Once the sales of the first batch of equipment has been made, the repayments from existing customers enable us to receive a cash-in substantial enough to acquire a new stock on a rolling basis.

Regarding staff, we have an integration and training process for all newcomers, and propose attractive packages to encourage talented individuals to join us.  

40 – 35 staff based in Senegal and 5 people in France, all full time. 

We also work with commission based staff, about 10 people. 

Our team combines experience of the solar sector and in particular with investors and donors (Thomas Samuel, founder of Sunna Design, leader in smart solar lighting, who raised $15m, realized $20m in revenue, filed 5 patents, and received 10 awards and prizes (MIT, Zayed, Bloomberg ...), expertise in digital, coding and devices (Julien Olivier, 24 patents, and 20 years experience) and field experience of developing projects in Senegal (Antoine, Sebastianutti, general manager with 4 years on-field experience in access to energy in Casamance, Laura Pargade, marketing and communications manager with 6 years’ experience in access to energy marketing and communication, and Marie Caplain, project manager with 10 years of experience in Africa). In addition, part of the leadership team is based in Ziguinchor, at the heart of our target market, to oversee the activities of the local staff who itself come from this target population. 

We work with:

• Women's groups spread across Casamance. They are both our customers and resellers, and we integrate their feedback on our products.
• Practical Action, a consultant firm specialized in poverty reduction and access to energy in developing countries.
• Commercial partnerships discussions have been initiated with 2 microfinance institutions, CN CAS and ACEP, who both have offices in Casamance.
• Talent2Africa, an HR company which supports us in our HR strategy, recruitments and trainings
• USAID from whom we have received a $600,000 grant as part of USAID-SOGE program.
• Bibliothèque Sans Frontière (Library Without Borders) who helps us on the selection of content focusing on education. 

We generate revenue from the sales of solar home systems and MoonPhones, as well as from the sales of secondary products through our network of existing customers.  

All apps are open-source and free of use, but we do not exclude to add applications with additional functionalities on a freemium basis.

We expect additional revenues from the expansion of our range of products (finance products, productive use assets such as solar fridges, solar pumps and solar generators, as well as smaller products like communication credit, and data pass) and from partnerships with NGOs and institutions willing to use our MoonPhones to make communication campaigns towards rural target population. 

Our digitalized operations allows us to reach the last mile with optimized costs and to replicate our model in other areas with limited additional costs.

Our business model includes the sale of a variety of products, which is an efficient way to diversify our revenue streams and reduce our risks.

In addition to revenues generated by the sales of solar home systems and MoonPhones, Moon’s proprietary web platform, its PAYG Android and repayment mobile app provide us with big and unique data (main economic activity, composition of household, number of children, ….)

This big data enables a precise credit scoring of our beneficiaries and an analysis of multi-factor trends, which improves the overall quality of our portfolio and therefore reduces our risks.

Applying to Solve represents an opportunity to benefit from the MIT’s ecosystem, knowledge and visibility.

In the case of the specific Early Childhood Development challenge, we are expecting to receive expertise on content linked to child care and parenting support, in particular in developing countries, as well as content supporting the development of cognitive and social skills.

Getting into the program would allow us to improve our business development and financing resources, and to meet with and learn from people that will bring their insights to our solutions, allowing us to improve our value proposition and develop new partnerships. 

We are looking for partnerships to:

• Identify adequate content and applications dedicated to childhood development;
• Test a pilot project with these new contents, in a new area; 
•  Identify investors to raise funds for the project scale-up.

The PAYG “MoonPhone” developed in-house is the cornerstone of the solution, enabling our clients to access to selected relevant contents (agri, health, edu, business) and to use a wallet linked to mobile money accounts for reimbursing the kit. It is the way in to financial inclusion, giving access to other selected goods and services, based on a precise understanding of the client’s needs and capacities thanks to AI and innovative scoring.

AI is key to suggest the right product and services upsales, according to the customers needs, budget and level of debt.

With the AI Innovations Prize, we want to develop AI in order to push only products and services that are adapted and relevant for each customer and that can be affordable for him.

Our Pay As You Go smartphone contains specific apps dedicated to women. With the Moonphone they can have information about health, periods, pregnancy, nutrition... In order to improve their everyday life.

Girls can use the apps focusing on education to study.  

With the Innovation for Women Prize we would be able to add more apps and contents dedicated to girls and women, by sourcing/buying relevant contents and translating them in local languages.

We are currently collecting data from our customers that we are processing and analyzing anonymously. We refuse to sell these data to other organization. 

With the Innospark Ventures Prize, we want to improve the way to collect and maintain the data in order to ensure the best protection of our customers privacy.