admin CEO of UK-based start-up Academy of Robotics and Zimbabwean AI expert William Sachiti had recently published an open-source technology known as ‘Trees of Knowledge’ to improve access to education through smartphones in Africa. This open-source technology facilitates a tree or rural landmark to broadcast a wifi connection providing access to a pre-loaded package of educational content. A micro-computer will host the wifi connection and content and it will be moulded into the landmark to protect it from theft or damage.
This is a community-driven, secure and cost-free platform, where anyone within a roughly 100m radius can access the content on any mobile device and also can charge their phone by plugging it into the additional solar-powered battery charging station. All the user needs is a wifi-enabled device such as a phone, laptop, computer, or tablet. These micro-computers will operate on a small rechargeable battery and can run for years without maintenance and removes the issue of expensive data charges as there is no need for the phone to be connected to a carrier or any network provider.
The technology uses a basic computer like the Raspberry Pi computers which have been used in refugee camps in Lebanon by UNICEF as part of its Raspberry Pi for Learning initiative.
UNESCO’s new report Education Progress highlights that globally there are 258 million children out of school and the problem is particularly acute in Sub-Saharan Africa where the population of primary-school aged children has doubled since 1990 and 1 in 5 children of primary school age are out of school. But, this is also a region witnessing rapid growth in smartphone adoption. Already more than 23% of people in Sub-Saharan Africa have access to a smartphone.
William Sachiti, who was educated in Zimbabwe before moving to the UK, explained the challenges, “One of the challenges in providing education through smartphones is that, while many people have access to a basic smartphone of some description, in many areas 3G coverage is still patchy. The data costs are high for most people and in rural areas keeping the phones charged is a problem when there is limited or no electricity. Trees of Knowledge aims to address all these challenges.”
“There is an urgent need to improve access to education for these children. For many children their classes are taught gathered under the shade of a large tree, so ‘Trees of Knowledge’ seemed a natural technical extension of this existing system.”
Sachiti adds, “While many programmes already exist to fix this problem, it is still not enough. With the growth of the developer community in Africa, I believe we have the opportunity to simply release the technology and let local communities build it themselves. If this technology reaches one or two more children, then I feel it would be a success.”
Magazine 
