Solarkiosk

Africa is still the fastest-growing market for telecommunication with millions of new subscriptions every year. Mobile phones are everywhere, but energy is not. In order to have any chance to participate in the world’s future development, remote communities need a reliable, affordable, and clean source of energy!

SOLARKIOSK encourages creativity and enables low-income communities to create their own value chains. An operator in Kenya uses the clean energy supplied by the E-HUBB and extended her business to power an adjacent restaurant, a butcher shop (both need solar cooling), and a movie theater.

At the African Drone Forum in Rwanda in early 2020, GRAFT and DroneMasters presented a new concept that would enable the fast and easy implementation of a decentralized drone, energy and education network. The idea is to link the existing functions of the SOLARKIOSK with a drone infrastructure to increase rural connectivity in Africa.

In 2019, Solarkiosk implemented 5 solar clinics in the Kutupalong Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh. It is the biggest refugee camp in the world with approximately 550.000 people living there. Especially young women are in dire need of mother-child-care.

The SOLAR CLINIC was inaugurated in January 2017 – it provides basic health care for refugees and local people in the host community close to Al-Mafraq solely powered by an 8KW independent solar system. The staff is able to treat up to 75 people per day. Syrian refugees, as well as Jordanian citizens, benefit from the possibility of blood and urine testing, services like medical ultrasound, and mother-child-care. Once the Syrian refugees use the facilities of the solar clinic, they are registered for the Jordanian health care system. The clinic has been realized by SOLARKIOSK and the Siemens Foundation. It will be operated by the Jordanian Ministry of Health. It is the first structure of its kind, enabling a superior level of medical services in off-grid settings.

The SOLAR SCHOOL was installed in 2017 in Jordanian Refugee Camp Zaatari, hosting more than 80,000 refugees, among them 25,000 children of school-going age. The connected school will utilize solar energy provided by SOLARKIOSK’s E-HUBB technology to deliver electricity and broadband connectivity enabled by SES’s Astra Connect broadband platform, which in turn enables teachers to use quality e-learning materials sponsored by UNICEF. The E-HUBB interior will become the administrative center for teachers and will have a power node to charge solar lamps, laptops, printers, mobile phones, and tablets. The school, installed by SES and SOLARKIOSK, will improve the quality of education in the refugee camp.