"""Mawingu.org is the social impact arm of Mawingu Company and aims to use the internet’s power to open opportunities and transform lives by offering meaningful internet connectivity in rural Kenya. What makes our internet connectivity meaningful is the affordability to the user (subsidized costs) and our capacity to deliver at the right speed where it’s needed most. We bridge the access and cost barriers to the internet by connecting underserved institutions, and communities through fixed connectivity at cost and via free public Wi-Fi hotspots.
Through our Educational Institution’s Internet Connectivity program , Mawingu.org is working to unlock the potential for digital learning in the classrooms rather than the ICT labs by converting the classrooms into digital-enabled learning spaces, taking connectivity to the teachers’ and students’ hands.
We tackle three of the critical barriers that keep most educational institutions from accessing meaningful internet across rural Kenya:
1. Cost of access - Infrastructure / CAPEX – We work with donors to cover the infrastructure cost needed to set up the internet across all the classrooms.
2. Affordability – The monthly subscription is charged at cost (subsidized price). Institutions value having internet access and therefore set their monthly budget to pay for the internet, just like how they pay for other utility bills such as water and electricity.
3. Rural/remote connectivity – Mawingu company is the country’s largest company working exclusively to connect rural Kenya and Mawingu.org rides on its vast infrastructure.
This approach to the proposed solution is different from the conventional adopted solutions and at the same time, it’s sustainable. Three months after the inception of the educational institution's connectivity program, Mawingu.org has connected 15 institutions impacting over 3,600 people. The objective is to increase the number of institutions under this program to 100 and impact over 20,000 people by the end of 2023."""

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1en9oOPNjzL7CyJBQWONn7dicniL8gz02?usp=sharing

• Africa

• Youth
• Remote and rural communities

"""""""Mawingu.org’s goal is to engage in impactful program solutions that will scale to increase the number of people online and open opportunities while being financially sustainable. In Kenya, only 49% of the population was online in 2021**, and only 11% of those online had meaningful connectivity*. The disparity was worse in the rural areas; 17% of Kenya’s rural population was online that same year**, and only 7% enjoyed meaningful internet connectivity* (* Alliance for Affordable Internet (2022), ** https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/kenya/publication/kenya-economic-update-accelerating-kenyas-digital-economy). This is true not only in individuals but also in institutions such as schools and Vocational Training Centers. The statistics indicate a lot that needs to be done to connect the rural underserved institutions.

The program only requires a cash outlay for infrastructure while its sustainability is guaranteed from the monthly subscription paid by the institutions. Having proved and validated the assumptions from the pilot that have also been replicated in over 15 institutions, Mawingu.org is fundraising to scale and increase the number of institutions connected above one hundred by the end of 2023 and will ride on the expansive Mawingu. co network infrastructure (Base stations) to achieve this objective.

On sustainability, Mawingu.org will only engage in financially, socially, and economically sustainable programs as we want the institutions to stay connected with Mawingu. The cost-efficient measures that have been put in place in the program are to ensure that the educational institutions will find internet availability useful and therefore continue paying for it while Mawingu.org will enhance support and maintenance of the internet connection. We envisage a long-term relationship with these community institutions."""""""

"""Mawingu has a wealth of expertise and experience in rural connectivity. There is high demand for internet connectivity amongst the schools within the rural setup, but most of them remain underserved due to access and affordability barriers. To provide a solution to these challenges, Mawingu.org fundraises for the infrastructure expenditure (CAPEX) to take internet connectivity at the classroom level thereby facilitating access. The institution is then required only to pay a subsidized monthly subscription, covering a portion of the operational costs. Package name Package price (Ksh) Package Speed (Mbps) Impact 10 Ksh 2,000 10 Mbps Impact 15 Ksh 2,600 15 Mbps Impact 20 Ksh 3,200 20 Mbps Impact 30 Ksh 4,400 30 Mbps In all these institutions, the main beneficiaries are the educators and the students/pupils. In the case of Primary and secondary schools, teachers can access a wealth of resources online to improve the teaching content. In Vocational Training Centers, both the students and instructors will be able to do more research and access online audio and visual content to complement their curriculum thereby improving the learning outcomes."""