News

While the global market for renewables is immense and largely untapped, with billions of potential consumers who are unconnected and unbanked, Kumbaya’s scope reaches beyond the energy market. Ultimately the Company is designed to move into and provide a decentralized global platform for all types of social good: communication, healthcare, education, emergency response, disaster relief, water purification, refrigeration, and more.

Energy

Energy is central to nearly every major challenge and opportunity the world faces today. Be it for jobs, security, climate change, food production or increasing incomes, access to energy for all is essential. Working towards this goal is especially important as it interlinks with other Sustainable Development Goals. Focusing on universal access to energy, increased energy efficiency and the increased use of renewable energy through new economic and job opportunities is crucial to creating more sustainable and inclusive communities and resilience to environmental issues like climate change.

Slightly less than 1 billion people are functioning without electricity and 50% of them are found in Sub-Saharan Africa alone. Over the past 10 years, several startups have entered the market with small home solar systems, where customers pay a down payment, followed by monthly installments until they own their home solar kits. The home solar kits include: a panel, a battery, a phone charger, one or more LED lights and often an optional radio and/or television. What people really need is the Power, Connectivity and access to Knowledge,  thats why we designed the Kumba a Solar-Powered, Communications and IoT Hub, Electrification powers connectivity.  Connectivity powers knowledge.  Knowledge powers social and economic progress.

Connectivity

If energy is the first rung to climb on the development ladder, connectivity is not far behind. Beyond being valuable in and of itself, connectivity enables an enormous range of additional capabilities—progress in every one of the industries listed below either directly depends on or hugely benefits from the proliferation of mobile phones. Forget land lines; millions of Africans who have never had home phones have jumped directly to using cell phones.

Education

Access to new technologies can only get you so far—mobile money, smartphones, and internet won’t be much use without basic reading, writing, and math skills, not to mention the critical thinking and problem-solving abilities that are fundamental to innovation. Beyond these basics, to keep their economies progressing, African nations should also be preparing students for careers outside agricultural or labor-based fields.

A shortage of qualified teachers in many African countries—combined with the fact that these same countries have the fastest-growing school-age population in the world—makes providing high-quality education a monumental task.

Healthcare

African communities without established healthcare systems face far more challenges than communities in the US or Europe—but they also have unique opportunities to build even more effective and equitable health systems from the outset.

As in almost every other industry mentioned, the superstar of African progress in healthcare is none other than the connected devices. Across the continent, telemedicine services and supply chains for malaria drugs and other medications are substantially reducing treatment stock-outs. Through telemedicine, a digital platform can provide for pregnant women, mothers, and nurses to get health advice and information, as well as register pregnancies in the country’s public health system. Other threats can be detected and remotely monitored like Diabetes, Malaria, HIV and other diseases.

Agriculture

Farming is the primary source of food and income for Africans and provides up to 60 percent of all jobs on the continent.

Food production in sub-Saharan Africa needs to increase by 60 percent over the next 15 years to feed a growing population. Africa’s food and beverage markets are buoyant and expected to top $1 trillion in value by 2030.

The continent is bursting with potential: At 200 million hectares, sub-Saharan Africa is home to nearly half of the world’s uncultivated land that can be brought into production. Africa uses only 2 percent of its renewable water resources compared to 5 percent globally. Together with abundant resources, including a resourceful, enterprising youth population, strategic investments in agriculture can unleash virtuous growth cycles. How can Africa, then, capitalize on these opportunities?

First, African farmers need new technology—higher-yielding, more resilient food crops that deliver bountiful harvests. New techniques are beginning to boost yields in rice and cocoa, among other crops. Second, African farmers need more electricity, more irrigation, and better infrastructure that links them to lucrative regional food markets. Third, we need sound policies that do not discriminate against the farm sector.  Women produce the bulk of food in Africa, and yet they are largely locked out of land ownership, access to credit, and productive farm inputs such as fertilizers, pesticides, and farming tools. Further, they are often bypassed by extension services, limiting their productivity.

Can Kumbaya Clear the Biggest Hurdles?

Technology is helping bring information, services, and capabilities to Africa at a rate faster than was previously thought possible. But as the continent’s population grows and, with it, the need for resources and services explodes, will the Kumbaya model prove to be scalable?

The work to end extreme poverty is far from over, and many challenges remain. It is becoming even more difficult to reach those living in extreme poverty, who often reside in fragile contexts and remote areas. Access to good schools, healthcare, electricity, safe water and other critical services remain elusive for many people, often determined by socioeconomic status, gender, ethnicity, and geography. Moreover, for those who have been able to move out of poverty, progress is often temporary: economic shocks, food insecurity and climate change threaten to rob them of their hard-won gains and force them back into poverty. It will be critical to find ways to tackle these issues as we make progress toward 2030.

Africa’s continued development, despite the challenges the continent faces, shows us that by meeting people’s basic needs with renewable energy and connectivity, innovation will grow to empower millions more people along the way.  There is no doubt that we at Kumbaya feel proud having developed zeroXess, our technically advanced yet sustainable and affordable power and connectivity hub to meet the basic needs of those living in extreme poverty. Kumbaya has created specific programs that consider the low disposable income of those living in extreme poverty that can help the poorest in every country to break the poverty cycle. We understand that energy and connectivity are critical to improving lives, and our mission is to bring these valuable resources to the people who need them most.