How to make the internet a social equaliser

[Music]

in a

traditional african villages

the drama was a center of communication

a drum beat could signify the start of

an attack a birth

a death and sometimes even the start of

harvest

each village had these designated

drummers

whose job was to ensure that they beat

the drums to the nature of the event

now i want to believe that this was a

very prestigious job

fast forward to present day time we have

the internet

but the question that i want to post you

this morning is how many people have

access to the internet

a few years ago five years ago to be

precise um i had this vision

i wanted to get everybody in zambia

connected to the internet

coupled with the fact that i had no job

this was something that i strongly felt

i could do

i went and registered a technology

company that would use data to address

some of zambia’s most pressing social

economic problems

and at the core of this company was a

desire to create

the biggest inclusive

and most interactive public engagement

platform

and nowhere else is this more manifested

than what we’re doing with the ministry

of health at the moment

we’ve created an artificial intelligence

chatbot that allows people

access to accurate and real-time

information on covet 19.

in addition to that we have set up

hotspots around the city

where each time somebody logs in they’re

reminded

about covet 19.

now i want you to

understand that this seemingly beautiful

story

hasn’t always been plain selling and

i was trying to give internet to

everybody

drag zambia into the digitally inclusive

society that

we ought to be but i soon realized that

internet

public internet access was very

expensive

and in typical zambian fashion house

consistently being reminded that this

had been tried before

i was trying to be santa claus for the

christmas as we say in zambia

but without the rudolph and his gang

and like i said i was consistently

reminded that this had been tried before

by people with

deeper pockets and gangs of rudolph

now this was a few thousand dollars into

this project and it wasn’t looking good

uh my my vision was beginning to look

bleak

i was losing money and i desperately

needed a game changer

then i had two lucky breaks one of them

was

in a township of lusaka called mutandere

we had this little pub where we spent

some time actually quite a lot of time

and because we wanted to attract more

clients

we set up an internet hotspot so that

every time somebody comes in

they would give them free internet but

there was there was a bit of a catch

there

they had to see a mandatory advert or

answer a few questions

these paid for adverts are what

subsidize our internet basically paid

for our internet

so one day this man walks into our

little pub

and as we did with every one of our

clients we

guided them through the login process

and as the advert was running this man

turns to me and says boss

if i’m a plumber if i put my advert here

where everybody nintendo see it

that was my eureka moment

this man in montandera had seen what i’d

been trying to tell

so many people but more importantly

this man had contextualized

my vision if i can place my advert here

if my advert can be seen within my

community

i could possibly have more business

now this man at that moment

was willing to forgo the traditional

ways of

advertising nailing a poster to a tree

for what we had just shown him

now it is not uncommon

in africa for anything to be a billboard

a tree somebody’s get somebody’s car

anything is a potential billboard

now as

exciting as the situation was

as exciting as seeing this man beginning

to play his own drum

within his own community was we knew we

couldn’t just survive on this one person

we needed to expand our network we

needed anchor partners

then came our second break an ngo that

was

promoting hiv aids information among

young people

and they continued to do that to very

very exciting and

interactive abilities so to speak

but they were looking for something

different we said talking

proposals were written and soon after we

had two sites

one university and another and a bus

station

and again all people had to do was

interact with the content

answer a few questions

see an advert and you’d have internet

for the rest of the day

at the university we went one step

further

we gave out the ad space for free

for anybody within the university who

wanted to communicate

anything whether it was a meeting or

just selling a book

thousands of logins our client is happy

the community is happy it’s a win-win

situation

now

only about 24 of zambia’s population has

access to

regular and consistent internet

and if this dream of giving everybody

internet access in zambia

is to become a reality we need more

drummers

because there’s an ecosystem that we

need to complete before we give

everybody internet and let me explain we

need the drummer that’s you and i

the tender plumber who wants his advert

to be seen the lady in chabod

who wants to sell chickens wants a

digital platform

you and i who are looking for cheaper

chickens looking for a better plumber

better mechanic

the isp is very simple they need to sell

data

there’s nothing more i can say about

that then you’ve got the content

provider

that ngo that’s promoting women’s rights

that once each time a woman a man

logging into our platform should be

reminded about gender rights

that farmers union that wants to sell a

better seed

or inform people about better farming

methods

the government that wants to promote

voter rights

by bringing all these parties onto this

platform

we can provide internet to millions

now we’ve set up hotspots

over over the last couple of years but

the two places

that really make me fuzzy really really

warm my head

there’s a bus station and there’s a

market

in these two places ordinarily nobody

would very few people would have access

to the internet

we’ve provided the internet there again

there’s a catch every time they log in

they have to see an advert on covet 19.

reminding them to mask up

reminding them to socially distance as

hard as it can be in some of these

places

but we believe we’re doing our part

i believe that no at no other time

in in history

has it become more important than

getting everybody connected to the

internet

i was hoping for a cheering crowd

but you just you’re watching me right

now because you’ve got access to the

internet

and this is because we keep leaving

people behind

we’re happy to play and listen to the

sounds of our own drams

let me give you another reason why it’s

important

for everybody to be connected

thousands if not millions of kids this

year have missed

a lot of time in class

time that they might never never recover

but the sad thing is that there is a

group of kids

who’ve been lucky enough to have

e-learning

extending an advantage that they’ve

always had over these kids that don’t

have

the internet is equalizer

it allows your kids my kids those kids

a level playing field i believe that the

same effort that is being made

in providing masks looking for vented

ventilators

should be extended so that as close

as possible to any community within

zambia

people have access to the internet so

that that woman who’s scared of leaving

a house

for the fear of contracting covered

can sell her chickens her kids can learn

the young man and woman who don’t know

what the future holds can look for

opportunities online

too often we’ve found

excuses i’m connected so what

i’m playing my own drum so what

i’m standing here testimony to the fact

that

this can be done

we’ve proven this it can be done we can

provide internet to millions

if we all start playing the drum if we

bring this ecosystem together

we cannot continue to leave people

behind

in traditional african villages we had

drummers

designated drummers we can all be

drummers now

we can provide internet to everybody but

this means that we can’t leave anybody

behind

anymore thank you