Frontier Tech Hub Newsletter #4
Welcome to the fourth issue of the Frontier Tech Hub’s regular newsletter, with a wide range of updates from across the Hub.
This month, we’ve been catching up with a handful of the technology partners who have been involved in some of our Pilots in previous years. We’re excited to share more about where these pioneering companies are now with their innovations and to reflect upon how their past experiences with us are shaping their present and future. We have four updates from alumni partners to share with you. Let's get started.
Smart taps delivering reliable water at scale
eWATERservices supported a 2017 pilot, exploring whether “Internet of Things’ Smart Taps could address various challenges that severely limited people’s access to water in rural Tanzania. Frontier Tech Livestreaming enabled them to prove the use case for their mobile-money solar-powered Smart Taps in a new territory, plus the value of tracking and communicating usage and maintenance data in real time. In the 5 years since their pilot with us concluded, eWATER now have 686 Smart Taps, delivered 358,668,000 litres of water, and served 181,080 customers in Tanzania. You can check the latest data as it is reported minute by minute, here. The team is expanding into Kenya with confidence, armed with the knowledge and experience needed to access new markets.
Find out more about using smart taps to deliver reliable water 24-7 on our website.
3-D Printing to support crucial medical equipment
Kijenzi initially aimed to test whether localised, digital production could be used to supply hospitals in low-income settings with spare parts for essential medical equipment. They found that there was a lack of commonality between the required parts, which made production costs unsustainable with their proposed business model. They’ve taken that knowledge and are now trying to expand into prosthetics and orthodontics, which have a core commonality, while still requiring the customisation that digital printing technology facilitates.
Find out more about Kijenzi’s journey into sustainable manufacturing hubs on our website.
High-tech solutions for essential goods distribution
AsterQuanta delivered a 2021 pilot in India which sought to decentralise the Government's public distribution service in order to improve the distribution of subsidised goods to those in need. 250+ families received approximately 10,000kg of goods during the pilot. The pilot set out to increase transparency and accountability along the supply chain but during the course of the pilot shifted to focus on the opportunity cost of availing rations. With government stakeholders interested in their progress to date, the team are now exploring ways to scale project sustainably, including through the strategic utilisation of underused vehicles from other non-government-run supply chains.
Pay-As-You-Go bikes that improve lives
Better transport allows people to access better healthcare, expand their business to wider markets and reduce time spent travelling to schools. Onyx Connect tested a pilot to introduce a pay-as-you-go system for people living in rural communities to purchase bicycles. Through their pilot, they discovered the potential of an innovative payment system, employee payment reduction, which greatly increased the number of beneficiaries who could pay for their bikes. Since the pilot, Onyx Connect have continued to find new ways to make it easier for beneficiaries to access transport. To deal with seasonal cash flows, they introduced a commodity-based system, whereby customers trade in goods they’ve produced as payments towards their bikes. Onyx Connect have so far reached 20,000 people and are looking to scale up further and improve mobility for people across the continent.
Find out more about how PAYG bikes improve lives on our website.
If you’re looking for more, here’s a quick roundup of other things that have been happening or are upcoming:
There’s still time to sign up and attend the Web3 Symposium between the 7-10th November. You can join leading global thinkers and doers in the Web3 space to discuss the promise and hype of Web3 and explore ways we might inform and shape the future together through investments, policies, and experimentation. Register for the Web3 Symposium here, featuring talks, panel debates, and workshops.
Read the latest update from our pilot in Uganda, looking at how technology might be used to make forest carbon markets work for smallholder farmers.
Jump into what’s happening in Nigeria for a pilot that’s exploring if a hydroponic system for growing fodder for cattle can reduce conflict between herders and farmers.
That’s all for this edition…
If you would like to explore how frontier technology might be used in your context, send the Frontier Tech Hub help desk a request via this quick form.
If you want to receive this content directly to your inbox, you can sign-up and join in by following the sign-up link on our webpage: Frontier Tech Hub Network
See you next time!