Innovation gives businesses reliable internet linkage

In a world driven by technology, the Internet is the cog that keeps the wheels turning. From social media networks to Skype job interviews and teleconferencing, dependence on the internet to ease both work and social life has become second nature for many people living in urban centres.

Power outages and network failure are a hurdle, especially for companies that rely heavily on electricity for their day-to-day operations. It's with this in mind that software company Ushahidi co-founder, Erik Hersman, sought to hit two birds with one stone with his BRCK innovation, a tweaked version of the word brick which it is designed to look like.

“I was travelling back to Kenya from a conference in South Africa and I began thinking on the plane of a way to build a router for the African environment and provide solutions for connectivity issues we face,” he said. That was in November 2011.

While he was proficient in building businesses around the Internet, he did not know how to build a router but his curiosity of how it would look like has led to the backup internet generator.

“At the back of my mind was an idea to have it as simple as possible with maybe removable batteries, but as it turns out, that was not the best solution as they really do not last that long,” Mr Hersman explains.

He teamed up with a group of engineers, mostly from Kenya, to develop the device that combines both Ethernet cable plug-in and universal SIM card portals for connection to the Internet.

“We went through six or seven levels of prototypes before we settled on the final one. I remember one of the initial ones where we just bolted down a printed circuit board a motor and a router on to that a metal board. I really don’t know how we went through several airports with it looking like an improvised explosive device,” he recalls.

In May last year, armed with a final prototype, the team took to Kickstarter, the world’s largest funding platform for creative projects, to seek additional funding for the first BRCK production and test if there were other people who would want such an innovation.

The project had 1,078 backers who pledged $172,107 (Sh15,123,042) against their goal of raising $125,000 (Sh10,983,750). Even with this it took them another year of refining their innovation before getting to the production level that they were comfortable with.

While it has been designed and engineered in Kenya, most of the components are sourced from Asia and the final assembly is done in the US.

BRCK can connect to the Internet in three ways — through the Ethernet cable, plug-in via Wi-Fi by forming a bridge to connect to another Wi-Fi signal or through the universal SIM card port.

If you are within range of mobile phone coverage but with weak Internet you can strengthen your connectivity using a multidirectional antenna and a booster attached to it. The antenna is adjusted to point in the direction of the nearest network mast.

“We also have antennas that are attached to cable for people whose network is better outside their houses or if it is better up a tree they can pin it up and connect it to the BRCK using the cable. We have tested it from Coast to Kisii just to see how it works because if we cannot use it here in Kenya, what are we building it for?” he said.

Eric and his team set up a company BRCK through which they market their innovation. The business model is simple and based on the small and medium enterprises in Kenya and other emerging markets that rely heavily on Internet usage as well as firms with workers in remote areas, though they also sell the device to individual consumers at $199 (Sh17,487) excluding shipping costs.

“We are looking at companies that can buy 10 to 500 of these at a time and a decent number of global companies have already expressed interest in it,” he said. “We shipped the first 800 to 45 countries around the world and the 40 units that we recently received were already pre-ordered by companies within the country.”

Apart from the Ethernet and SIM card ports, the BRCK also has a general purpose in and out port that allows users to connect sensors, cameras, weather meters or other devices that need to relay data via the Internet.

Its rechargeable battery allows one to have Internet connectivity for up to eight hours. When you are connected via an Ethernet cable the indicator lights up in purple, if you are connected via Wi-Fi it lights up in green and in blue if you are using a SIM card. For each the connectivity strength is measured by how fast the light pulses. When the battery is almost exhausted a separate button lights up in red to show that it needs to be recharged.

The BRCK software is integrated with the cloud which means a person can manage their devices from anywhere in the world and expand their custom services, preferences or top up credit or just simply check their data usage statistics on the dashboard.

Hersman says that while the country has a lot of good innovations, many go unnoticed locally even as they gain global attention. However, he adds that is not the only way for an innovative product to succeed.

“Prototyping has become quite accessible in the country which is something that was not there five years ago and we believe that BRCK is just the start of new technology wave in the country where we engineer and export hardware,” he says.
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