Steemit Operation Upgrade Africa ...After helping an African Steemit User in Ghana @tj4real make $1600 off a single post, I want to help more Africans get online! Devices like BRCK an GoTenna can provide cheap "Backup WIFI" for all of africa!
My friend @tj4real got to the front page of steemit.com/trending/africa with a $1600 dollar Post I am honored to have helped by resteeming and promoting to amazing steemit whales that helped like @gigafart and @thejohalfiles and so many more, we are really on the verge , the tipping point of something life changing for so many new people who need that magic internet bitcoin type money the most! Look at this steemit post! #1 on steemit.com/trending/africa !
We didnt SEND TJ $1600 as a donation, no he EARNED it! he EARNED it from upvotes because we gave him a chance! a chance to succeed and earn his OWN money! And it means he can do it again on his OWN and Africans can learn from his example and not only get support from westenrers but eventually support each other an keep money within an african steemit network like a macro economic steemit africa program!. Africans have been hurt so much by people sending them free stuff like free food and then cutting it off and then people starve! People send food and clothes and the africans cant sell their own african made clothes or local grown food! So let's teach africa how to digitally fish (the legal way without nigerian prince scams! lol), and make sure they have plenty of material to make plenty of digital fishing poles! this is a metaphor! This is a metaphor, and the "fish" is money or crypto currency like bitcoin and steem or ethereum.....and the fishing pole or the "teaching a man to fish" will be the steemit platform BUT ALSO they need a way to get on steemit which is just getting online! They need a cheap smartphone or tablet and cheap AND they need cheap or freely available internet!
Meet the GoTenna and the BRCK
https://www.gotenna.com/pages/mesh
This device will be be one way to provide a mesh network, if we get these Gotenna devices in the hands of many steemiit users they will be able to create their own mesh networks, but it is just one puzzle piece! GoTenna wont be enough! We also need this African invention called the BRCK!
ALSO the BRCK device (Made by a company from Kenya!)
"BRCK is best described as a “backup generator for the internet.” When it was announced, the idea of a rugged, rechargeable, mobile wifi device captured imaginations as a good way to bring robust connectivity to people in places with spotty infrastructure – particularly in developing countries.
The device is the brainchild of Nairobi-based technology company Ushahidi, and was created partly out of simple frustration with dropped internet connections and power outages in the city. After a successful Kickstarter campaign last year, BRCK has now manufactured and shipped more than 1,000 units to 45 countries, many of them in emerging markets, and is catching up on the backlog of orders. " from blog.ted.com 2014 article
http://blog.ted.com/a-rugged-mobile-wifi-device-brings-the-web-to-schools-in-africa-and-beyond/ and this article by Karren Eng is from 2014 so those numbers I hope have been growing!
So BRCK is actually an african invention designed by Kenyan company Ushahidi so hopefully this can hep African Pride AND people in America and the West use these devices! Necessity is the Mother of all Inventions, when someone needs something they invent a device to do what they need! Here in the west we mostly dont have problems with internet going out, we all have cable hard wired connections AND we have 4g mobile data cellphone connections AND some of us also have satellite internet as well! So we never had this need to create a small portable self powered device to simply broadcast a backup WIFI signal for people living in cities that may have issues keeping the electricity on 24/7 and it is one thing to have your power go out, but many laptops tablets an smartphones can stay on for a whole day from just battery power! So why should the internet have to go down just because the power is out? Mesh networks are the answer!
YOU get a first world Internet infrastructure! And YOU get a first world internet infrastructure!
I bet we can find MANy celebrities who would LOVE to fund our project of giving cheap smartphones and Gotenna and BRCK wifi mesh network devices because its the fastest way to give Africa free internet!
Julia Rotich on Stage at TED talking about this BRCK device! We need to have @Tj4real and @xpency and steemit africa meet this woman! We should be networked with everyone that has to do with building and promoting these cheap wifi mesh network devices to bring cheap or free internet to all of Africa! It will help them MORE than ANY other infrastructure! Giving Africans Internet is BETTER than giving them WATER even! Because with Internet they can make money they could use to simply BUY water or build their own well!
In the Article by Karren Eng where she interviews Julia Rotich, Julia describes the word "Constructive value" something I didnt even know they had a word for!
"What does constructive value mean? It’s a different perspective as shared by Bob Collymore, CEO of Safaricom. It differs from business economist Michael Porter’s rubric of shared value — in which the framework would be: “You need a router? Okay, we’ll give you a router. And here’s what’s in it for us. With constructive value as defined by Collymore, you’re looking at what you’re bringing into the equation that uplifts. It’s not enough to have a device. The question is, what does it mean for the people you are serving — the people actually using your device. In the case of BRCK, we are considering getting children access to knowledge. We want to give them access to what they need to learn, and for school administrators to do basic administrative tasks. They still mark papers by hand, for example, but there could be a digital system in which they enter the information. "
(Full Video of Ted Talk about BRCK titled "Juliana Rotich: Meet BRCK, Internet access built for Africa")
This quote is from the TED blog article and it describes what I have been talking about, the idea that we will actually PROFIT off the idea of sening wifi routers to african who normally cant go online very much, because with the tools to get online all those billions of africans can now make money online and spend it too! Perhaps even purchasing many products sold by our developed first world nations in the west! So we SHOULD be helping Africa get online because it will end up making us money! BUT this whole idea is being challenged with the more noble idea of just helping people for the sake of helping them. But we still should find ways to incentivize giving like the way I always make articles on steemit about how I give money to people in steemit africa, so I can have a chance to "recoop" the money back so its not a "loss" and then I can end up giving MORE and it keeps the very act of giving, a sustainable one!
This is important and please dont be ignorant and rude and automatically jump to "Youre just trying to profit off poor africans!" if you think that thengo ask TJ and his friends if they think what I am doing is "wrong" haha orry to pre emptively get mad when noone has even said this yet but I KNOW someone will accuse me of trying to make money off poor africans, an I have to explain that even if you had 1 million dollars and wanted to give it ALL away to people in africa and wanted to try and feed 1 million people you could only feed them all for 1 day IF they could even get 3 meals for $1 which they probably cant! So even with $1 million dollars you would really barely feed a fraction of a million people and for not even a full day if you tried to just pay for their food directly! So its not our role to be paying and feeding others but we SHOULD be helping others help themselves by sending them seeds if they need seeds or helping them buy TOOLS to feed themselves or helping them start SMALL BUSINESSES to PAY themselves THAT is the MOST important thing steemit is helping with!
Steemit Profiles ARE a small business onto themselves! Now imagine if every african got themselves 1 steem.and steem goes to $1000 it will be like if every african had 1 bitcoin before bitcoin went to $1000! Why can't the worlds poor have investment accounts to invest and make money with no effort like the rich make money? Now wiith steemit this is a possibility! Steemit will be the first bank account for many africans!
2016 Link about the BRCK device from CNN! http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/13/africa/kenya-tech-startup-internet-innovation/index.html
You could write a whole article about how I am just repeating the colonialism of the 19th century or how I am bringing back "the White Mans Burden" and blah blah blah an yes we should critically look at our own history and past but its too late to stop colonialism...the best solution is to just learn from it and not try to take revenge, look at Japan who lost WW2 but they became an economic power and became more rich per capita than the US holding much of Americas debt! or Indian company tata motors purchasing Jaguar and Land Rover in a form of reverse colonialism, a sort of status symbol for a whole country! Africa needs the internet to make money, its their BEST bet to make the MOST money to build the most infrastructure and eradicate poverty and hunger!
Africans excell in Music Art culture that is tangible and can be recorded onto youtube and Africans can make entertainment for the world and become a leader the same way African Americans become leaders in Hollywood Movies, Sports and Music, Dance, and entertainment industry and Blacks have always been trendsetters in Jazz ad Music for over a century in America. If more Africans could get online and make videos and connect with each other and the world, they could solve SO many other problems! bring the smartphones and BRCK wifi routers and everything else will follow!
And I think its cool! I think its awesome to see African companies developing devices like the BRCK and one day selling it to rural americans who may have spotty cellphone reception and may just want a form of backup internet especially for bitcoin or altcoin trading! Every Bitcoin and steemit user should have a backup internet connection! GoTenna is also a great invention and if just start raising money to buy them in bulk and send them to more and more steemit users in africa and developing nations we could create a situation where there are just so many gotenna devices and BRCK servers in so many houses in so many cities that there will just be this organic mesh network available! BRCK now has a supaBRCK server we can connect to solar panels and batteries on street lamps and we can raise money for these here onsteemit!
Even the local government in Ghana and other african nations could pay to install these BRCk devices or design their own devices made in Ghana and install it everywhere in Ghana to provide a free wifi service for Ghana citizens! You could then free up your local ISPs to work on something better! I dont want to hurt the local economy by taking away a service people pay for and making t free BUT too few people are making money off bandwidth! You should not let people profit off your use of the internet! Internet should extremely cheap OR just free! TRUST ME, I KNOW for a FACT that Ghana and all of Africa will make BILLIONS of times more money with Free Internet, than with a system where you all have to pay for internet and only a few people get rich and then NOONE even gets to USE it because they cant afford it? hahaah no sorry but your local ISPs will have to adapt! @tj4real you will strike deals with your local internet companies, you will help them lower prices by expanding their customer base! if they say no, you will just become their competitor and offeer lower prices and they will have to change! WE CAN DO THIS!
LOOK AT THIS KIT of a BRCK wifi server AND a box of 20 tablets for children! This is the dream of One Laptop per Child!
This image just made me cry, it is so cool ! Look at this young african child's eyes! These are the eyes of a child who is just experiencing the magic of his own personal tablet computer for the first time! You can tell he is watching an amazing music video or an educational movie about nature or history and it is blowing his mind!
SO many amazing things online to watch! So many ways to teach with youtube now! Kids should just watch youtube videos for education! And learning English is so necessary to experience all the english language content online! We must use English as the lingua franca or universal language and one day we will speak a unified energy language like Anuhazi but until then we should all be speaking the top languages on Earth like Chinese English Spanish Arabic etc but English is most important to take advantage of ALL the english language youtube documentaries and Videos that teach children MUCh faster than any school teacher!
Here are some articles for @tj4real and @xpency and Steemit Africa team to network with other successful steemit africa people like @ehiboss @kus-knee and @fisteganos
https://steemit.com/growth-ideas/@ehiboss/growth-idea-for-steemit-through-a-steemit-in-nigeria-s-i-n-conference-and-party-annually-in-response-to-the-message-on-steem
https://steemit.com/growth-ideas/@ehiboss/growth-idea-for-steemit-through-a-steemit-in-nigeria-s-i-n-conference-and-party-annually-in-response-to-the-message-on-steem
start making your tags #africa as first tag or #steemitafrica and go find those africa steemit posts by going to www.steemit.com/trending/africa and you will find how @tj4real is #1 on that page! @xpeny got to Number Five!
So lets spread the word about these devices the GoTena and the BRCK and if yoou knoww any BETTER devices or have an idea to make your own COMPETITOR to the BRCK we should hold a competition an Industrial Design Competition to design the best battery powered wifi backup router just like the BRCK but maybe smaller or bigger or solar panled or we make it with cheaper materials to create more or somehow upgrade or improve it, and maybe @tj4real and @xpency can help organize a competition to design a less expensive version of this BRCK and it can be designed and built in Ghana an using Chinese Connections who want to invest in a small factory to manufacture cheap batteries (find lithium mines in africa) or raspberry pi (cheap simple micro computer that you COULD build in Ghana with Chinese help) And if you could design some cool products and promise a bunch of orders you could get investors to help you slowly buy the tools to create simple electronics factory in a simple building in Ghana or any africa country.
This could save on labor costs and chinese can profit off this, so can africans if the Africans can organize themselves! This is just one example! Prove you can do it and you will get investment! I can see a pattern of success if we keep working hard and showing this community that we have done our research and found the BEST tools to purchase when we DO post to raise money to build some devices or buy some BRCK or GoTennas to test them out, it will be an AMAZING day to see that box of tablets and a BRCK wifi router installed in some school an seeing all the kids getting to go online and watch youtube or learn from videos
I cant wait to see african children getting to use the internet thanks to steemit! Children can now even have steemit accounts and earn money and actually start investing in bitcoinand steem and crypto currency while they are young so they canhave a real "nest egg" a small fortune by the time they are a young adult incase they cannot find a job they will have bitcoin or ethereum to live off! We can even embrace the communal aspect of Africa and when TJ or his friends go to a village they can leave one or two tablets and a BRCK wifi router and the whole village can all take turns using the tablet to use steemit!
if there is not enough for everyone then everyone can still take turns and sharing tablets , like a communal internet cafes you could travel around village to village and have people documenting their steemit experience and they can help rural people sign up on steemit and give each village a tablet and a BRCK with a few months of prepaid internet service, 2g or 3g even sometimes 4g mobile data, and we could have someone like @tj4real or @xpency documenting their experience going around giving people internet devices and wifi routers and steemit accounts and cheap tablets and smartphones! That could earn them many upvotes! they could be very popular if they keep using steemit to "Upgrade Africa" and that can be the name! Operation Upgrade Africa using Steemit!
Nice Initiatives, we need to earn our own stuff.
It's good to show a kid how to fish than to fish for him/her.
What happens when you are not around?
Keep it up and keep helping...... Steemit Ghana is about to breakout and it is going to be loud
That is a good device.
Great job spreading the word!
hell yes! ima keep it up even if the posts dont make as much! ima show off my $140 reward from today soon people like seeing that! i still wanna shoow everyone how much i made @tj4real !!
Congratulations, we are helping a lot more Chinese people to get in Steemit too, and our community has an explosive growth. That's great to see African people using Steemit and that may help the poor people getting away from poverty, nice work
Yes its going to be awesoome! chineese will be able to send money DIRECTLY to africans for different investment projects etc and will be able to see if anafrican ha a good reputation n steemit and can check if they fulfill their requests and deals etc
Upvoted man... Internet is essential nowadays and it'll improve their lives. Good work!
yes! And we shouldnt debate wether it should be a human right when we can focs that energy on using free market to just GET it to more people! we need itto be as free as water is in america or many nations where u can turn on any hose, and data connection should be a public resource
we can make it happe even in resource scarce places
steemit can show a DIRECT correclation between internet an money! like a local city goverment capay for a few BRCK devices for t heir city and ask all residents to singup for steemit, maybe to pay taxes in steem, haha u could get a local goverent to get everyone on steemit and theyd start posting making money and making enough moey to even pay some taxes and fund local schols hospitals etc, we cn use blocchain to see if the tax money astculay GOES to where its neede transparcney for affrican governents
it ccan also apeal to any posible greed of an african leader, we can sow them how steemit can enrich THEIR lives too! abn african leader on steemit would be HUGE! they could make LOT of moey for themselves and help many africans on steemit and for example if RObert Mugabe of Zimbabwe decided to switch to Bitcoin as national currency an replace money prnting machines wi bitcoinminers, government coudl still "create" money or bitcoins but in a fairway and the money zimbabwe would make just from price of bitcoin and crypt currency liek steem going up would make up for all ddamages caused by hyper inlation!
Mugabe could become a HERO or any afrcan leader who actualy made the switch to Bitcoin or crypo currency would REALLY be a hero later down the line and with very fast results too!
Internet is a very important tool and ISPs in Nigeria need a new competitor. Internet services are expensive and metered.
The Steemit community in Nigeria is growing too. I joined last month and its been a great experience. Thumbs up on your innovation. I wish you the best
we are going to be doing great things! stay competitve tho! coompete with other american and western eurppean steemitsers who post beatiful photso etc, make ur wn htos to compete
make cool tech articles!
stay competitive and post high quality content! and u will be cucesful and we will acmpllish ALl of our goals and we will eradicate poverty almost overnight using information technology and cryptocurrency!
Cool man. This could be a huge game changer! The shift is happening.
This is very good idea. The Internet in all over works bad. Small ideas can help many people. Welcome to post this to Project Africa website, we would gladly promote it for people in Africa. Thank you for this..
hey man come here https://t.me/africatelos
Id like to make a piece of art with an African theme and make a post and donate all proceeds to Africa.
come to https://t.me/africatelos bro!
Great work guys.
$1600 is more then minimum wage in most western counties.
That must be a very welcome paycheck for someone living in Kenya.
Steemit is going to be a game changer for developing countries.