7 lessons to learn about Internet connectivity

Despite the excitement around efforts to connect the next billion people to Internet access, many foreign aid professionals still miss opportunities for innovation. It can be difficult to separate the best ideas from the flashy ones, and, as Devex recently reported in an article on technologies bringing Internet to the poor that every development leader must know, there are plenty of ideas out there. We also collected some lessons that can help guide development professionals towards more productive engagement with the new world of Internet connectivity. Here are some of the things we learned: 1. It’s not just about the Internet. Cell connectivity matters too. Kurtis Heimerl, CEO of Endaga, told Devex why his work bringing cellular network boxes to rural villages is perhaps more important than the work the Facebooks and Googles of the world are doing to deliver Internet. “They only provide Internet access, and people with reasonable rural field experience will note that Internet access is actually not that important,” he said. Most people would prefer to send an SMS or call a family member versus access the Internet with very little content in their local language, Heimerl explained. Things change quickly in the ICT4D sector though. Just two weeks of speaking with Devex, Endaga announced that it would be winding down business operations and joining Facebook. 2. More connected does not necessarily mean more equal. “It’s not as if you sprinkle Internet access or telecommunications access across a country and magically that country transforms from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to Japan,” Wayan Vota, a digital development entrepreneur based in Washington, D.C., told Devex. “If you have situations where there is disparity in access based on gender, socio-economic status, cultural issues, those gaps generally replicate into the digital space,” he said. How to employ connectivity as a driver of social equality is gaining more and more attention. For example, a September Technology Salon event in San Francisco asked, “How Can Women Be Central to the Data Revolution?” Internews is one of a range of organizations launching initiatives to tackle this topic. Its five-year campaign “Women’s Voices, Powering Change” is focused on building women’s leadership in media and information, and there is plenty of room for new ideas to make sure connectivity initiatives provides new platforms for new voices to advocate for change. 3. Data is meaningless without data literacy. Jennifer Cobb, vice president for communications and outreach at Internews, explained to Devex that connectivity is about more than merely access to information. “The way you empower people is by helping them understand how to access, create, and use information in ways that makes their lives better,” she said. The powerful combination of read, write, and participate is what is driving Mark Surman, executive director of the Mozilla Foundation, to rethink how his team approaches Web literacy. As as more and more of the world is connected, development professionals should ask what additional steps they need to take, from data security to data literacy, to ensure people can not only absorb data but respond and contribute to it. 4. Know that you cannot expand connectivity without tackling cost. Speaking with Devex at the Social Capital Markets conference, Ann-Mei Chang, executive director of the United States Agency for International Development’s Global Development Lab, emphasized the importance of collaborative efforts like The Alliance for Affordable Internet to bring down cost. “The reality is 80 percent of the world actually has coverage today, but only 40 percent of the world is using it,” she said. “One of the biggest reasons for that is that the Internet is just too expensive for them.” Chang said the global development community needs to think of Internet connectivity as a core infrastructure needed for communities to survive and thrive, and celebrate examples of collaboration to bring down cost. 5. Think twice before you set up your own satellite dish. When development professionals set up their own satellite dishes to provide reliable connections in rural areas, that money often goes to the satellite industry rather than to building the local infrastructure of the community where they are operating. “It’s the easy choice but it’s the wrong choice to say, ‘Oh, we’ll set up our own satellite dish,’” said Jim Forster, an early employee and distinguished engineer at Cisco, who went on to found a nonprofit with a mission to reduce poverty by improving Internet access. Looking for alternatives? Check out “Wireless Networking in the Developing World,” a handbook Forster helped fund with tips for how to design, implement and maintain affordable wireless networks to connect the last mile. 6. Do not overlook the power of personal connections, beyond data connections. At the Social Capital Markets conference in San Francisco last month, Internet.org program manager Vaughn Hester told Devex the development community could do more to connect outside actors like Facebook with others on the ground. “For us it will come down to the overlap in coverage area for our team, a local [Internet service provider] and maybe other local partners,” she said. “Making those introductions and connections early at the country or market level such that if an opportunity arises for collaboration in a particular site people are already connected and informed about their particular offerings.” 7. Know the new technologies, but also the proven solutions. There are a number of proven solutions in building connectivity infrastructure, even though these efforts lack the same “wow factor” as flashy, space-age advances. “While all these drone and balloon projects are nice science projects, how many people are they really going to help?” asked Bruce Baikie of Inveneo, which works with partners to design and implement information and communications technology projects in more than 20 countries. He emphasized the importance of proven and sustainable business models over moonshots like Google’s Project Loon initiative to deliver connectivity from the sky. Organizations doing this kind of work need business plans and strategies for getting people to pay, he said. Read more international development news online, and subscribe to The Development Newswire to receive the latest from the world’s leading donors and decision-makers — emailed to you FREE every business day.