Charge your smartphone off-grid

BuffaloGrid
India (Delhi)

So, how do you get power to the people who need it most, to those who can’t afford it?

 

“When you need a doctor, you phone someone, when you are in trouble, you phone someone. If you want to find out the prices for your crops in the nearest market, you phone someone.”

Mobile phones are increasing their penetration, but it’s common for farmers in rural India or Africa to travel for hours to reach the nearest town to charge them or get connectivity. That’s the challenge award-winning designer Daniel Becerra and his team have set out to solve. “Design can make the world a better place,” he explains. In the case of BuffaloGrid, it’s bringing power to those living off-grid.

BuffaloGrid provides solar-powered phone charging and internet to people in developing countries via a small portable power station that charges many phones quickly. GPS located hubs are handed out to trusted entrepreneurs in villages across rural India for free, who then run the service of providing connectivity to their communities. No cash changes hands, just texts. “The agents are a sort of human cashpoint.”

Watch ► Daniel delivers power where the streets have no names.

AtlasAction: If you want to run a BuffaloGrid network or open new rural markets through the BuffaloGrid Hub, get in touch.

Written by

Lisa Goldapple, Editor, Atlas of the Future (08 November 2017)

Project leader

Daniel Becerra, CEO and Daniel Fogg, COO

Support the Atlas

We want the Atlas of the Future media platform and our event to be available to everybody, everywhere for free – always. Fancy helping us spread stories of hope and optimism to create a better tomorrow? For those able, we'd be grateful for any donation.

Creative Commons License

Comments

 

Take me somewhere
Close
Take me somewhere
Close
Data Protection Act: LOPD.
In compliance with Organic Law 15/1999, of 13 of December, on Personal Data Protection, and the development of Rules of Procedure, approved by Royal Decree 1720/2007, of 21 of December, Atlas of the Future subscribers may be required to provide Personal Data, which will be included in a file owned by Democratising The Future Society SL. Such file is duly incorporated in the Spanish Data Protection Agency and protected in compliance with the security measures established in the applicable legislation. Subscribers may exercise, at any time, their rights of access, rectification, cancellation and/or opposition regarding their Personal Data. The subscriber shall notice their will, either under written form addressed to Democratising The Future Society SL, Ref. LOPD, Calabria, 10 6-3 08015 - Barcelona (Spain) and/or by e-mail, clicking here. Also, the subscriber shall communicate Atlas of the Future any modifications of their Personal Data stored, so that the information stored by Atlas of the Future remains at all times updated and error-free.
Close
Get World-changing projects and news in your inbox weekly.