Close the Gap of the Last Mile

BOP’s Energy Situation

  • Billion people lack access to electricity
  • 90% are in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia
  • 700 Million BoP population living with less than $2 per day
  • lack of energy prevented access to information, education and equal opportunities in these countries.

Electricity that Solar Media could Provide

  • Billion people lack access to electricity
  • 90% are in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia
  • 700 Million BoP population living with less than $2 per day
  • lack of energy prevented access to information, education and equal opportunities in these countries.

General information dissemination channels

Billboard, Community Gathering, Mobile

Why is BOP’s access to information blocked

  1. They can’t afford mobile phone bills
  2. Information dissemination in the community is fast, but relatively closed to the outside world(Cognition is limited to local)
  3. There is no TV in the community
  4. Billboards cannot spread effective information

The information advantages that solar media can bring to the BOP

  • Richness, authenticity, validity
  • Competitive advantage (learning skills to win in job competition
  • Virus prevention knowledge changes health disadvantages

BOP Face Education Problems

Insufficient investment in national education

Educational investment in different phrases is uneven, pre-school education is neglected

Low education penetration, literacy rate, women’s right to education

Lost of school due to the impact of the epidemic, early marriage, unable to study without electricity or internet

Teacher’s quality and educational ability

Solar Media could Provide a Variety of Educational Content

  1. Can’t afford mobile phone bills
  2. Information dissemination in the community is fast, but relatively closed to the outside world(Cognition is limited to local)
  3. There is no TV in the community
  4. Billboards cannot spread effective information

The Impacts of Solar Media through Education

  • Distance Education
  • Changes in children’s lifelong development trajectory

Offer Work Opportunity for End Users

  • Local:We need local people to update solar media content and maintain products
  • Outside:Solar media can provide external employment information and skills training for employment needs

Company

Know the end user’s frequency of use, length of use and their content preference, provide feedback for the company to update content, and directly obtain user feedback through contact men.

Government and NGO

  • Accurately disseminate medical protection videos produced by UN
  • Solar Media provides new solutions for countries with prominent poverty problems, for example solve poverty through education
  • It can be used to spread ethnic culture, promote mutual understanding between ethnic groups, and reduce ethnic conflicts.

Last Mile Challenges

Last Mile Meaning

By the last mile we are referring not only to the poorest of the poor, but also to the people, places and small enterprise levels that are under-served and excluded, where development needs are greatest, and where resources are most scare.(UNDP,2016,GETTING TO THE LAST MILE IN LEAST DEVELOPMENT COUNTRIES)

Poor and Backward

Hard to get User’s Feedback

Dispersion of residence leads to long time spent in contact with customers and difficulty in obtaining user feedback

Remote

Remote areas are hard to reach, make BOP isolated from the outside world

In Need

  • Leducation primary school
  • Health care, prevent HIV, Ebola, COVID-19
  • Solar media can provide lighting sources and mobile charge port make off-grid people get access to electricity

Our Solutions

7 inch screen, Drive Great Change

  • Rich dissemination content, video+audio+document+picture
  • Content update method promotes human relations

End Users Afford Ability for Solar Media

  • Solar  Media support PAYGO, so BOP could afford this
  • We would cooperate with other agency, they invest in Solar Media would reduce its cost

Solar Create New Life

  • Database is able to measure the electricity that end users obtain from SM, so as to measure the carbon reduction benefits brought by clean electricity
  • Solar energy is connected with education, medical care, agriculture, skill training

Barefoot Engineer (Skill and Knowledge for BOP)

  • Solar Media can provide end users with skills training opportunities, solar energy conversion knowledge, solar panel installation skills
  • Daily maintenance of Solar Media products, training local BOP people to understand the operation mode and function realization of Solar Media, so that local engineers can diagnose, eliminate and repair Solar Media problems.

Why Our Work Matters

Empower Women

The example of Barefoot University in India:
Committed to fairness and democracy, serving life and production, eliminating the difference between the body and brain, workers and peasants, and urban and rural areas, changing poverty, and empowering women, children and the elderly. Perhaps this is what education is like. Many illiterate farmers have become experts to build everyone’s community. So far, more than 383 solar engineers have been trained, of which 169 were once illiterate women.

Solar media provides skills training for women

Knowledge of child rearing

Change Kids Life Trajectory

Schools closed during the epidemic which delayed kids learning progress

Natural environment and disasters affect children’s education

In those conditions Solar Media provide a helpful way for children to learn

Educational dissemination by solar media changes parent-child relationship and reduces violence

Climate Change

Solar Media could provide clean electricity for BOP at the same time reduce carbon emission

BOP Life Quality

Health: BOP has poor health awareness, by using Solar Media, they could have a better understanding of diseases and take prevent action at early

Entertainment:Solar Media could play movies and videos

Job security:solar media needs some engineer to maintenance and repair

Meet Our Team

Read Our Last Mile Stories

The designer’s story

Tiger Pan is the designer of Solar Media packaging boxes. With his design talent and perseverance, he has been deeply involved in the design industry for 18 years and is now the winner of the world’s three major design awards. He is willing to participate in public welfare undertakings. The Tiger Pan Packaging Design Laboratory established by him takes the initiative to accept 3 public welfare projects for creation every year, and insists on using his own ability to help people in need. In 2020, out of admiration for Susan Lee and her career, he designed a special packaging box for Power-Solution’s new product Solar Media for free. Before designing, he deeply understood the peculiarities of Solar Media’s user BOP (Bottom of the Pyramid) and found that product packaging is a “luxury” for poor people. Packaging design cannot increase the burden of users, and it is even more beneficial if it can generate new value. From this, he designed a furniture-style packaging carton. The corrugated paper partition in the box can be folded into a hanger; the single packaging box can become a drawer-like box; the outer box containing 6 products can be folded to become a more durable wardrobe, cabinet, or any storage space. Tiger Pan’s design is “people-oriented”, and truly makes every penny of the BOP families spend the most value. It also allows us to understand the core meaning of design and let us feel the warmth of design.

End user stories - Singh

Singh is the first batch of end users to use Solar Media. Originally, coming along for the ride, watching someone promote Solar Media, after the introduction, the most exciting thing for him is the video playback function of Solar Media, which is of great help to children’s education, and they can learn about disease defense and agricultural planting. In addition, there are functions such as lighting and charging. He feels that these functions are tailor-made for them. Although he didn’t save much, he still bought a solar media because he knew that education was the only way to change their poverty status. After using it for a period of time, Singh became more and more satisfied with solar media. They assembled Solar Media’s packaging boxes into a wardrobe. Sometimes their family watched news about the epidemic together, sometimes watched animation videos their children liked together, and they could listen to music while eating. Solar media enriched their family’s entertainment. Of course, the most important function of solar media is to assist children in learning. At night, children can also learn through the electricity provided by solar media, which prolongs the children’s learning time and does a great help to children’s academic performance. Children’s learning progress is the happiest thing for Singh, and it is also their family’s hope for the future.

End user stories - Emma

Emma was born in a poor family, a large family can only support her brother to go to school alone, while Emma only received two years of education. She is eager to learn, even if she can’t go to school, she insists on reading her brother’s textbooks. Until she got married at the age of thirteen, she gave birth early, and was busy with raising children, housework and farming every day, so she could only bury the seeds of learning deeply in her heart. Emma saw the appear of Solar Media, as if she saw hope. Not only her hope, but also the hope of her children. She hopes that every child can receive education, especially her little daughter. Emma knew that working day and night would not make her family wealthy and could not support her five children to go to school together, but Solar Media could realize her wish. Facts have proved that Solar Media has achieved that five children receive education together. When playing the teaching video in Solar Media, her five children gathered together and listened carefully to the teacher’s lecture in the video. Slowly, the five children can often examine each other’s mastery of the learning content. Emma often sees such scenes, and the happy life of the five children in the future emerges in her mind.

End user stories - Abiel

Abiel is nine years old this year. His life consists of going to school, helping the family with work, and having fun with his friends. Almost all families in their village have no money to buy toys. However, he and friends usually make some toys by themselves, such as a “football” wrapped in a cloth strip, and then wrapped in a plastic film on the outer surface of the ball, a toy car with a bottle cap as the wheel, and a plastic bottle as the body. and many more. Although the toys are simple, they still have a lot of fun. One day, a big green box that could play video appeared at their house. Abiel listened to the explanation from their parents and knew that the box was called Solar Media. This green square box made him see a different world. He knew Simpson for the first time, danced with sing for the first time, and saw a teacher lecture on the screen for the first time… He thought the world in the green box was very novel and interesting. And as long as you put the green box on the desktop, everyone can watch it and receive all the information equally.

Local community stories - Gal

Gal is a promoter of Solar Media. As an excellent salesperson, Gal can tell the characteristics of the product every time, so that everyone has the idea of buying. After fully understanding Solar Media, he went to off-grid rural areas in Kenya to sell it. He was also born in a poor family. He knows the despair that poverty brings to people, and knows how important education and outside help are to BOP. Now he is also trying his best to bring practical products to poor families and give them a little help. For a period of time, he was in the same village, visiting from house to house, showing the functions of Solar Media and explaining in detail. Many people are impressed by the practical features of Solar Media and have the idea of buying, but not every family can afford the cost of Solar Media. It may not be possible to meet the food and clothing of an extremely poor family alone, let alone meet the educational needs. Gal hopes that this product will get more promotion and more companies will join to make the price of solar media more affordable, so that more poor families can pay; at the same time, more organizations and companies will pay attention. Poor families, give them some help.

Local community stories - Millai

Millai is a member of a local village, and she discovered that her village has undergone great changes recently. All these changes come from a product called Solar Media. At first there was only one family have it. Gradually, there were two, five, and nine families. In the end, you can see this product in almost all families in the village. In the shade of the tree, a group of people sat around Solar Media, staring at the screen. The topics discussed in the village have also begun to change, from children and housework to tips for maintaining health and hygiene, what the children have recently learned, etc.; children will argue about their favorite roles, share their feelings about movies, and so on. Millai also often participates in these topics. Among the many topics, the most people pay attention to agricultural techniques and hygiene knowledge. In the process of applying this knowledge to life, the crop yields in the village have increased, and the family’s food has become more abundant; at the same time, everyone is paying more attention to healthy drinking water and vaccinating children against infectious diseases. After Millai’s awareness of hygiene has improved, she will pay attention to changing some bad hygiene habits and promptly clean the breeding environment of diseases at home.

Local community stories - Abu

Abu is a promoter. This time, he took two people to a remote mountain village to promote Solar Media at home. When I went, it happened to catch heavy rain and the road was muddy. After finally arriving in the small village, the locals saw Abu’s car, they were far away, and they were very vigilant. Because they are not familiar with the outside world, the locals dare not come into contact with them, and even in their hearts, they feel that the outside world is terrible. Abu talked about a few interesting examples of outside life, which attracted the interest of local people, and took the opportunity to showcase Solar Media. Solar Media is a channel for them to understand the outside world. Abu himself is also learning solar panel installation knowledge through Solar Media. In the future, he wants to become a technician and talk about spreading new energy to remote rural areas to bring electricity to local people.