In Zimbabwe, only 56.5% of the population are internet users. This means that 43.5%, or 7.6 million people, do not currently use the internet.

Zonful Energy is a for profit social enterprise that sells modular de-centralised and scalable solar energy systems on a Pay As You Go model to rural, urban and peri-urban off-grid consumers in Zimbabwe. The solar energy systems consist of solar panels, batteries and a broad range of appliances including lights, radios, televisions and many more others for productive use.

By procuring, marketing and distributing low-cost smartphones and data bundles with 24 month data plans from Econet, Zonful Energy aims to reduce the usage gap in Zimbabwe through an affordable Pay As You Go model. The affordable smartphones and data bundles are also available on this PAYG system to both customers and non-customers of Zonful’s Solar Home System.

This project also tackles the Digital Skills barrier by teaching customers how to use mobile internet through the GSMA Mobile Internet Skills Training Toolkit (MISTT), in collaboration with Econet.