Photo: Zak White explaining to GSMA Director General Anne Bouverot the functionality of PSU/SweetSense’s GSM sensors for water management in rural Rwanda
Last week the Mobile for Development Utilities team joined 93,000 other participants at Mobile World Congress for some very promising engagements. Here are our highlights:
The GSMA Innovation City
For the first time, GSMA Mobile for Development had an allocated stand at the Innovation City and we think that our three Utilities demos stole the show!
Portland State University/SWEETSense demonstrated how their mobile-enabled sensors are being used to monitor near real-time water pump functionality in Rwanda. With the support of our grant, they have currently installed these in 200 hand pumps and are comparing the costs and benefits of different maintenance models using the sensors for alerts and verification of breakages.
Also on display was our grantee NextDrop’s newest mobile application, moving from an IVR service to an android mobile app, to address the uncertainty of intermittent water supply. The app monitors when valvemen open or close communal water points in different parts of Bangalore and reports this information back to water consumers through SMS alerts, and to the water utility in the form of geo-tagged reports.
The final demo was our grantee M-KOPA’s III solar home system, with its 8W panel, two lights, torch and radio. The live demo included payment via M-PESA and the subsequent GSM transfer of credit information from M-KOPA’s backend system to the unit itself.
M4D Utilities seminar
This was an opportunity to share updates about our programme to a different audience than that attending our regional working groups. We presented early insights from our first round of funding, highlights from our feasibility study with Orange, and some perspectives on investment in the sector, notably around the impressive increase in investment in the pay-as-you-go solar space since its beginning in 2010 (see below).
Innovation in emerging markets
Perhaps most exciting at this year’s Mobile World Congress was that the overall theme of innovation brought great discussions about innovation in emerging markets to the main stage.
A keynote seminar led by Erik Hersman of Nairobi’s iHub included big names discussing how we drive “Innovation for Inclusion,” The CEO of MasterCard emphasised the need for cross-sector cooperation to achieve financial inclusion. The Chairwoman of Mozilla brought forward key elements for growing digital inclusion such as building local content.
Overall, this year’s Mobile World Congress was a great stage for the increasing growth of innovation in the utilities sector, but also broader Mobile for Development. We’re excited!