Q&A with the Winners: Daniel Becerra

In this Q&A, Daniel Becerra talks about his team’s solution — StreamSpot+ — which won the 2nd Place Community Enablement Proof of Concept prize in the 2022 Connecting the Unconnected Challenge.

1.Please summarize your winning solution

BuffaloGrid deploys StreamSpot+ content-as-a-service Hubs to remote areas and refugee camps in developing regions. These Hubs enable free access to solar powered mobile device charging and provide regionally relevant offline streaming and digital services. Our solution addresses the main barriers to Internet adoption in four ways:

1. Provide free power to charge mobile devices.
2. Introduce and support digital skills.
3. Provide thousands of hours of preloaded locally and regionally relevant content. From education, (financial literacy and national curriculums) and health and entertainment and sport.
4. All done at zero cost of data for the users.

The Hubs operate like a local network and update using a SIM card from our partner Mobile Network Operators. Our users can then stream offline and download using our StreamSpot App. Hubs are highly scalable, laptop-sized and durable to any environment while our services are extremely low cost and user friendly.

Our digital content is locally curated and cloud updated using a local mobile network. Educational content includes national curriculums, business, banking, farming, health and digital literacy. Users access our partners’ content, including Khan Academy, Sesame Workshop, Waterbear Network, Nigeria Professional Football League and more.

2.What is the most unique/innovative aspect about your approach?

Our service provides a flawless content experience without the need for mobile data, as our mobile app allows users to stream and download video via Wi-Fi.

3. What did you enjoy most about the CTU Competition and Summit Program?

Preparing the video highlighting our solution was great fun, and it was super to hear about all the other work being done around the globe.

4. What are your project plans for the next 12-18 months?

In the next 12 months we aim to deploy 400 Hubs, serving over a quarter of a million unique users who were previously excluded from the socio-economic benefits of connectivity. This includes Hubs provided to refugee camps in Kenya through our partnership with Techfugees, an organization that creates a sustainable ecosystem of tech solutions supporting the inclusion of displaced people.

We will deploy in Uganda with the UNHCR in the refugee camp of Bibi Bidi, in Zambia with Intracen for an agriculture extension project, in Zimbabwe with the UNDP and in Kenya with Digital Opportunity Trust. These will all be pilot projects, but with large organizations we have the potential to scale very rapidly.

We have also started developing our new Digital Services ID and Digital Storage for the unconnected.

We will be the streaming platform for the Unconnected and our solution will bring digital prosperity to the next billion.

5. What is your estimate of the number of people impacted by your program?

Current users – 4214

6. Anything else you would like to share

We are very grateful for the support of IEEE