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Most of us have the world at our fingertips.

News, weather, fun, friends, information.

What if you didn't have that?

What if you lived somewhere you could barely get a phone signal, let alone internet?

And what if not knowing the weather was normal, but could be catastrophic.

We're headed to a place like this, a remote island off the east coast of Africa.

But first, we got to find a way across the bridge.

[music playing] I'm Earl and that's my best friend Craig.

We thought we were doing OK until we saw the cows cross effortlessly.

Nicely done.

We're on this journey across the hinterlands of Kenya and onto a Tanzanian island with a technology company trying to bring desperately needed connectivity to people in need.

Even if it needs an off road convoy, from dawn to dusk, to a distant smuggler's port, and a boat of questionable integrity that departs at 2:00 AM, only to be held up by a less than official feeling customs procedure.

All in a day's work, but the night has just begun.

[music playing] Shamoni, it's an old smuggling port on the east coast of Kenya, and our ticket to the Zanzibar Archipelago in Tanzania.

Its smuggling days are supposedly over, but our customs experience suggested otherwise.

Next, we're introduced to the vessel, the single vessel that has to carry 17 people, their gear, and two motorcycles across the Indian Ocean for six hours.

That's the actual boat?

Yeah, you see it on the side.

OK, now the joke's over.

Where's the real boat?

This is the boat.

Not one of those?

No, no.

That's not a good boat.

Those don't even have sails.

Needless to say, after some haggling and possibly bribery, we added a second boat or dhow, as they're called here.

Next up, the motorcycles.

They'll be the easiest way to get around on the island, and to pick up supplies and food when we arrive.

So one way or another, we needed them on a boat.

[non-english speech] It's unbelievable, but they actually did it.

Don't know how we're going to get it off.

We got the last of the supplies on the boat, and we're off.

[boat sputters] Briefly.

[non-english] All right.

We got to-- [motor sounds] OK, here we go.

[murmuring] Despite our reservations, six hours went by, and the sun was up.

I however, was not.

All right, so we finally made it to Pemba.

I don't know where the other boat is, but it should be-- What happened to the rest of the crew?

I knew we had some more people, but-- There's a point where you can see the lighthouse from Shamoni behind you, you see the lighthouse from Tanga off to the right.

Mhm.

And you see this one off and you're like, all right.

Triangulate.

They haven't just lost us in the middle of nowhere.

Well that's the thing, I mean, all night long we're just heading towards, hopefully, the island.

If we missed it, next stop-- Madagascar.

[non-english speech] [non-english speech] [non-english] They said the rain's coming, so they want to get in and get stuff done before it rains.

Got you.

Well, let's get in before it rains because we've got a lot of gear, and-- And they don't want to lose the bet to the other boat behind us.

They said they swore that they would win.

Oh, I love that.

Hey-- Little bit of competition.

Always is always competition.

I love the competition.

[non-english speech] Welcome to Pemba.

It's a beautiful but small island of about 300,000 people in the Zanzibar Archipelago, Pemba Developers' Dream.

Thankfully though, you won't find high rises, hostels, or Wi-Fi here.

Just beaches and campsites.

We're not just here for the sunshine though, we're on a mission.

We're here with the technology company, BRCK to install a hyperlocal weather station that will support the fishing and agricultural communities of Pemba who don't have access to the same kind of up-to-the-minute weather forecasts that you have on your phone.

First, we've got to get everything off the boat and back on dry land.

Luckily, the BRCK team isn't fazed by a little elbow grease.

They're based in Nairobi, but engage in these expeditionary missions a few times a year to really get to know the people they're designing for.

They create hardware and software with communities like Pemba in mind.

They use internet based technologies to increase connectivity where it's just too expensive, or difficult for a normal internet service provider.

I.e.

Pemba.

We quickly set up camp and we're met by a large van that took us to the highest point on the island to begin installation of the weather station.

It's where they'll have the best chance of picking up weather patterns as they emerge.

Yusef, the lighthouse operator, shows us where we can install the weather station.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth from BRCK sets up the brain of the system, called the picoBRCK.

Small, rugged, versatile, and able to get a signal just about anywhere.

Reg, their CTO, tells us more about the process.

We've got some firmware updates, so we're doing some last minute debugging here.

So Elizabeth is actually programming.

So she's made more-- Programming the device.

The device is generic, the picoBRCK itself is the same device we're using with use of applications.

And said every application we actually reprogram.

And we can do that over the air, but we find it's easier for us to do it-- On site.

On site.

Yeah.

They make sure everything's working well.

How's it going Elizabeth?

Going great.

I spoke with BRCK engineers, Kayla and Curtis, back in Nairobi before we left.

Yeah, so this is something that we've wanted to build as engineering for a long time.

But then other cooler stuff came up-- Cooler stuff than this?

Because this kind of cool.

Depends on who you ask.

Right.

I mean, if you look at these, you guys just have stuff spread all over the place.

Yeah, well, I mean, this is the place where everybody-- they come to this end of the room.

The windvane here gets a direction, then a moment, it gets the wind speed.

But then the picoBRCK in here, that we've designed and developed here, is what's going to be logging all the data and then transmitting it.

Because we're sitting in Nairobi today.

This is going to be in Pemba Island, and it's pretty good ways away.

I mean, we're going to spend hours trying to fix in-- 600 kilometers.

That's another common feature for all our tech, is that we know that whether it's a village, or whether it's an island, or it's an elephant in the middle of nowhere.

It's going to be away from where we can access it easy.

Right.

So all our tech is sort of cloud controlled, cloud reporting.

This is what I love about what you guys do because it kind of looks like something that a high school kid could do.

Thanks.

This is low cost, really scalable solutions, and you talk about south to south solutions.

Oftentimes, the biggest problems are solved by this innovation, but it starts at a work station like this.

GPS internet, or is it a BT, or GSM?

While Liz and Kayle work through the final programming via video call, we spoke with Yusef about his role here, and what the weather station will mean for this community.

[non-english speech] Yeah, so he says, the function of the space is one, to make sure the lighthouse is in good working order.

Thank you for the lighthouse, in good working order.

That was the first thing that, when we came across the ocean on the dhow, the very first thing we see was the lighthouse.

Pemba.

Pemba, yes.

And Yusef, how long have you been-- 26 years ago.

That's longer than I've been alive.

[laughter] The benefit here from the weather station is actually to a large population.

Yeah, he was actually telling me earlier, he thinks it helps save lives because fishermen, before they'd go.

Right.

They really need to learn the weather because you've seen the equipment they have.

Exactly.

It's very weather dependent.

It's life and death for these guys.

Yeah, yeah.

You know for the rest of us, it's an umbrella or no umbrella today.

We experienced it.

I mean-- On the dhow.

I almost was afraid to go into one of them, right?

Yeah.

They were telling us the sea is calm today.

And I'm like, dude, what does calm mean to you?

What does calm mean to you?

[laughter] He was also telling me there's a lot of people who've lost harvests because they planted at the wrong time, and that's all their investment.

And then when the rain come, and they did it the wrong time, they don't have enough income to buy a new seed or to do it again.

To them it becomes really important because they don't have money to keep guessing.

So he's very proud of being part of making sure people get that information.

So this will help us to collect data, which includes the rainfall level, so we have our windvane over there.

Mhm.

And also we have something to measure the rain, and all these runs on solar.

OK, so they have solar panel.

Yeah, so we don't have to depend on electricity and all that.

So you're going to be collecting data for years now, and then all of that's going to be made available on the cloud?

Yeah.

As soon as it goes on, you start collecting data in them.

And if I'm a fisherman and I'm trying to decide whether or not I should fish on this side of the island, I can actually get the data online first?

Yeah, you can get the data online.

I think it's open.

Using Mojo Wi-Fi to connect to the internet.

And I'm going to check the data that is being transmitted from that weather station.

So from here you can see that we have the time.

And we also have the wind direction, the wind speed, the temperature right now, the humidity, and the pressure.

Yusef is now seeing for the first time what the result is of the data.

Yeah because he's worked here 26 years.

Yeah.

And all this time, all the information goes to the central government, and like everybody else, he has to watch television.

To know what's going to happen.

For the weather forecast because they only do weather forecasts in intervals, like in the morning, or much later.

But then sometimes you want that information before it's news time.

And so I'm telling him for the first time on his laptop, he actually can pop it open, and then he can see what's going on.

See for himself.

For himself any given time.

A lot of people in the village-- Look to him for the information.

So now he can really-- Tell people what's going on.

Even standing next to them-- Yeah.

--he can pop out his cellphone and tell them.

This is a great example of hyperlocal empowerment through a simple fool proof and environment proof technology.

The untethered access to local weather at any time will make a big difference for many of the inhabitants of Pemba.

It had been a good day, but the expedition wasn't over yet.

We were headed to an even smaller, more remote island, in the morning.

And it was time to get some rest.

Kokota, an incredibly small island a few hours west of Pemba, with a single tribe living on it.

We're headed there to bring desperately needed connectivity and resources to the small school that services the community.

In addition, we've set up a little surprise for the students.

Once we make it to Kokota, BRCK is going to install a SupaBRCK router that will provide the community with the internet for the first time.

They're also going to give them a Kio Kit, which is an educational system they designed to work with the router, and function in the most remote of environments.

We first had to rendezvous with a smaller boat to pick up the Kio Kit.

We chatted with the BRCK team while we waited.

This expedition is a little bit different than all of your expeditions.

But again, the whole concept of-- Yeah, we had a film crew.

[laughter] Yeah, so our first expedition was up to Turkana, it's in a cradle of civilization.

Right.

We've gone rafting down the Nile, and one of our big ones, is we rode overland from Nairobi to Johannesburg.

Wow.

So a couple of-- That's a long way.

--very long days in the saddle.

You've been on motorcycles, going to the bush, you've been on boats, and all this stuff.

Are you really doing this for the educational purposes?

Now this is completely about work.

We have some simple rules on expeditions.

Number one, you have to have a mission, and it has to be difficult.

Right.

If it's too easy, then it's not an expedition, it's a holiday.

Number two, we do it to test our equipment.

And number three, we do it just to hang out and get to know each other better as a team.

You can't create these kinds of technologies sitting in an office in Nairobi.

How many of us have been frustrated with getting onto some of the stuff we've built already.

Oh, that' right, this week.

And we're like, OK.

When we get back, we're going to change this, this, this, and this.

Right.

Eric uses the expression, "Eating our own dog food."

In the office it works every time, but out here, when things go wrong, those are really the critical learnings that allow us to shape the future of our products.

The Kio Kit itself arrived, no problem.

But once we arrived on Kokota, we were about to get a taste of that dog food.

[non-english speech] Due to the low tide, we had to hike a good ways to get into the school, and we had a lot of stuff.

[music playing] After hiking into the school, the BRCK team got into it.

[non-english speech] The kids were impressed by my soccer skills.

There were a few hiccups right away.

The BRCK team couldn't get a signal to connect to the router, which they needed for the Kio Kit.

This was touch and go here, but what we figured out was-- so we got this kind of swordfish looking antenna that's pointing out that direction to some fort.

And we're pulling that in, as we're broadcasting out free internet for the community here at the school.

But we also put educational content on the same device.

So anybody can just come up here with whatever phone they have, Wikipedia in Swahili, and we loaded a bunch of Swahili content from our partners on it as well.

And then we also brought the Kio Kit in in case it has the SupaBRCK inside of it, which acts as a server with all the content on it.

Also has 40 ruggedized tablets, which you can drop, which you can pour water on, which normally happen when you have little kids running around.

And-- Or us.

Yeah, or Craig or Earl.

Already dropped one earlier.

Most of the tech products that you bring into emerging market, schools, gets sat in a corner, or sat in the backroom and locked away.

Because the teacher doesn't know how to use it, the kids don't know how to use it, or they don't want to use it, and it's too difficult.

It takes away from the learning, and so they just put it away.

Liz explained more about the Kio Kit as they charged and prepped it for the teachers.

So the tablet is not going to replace the teacher.

It's supposed to complement the teacher.

Like in most African classroom set ups, you'll find that the kids are more than the number of books provided.

But now with the Kio Kit, you only buy one book which you store in the Kio Kit, and then it's saved on 40 tablets.

So that means it can serve 40 kids.

It keeps everyone on the same page.

True, true.

Yeah.

We actually was looking at where to put the money.

Do we put the money in making it sturdy?

Right.

In the charging system?

Or do we put the money in fancy gadgetry?

And so it's really built for Africa, so it's built for a classroom.

Just take a drop.

If it breaks, you'll pay.

No, she didn't want you to do that.

The kids.

Oh, I accidentally dropped it.

Oh my goodness.

Now see what you've done.

In fact, the same reaction you had when we're shooting the video-- Right.

--I pretended to give the child a tablet and I let it-- and if she does see any reaction on his face.

Oh yes.

After embarrassing Earl thoroughly, they began to train the teachers on how to use the kit.

If we go straight on and talk to students before we talk to teachers, they can get a little bit intimidated because students pick it faster than the teachers.

So it's strategic that we teach the teachers first, so when they go, they still have their authority in class, where they're the ones teaching the students.

That's when we got the bad news.

We had planned on using the new internet service to connect the school to another school standing by in Nashville, Tennessee via virtual reality 360 video experience.

However-- Our generator's out of fuel, and all the fuel that we have on the island is already mixed with two-stroke for the boat motor.

Here's the stakes, so we have a school in Nashville that's expecting some kind of interface with the school here on this island.

And our point of failure is fuel.

We've called to the next island and the chief has taken off to go so we can-- We came all this way with a generator that somebody forgot to check how much fuel there was left in it.

Eric came in to tell us that the teacher was going to do a practice class with the Kio Kits and some volunteer students.

So we pushed this problem aside to go capture that.

[non-english speech] [non-english speech] [non-english speech] [non-english speech] [non-english speech] Raise your hand.

[non-english speech] Sentence [non-english speech].

Sentence.

Sentence-fupi.

Yeah.

Sentence-fupi.

[non-english speech] Ah, yeah.

All right.

Nicely done, Earl.

Sentence-- [non-english speech] A short sentence and-- Long sentence.

Sentence.

[non-english speech] [non-english speech] [non-english speech] [non-english speech] When I say to you-- We spoke with the head teacher after the practice lesson, which seemed to have been a good first step.

My name is Ali.

Ali.

Teacher Ali.

Teacher Ali.

And what subjects do you teach?

Yes, English, geography, ICT, Swahili, mathematics as well.

Oh, perfect.

So what do you think about this new BRCK tool, the tablet?

It is good.

I think it's helpful for us.

Yeah.

Do you think the students will be more engaged in lessons with this tool?

Yeah, I think so.

They very happy, happier for this.

The Kio Kit was a success.

Our attempt to connect the schools, however, was floundering.

The fuel had made it to the island, but we still couldn't connect at the needed bandwidth to get the VR up and running.

Everyone was frustrated, especially since the students had just arrived in their more traditional school uniforms, and were really excited.

At that point, I headed back to camp because I thought it was a lost cause.

But Craig was determined to make something happen, and he stayed behind.

He was rewarded with something special even if it wasn't exactly what they had in mind.

Ali, can you tell them what they're seeing on the video right now is in America.

[non-english speech] As you can tell Dr. Kessler, the kids here are just a little bit excited.

Shh.

Hello from Hunters Lane High School in Nashville, Tennessee in the United States.

[non-english speech] Hunters Ville High School.

[non-english speech] So they said, good morning as well in Kiswahili, which is [non-english speech] Yay.

It was a real joy witnessing this rare opportunity for two groups of students to connect even for a little while, in a way that wasn't possible before BRCK brought the internet to Kokota.

It's a connection they hope to maintain, and I feel it will have a lasting impact on both communities.

When Craig and the team finally returned, we all sat down for a much needed drink.

Another sundowner in Pemba.

Another sundown.

Cheers to all of you guys.

Cheers.

We're trying to figure out why it is that BRCK does any of this stuff at all.

The 21st century economy, you need connectivity, and you need power.

A lot of people working on power, we're working on connectivity.

I mean connectivity is the foundation for education, it's the foundation for access to commerce, it's the foundation for access to jobs.

It's a bit of a equalizer too, socioeconomic equalizer, and all that stuff.

It really is.

But what does that mean for the average person from Pemba?

So with BRCK we're able to get the connections, so we don't need to have what you said, fiber optics or cables coming through because Kokota would be impossible to connect that way.

Right.

But using wireless networks, using point-to-point networks, using satellite connections, we can get that connectivity almost anywhere around the planet now.

It's still expensive.

It's still hard for the average person to afford.

Both things like merger, when you start to shift that paradigm, shift the idea that the internet's expensive.

What drove you to do this?

Well, the funny thing is there we were, technologists, in Nairobi, suffering with the fact that we didn't have reliable connectivity.

Right.

So when we first started, it was, hey, let's build a device that solves our problem.

And then as soon as we did that, we realized it probably solved other people's problem.

If someone asks you what's BRCK, what do you say?

Say it's a onramp to Africa's internet users, and a distribution point for companies who want to reach them.

And if you were trying to translate what it is that he said, what-- [laughter] Yeah, there's those who say access to connectivity's a human right now.

We envision a future where all Africans are able to participate in building their own lives, both economically and socially.

Because there's this narrative as well that people need to be handed things, but then if you give people the tools and the access, I really believe that there is the innovation, there is the intelligence, to actually build their own futures.

It's interesting because there's always these unintended consequences that happen.

We leave footprints in the sand.

The internet changes everything in our society, from the family, to businesses, to governance.

It all changes.

It's up for people to write their own future with it.

It's not up to us, we just provide a foundation on which they can do it.

I don't think Craig and I had really any idea what we're getting into, and I think that started as soon as we left Nairobi.

You guys ride hard, you go places that are difficult.

You do hard things, sometimes you do easy things and make them look hard.

[laughter] So again, across the board what you guys do and what you provide from a company standpoint, I think, is really unique.

You don't have to be a charity to do good.

In fact, sometimes you can't be a charity and really scale out the good.

And you have to be a for-profit company, and you have to have some ROI, and you have to have investors in there.

A lot of what you guys do has the potential to really make a big difference across the whole global south.

And I will say, this is the best tradition you guys have ever come up with.

Not a beach drinking, we can do that a lot.

[laughter] Cheers.

All right, cheers.

There is so much more to explore, and we want you to join us on The Good Road.

For more in-depth content, meet us on the internet at thegoodroad.tv.

Hear more great stories, connect to organizations, and make sure you download our podcast, Philanthropology.

Funding for The Good Road has been provided by-- Every road is a good road When you're behind the wheel of a Toyota Hybrid From the Toyota Venza and Sienna to Highlander Hybrid and Rav IV Hybrid And with available all-wheel drive these vehicles are designed to go the distance wether your driving to work, school or down the coast of Tanzania Proud sponsor of The Good Road, Toyota Let's go places Tomorrow's breakthroughs start with the determination and inspiration of today.

AMD helps solve the world's toughest, and most interesting challenges by creating high performance computing technologies.

And by The Great Courses Plus.

Hundreds of topics from expert instructors to help you expand your knowledge.

Available for streaming anytime, anywhere.

And by Share More Stories.

Helping companies understand humans one story at a time.

[music playing] And by Uncommon Giving.

The Generosity Company.