I wonder what the goal of all the education initiatives are over there though. Are they planning to go to college and do STEM? Do they intend to come to the US, or work there? Is better math skill more useful in daily life aside from STEM than it is here? Seems like the stuff that comes after getting an education is just as important.
We are talking about providing an 1/8th of the worlds population with electricity for the first time. That is a huge challenge.
Now add into that doing it in a way that won’t destroy the planet and the fact these people are in some of the remotest areas of the world, it’s definitely not a solved problem on the tech side.
We haven’t even figured out how to supply the current population sustainably let alone another 850 million.
Poor places also tend to have plenty of sun.
I would think that you only need a 1W LED, maybe 12Wh LTO battery (It lasts 20 years), and a 10W solar panel per 2 or 3 people, if that, for the use case of not burning stuff just for light.
The groups distributing things like that already seem convinced that's enough to really change their life.
as more people get access to electricity and better education their combined wealth will rise creating the financial resources to tackle the harder problems. on step at a time.
Do you have any basis for this claim?
If this were true, why are so many of the companies working in the field tech and innovation-led?
https://www.ruralelec.org/current-members
Just as example of the kind of problems faced: how do you electrify thatched roofed houses made from mud bricks? Can’t really insert plugs.
seems to me the major problem is scale and distribution and cost, getting electricity to remote areas. and sure, maybe there are some technical solutions that can help make things easier and cheaper, but i don't see any problems that could not be overcome.
but i have only spent a short time in africa so my understanding of the reality there is quite limited. i'd really like to know more about what the actual roadblocks are and where technological innovations are required to move forward.