Ushahidi’s BRCK, a Success Story
T
he BRCK is the easiest, most reliable way to connect to the internet, anywhere in the world, even when you don’t have electricity. All kinds of jobs require steady connectivity, even when infrastructure is spotty due to wireless connections, intermittent power, or devices that can’t share connections. Seeing this, Ushahidi set out to redesign connectivity for the world we live in - Africa. As we laid out what such a device would look like - physically robust, able to connect to multiple networks, a hub for all local devices, enough backup power to survive a blackout - we realized that the way the entire world is connecting to the web is changing. We no longer only get online via desktops in our office, we have multiple devices, and we are all constantly on the move. So we designed the BRCK for the changing way we connect to the web around the world, from cafes-hoppers in San Francisco to
struggling coders in Nairobi.
Who We Are Ushahidi, founded by David Kobia, Juliana Rotich, and Erik Hersman, is a non-profit technology company that builds open source software. The word “Ushahidi” means “testimony” in Swahili, and came out of the crowdsourced mapping platform we built during the Kenyan post-election violence in 2008. Our goal is to improve the way information flows in the world, and the BRCK is a natural extension of this. As a company full of engineers working in places with poor infrastructure, we simply cannot get connected as reliably as our peers in the developed world. Since David our software out Kobia came
BRCK is a Kic kStarter success raising $172,107 from 1,078 backers. The g oal: $125,000. www.kickstart
er.com/project s/17 brck-your-back up-generator-fo 76324009/ r-the-internet
i i situation, it ti th tools t l we off a crisis the build are aimed at helping people communicate in the toughest of situations, and helping collect information in the most difficult places. Our software has been used for blizzards in Washington DC, hurricanes in the US, earthquakes in Haiti and Japan, and election monitoring around the world. BRCK is our answer to a fundamental problem that arises during these situations and during the daily life of much of the world: the need for reliable connections in unpredictable environments.
Black Business News International Edition -52- Summer 2013
http://brck.com