The first WiFi-enabled solar street lights have gone live as hotspots in Witsand, Atlantis, three months after nonprofit organisation GreenCape and Cape Town-based service provider ThinkWiFi teamed up under a memorandum of understanding (MoU).

GreenCape’s Alternative Service Delivery Unit (ASDU) and ThinkWiFi have been progressing the deployment of WiFi services across the Witsand community, with 10 access points now providing access to over 2 000 people a day.

“In collaboration with GreenCape’s ASDU, we have been working hard at providing WiFi to the residents of the Witsand area,” said ThinkWiFi COO Marnus Kruger.

The concept of adding a solar light to the WiFi connection points was discussed through a codesign process with ASDU and the Witsand leadership.

“ASDU’s service delivery approach is built to allow for increased stakeholder buy-in, by providing stakeholders with a collective space to reimagine service provision solutions in new and innovative ways,” said GreenCape energy programme manager Jack Radmore.

The partnership with Think WiFi originated after ASDU enumerated more than 2 500 households in the Witsand informal settlement.

“This was done with a focus on creating a strong social foundation for service delivery, building an inclusive platform for local community members to express infrastructure preferences and to understand the communities’ propensity to pay for infrastructure services while also mapping existing infrastructure assets.”

From this process, the Witsand community prioritised area lighting and connectivity as their most pressing energy-related needs.

“The promotion of innovation and partnership focused on improved conditions, service delivery, and wellbeing to change the current lack of infrastructure in these areas into an opportunity for empowerment,” said City of Cape Town Economic Opportunities and Asset Management MMC Alderman James Vos.

The MoU also outlines that there will be continued collaboration on new sites to explore the overlap of energy services and connectivity, in this case the provision of public WiFi infrastructure.

ThinkWifi is building public WiFi infrastructure to provide free, uncapped WiFi in communities, townships, universities and transportation hubs across South Africa, with 161 locations currently active across Langa, Khayelitsha, Gugulethu, Delft, Elsies River and Philippi.

The business models allow for both the infrastructure and the connectivity to be funded without the end-user paying a cent.

Over the past three years, GreenCape has launched and funded three ASDU sites, with interventions ranging from WiFi-enabled solar street lights to home solar systems. These three sites cover 3 500 homes and 11 550 people.