Pan-African technology group Liquid Intelligent Technologies has partnered with the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) to support the Giga initiative’s ambitions of connecting every school to the Internet.
Liquid will share anonymised data to support the work of Giga, which was founded by Unicef and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in 2019, to map the location and connectivity status of schools in Africa.
The partnership will initially focus on Kenya, with plans to incorporate other Liquid markets over time, including South Africa, Zambia, Botswana, Tanzania, Uganda, Zimbabwe and Rwanda.
Liquid will share information with Giga about schools’ proximity to telecommunications infrastructure and help develop a connectivity monitoring platform, which will provide a basis for better-targeted investment to connect schools, including in hard-to-reach areas.
“This partnership with Liquid will allow our Giga team to gain a deeper understanding of the connectivity landscape in Kenya and across Africa,” said Unicef office of innovation director Thomas Davin.
“That knowledge will help Unicef to get more schools online, giving children access to the opportunities they need to flourish.”
“Through our expertise in the digital and telecommunications landscape, we will support Unicef in its endeavour to map school connectivity data across Kenya by providing real-time figures to measure impact,” added Liquid Intelligent Technologies group chief technology and innovation officer Ben Roberts.
Giga has already mapped over one-million schools around the world and has connected over 3 000 schools.
Liquid has connected 4 000 schools to the Internet across Africa.
The company aspires to continue empowering schools with digital technology and has mapped 150 000 schools across the continent.