'Technology for Development' in the Solomon Islands
Launch of ‘Mobile Tekelea’ at Solomon Islands National University, Honiara, November 2020
Due to the completion of the Coral Sea Cable, the Solomon Islands can now access faster internet. Leveraging this new infrastructure, our project’s focus was to improve young people’s access to educational and job-related information and to be engaged with the digital economy.
This was a DFAT-funded ‘Technology for Development’ Innovation challenge, Hitnet was one of four chosen projects out of the more than 50 that were submitted. Hitnet partnered with the global NGO Field Ready and the Solomon Islands-based community engagement and social impact consultancy, Earth Water People to bring this project to life.
Installing the solar panel for ‘Mobile Tekelea’ at SINU DFLU Honiara.
Tough, outdoor ‘Mobile Max’ digital hubs with free Hitnet Wi-Fi, co-created content and mobile landing pages were delivered to two communities in the Solomons. These hubs support communities to access the digital world.
To maximise efficiency and to minimise usage costs, our hubs have been built to run off solar power. Each hub has also been named by the community that uses it.
Two very different sites were selected for the 12 month pilot project. One is the Solomon Islands National University (SINU) Distance and Flexible Learning Unit (DFLU) located at Panatina campus, Honiara. This hub has been named ‘Tekelea’ and will support the students with flexible learning.
The Solomons based team co-created six short videos with SINU DFLU alumni that promote the Second Chance courses offered. This will help incoming students to understand the study pathways that are on offer to them. By screening short films that make the course pathways more accessible, it is hoped that more students will be encouraged to undertake and continue their studies. These films will form the ‘My Pathways’ welcoming channel for ‘Tekelea’.
‘My Pathways’ interactive channel with six video stories from SINU Second Chance students.
The other hub site is the Barana Community Nature and Heritage Park in Barana village, Guadacanal. The hub has been named Tutuqu (which means ‘story telling’) and will support the community to offer digital services to community and visitors at the Information Centre.
Chief Peter with Mobile Tutuqu at the Barana Community Heritage & Nature Park, Guadalcanal.
Seven video stories have been co-created with the community, sharing stories about the conservation of the local environment and cultural heritage and have been made into an interactive map of the park.
The WiFi hotspot will be free for local users and sold to visitors to the centre to support the ongoing purchase of data.
At both sites, the project also delivered digital skills training to empower local communities with skills and knowledge to negotiate the digital world, including cyber safety education.
To investigate the further potential to roll out ‘Mobile Max’ across the Pacific, Hitnet and Field Ready worked together at Field Ready’s workshop in Suva, Fiji to determine if local engineers are able to assemble/manufacture Mobile Max. This will build technical capability in the Pacific, reduce the cost of freight and potentially the cost of manufacture overall.
What was the impact?
From November 2020 to August 2021, the Solomon Islands hubs had almost 900 purposeful uses, with an average use time of 13.5 minutes.
Content channels were accessed over 1800 times, with the most popular channels being Wantok Musik (Music from the Pacific) and My Pathways (stories from SINU DFLU students). Local stories and content is consistently the most engaged with and celebrated across the network and provides community leaders with a fantastic platform to reach their peers.
The Hitnet Wi-Fi Hotspot was used over 300 times, and the mobile landing page over 150 times.
Australian Pacific Training Coalition interactive channel displaying three locally produced stories.
Wi-Fi Hotspot Usage:
Break down of type of the 180 total devices