One-line solution summary:
Solar powered community and digital training centers for women and girls in off-grid communities.
Pitch your solution.
Affordable and reliable electricity present a key constraint to socio-economic growth in rural Guatemala. Extending the national grid is prohibitively expensive, and off-grid electrification is challenged by lack of planning, institutional support, financing, and maintenance. These are barriers to bridging economic, digital, and education shortfalls that persist in Guatemala, most acute for rural women and girls.
Building on its successful pilot in Santa Rosa, and in partnership with the Ministry of Education, New Sun Road will deploy a large network of SolStations™: solar-powered, remotely-monitored, digitally-connected, and community-run training centers robustly designed to serve the most remote communities. Along with the infrastructure and connectivity service, it extends comprehensive digital education for women and girls.
These services empower girls to access better and more varied education sources, assist households and women entrepreneurs in obtaining basic health, financial and business information, and enable young women to pursue previously inaccessible professional development and employment.
Film your elevator pitch.
What specific problem are you solving?
Lack of affordable and reliable electricity presents a key constraint to economic growth, information, and education in remote locations of Guatemala. For rural households and businesses, extending the main electric grid can be expensive. Even off-grid electrification is challenged by lack of planning, institutional support, lack of financing for off-grid entrepreneurs, and lack of maintenance. These factors are an essential barrier to bridging economic, digital and education shortfalls that persist in Guatemala, especially in rural areas.
These conditions are worse for Guatemala
women, who are 11% less likely than their male counterparts to use mobile
phones, and 13% less likely to be using the Internet. According to the 2016 UN Development Report, Guatemala is ranked 2nd among Latin American countries where most difficult to live as a woman.
Education is a pressing issue. According to 2010 Ministry of Education data, only 30% reach national
reading standards. Even when students complete primary school, many do not
acquire the necessary skills to advance further. More than two
million out-of-school youth between the ages of 15 and 24 do not have basic
life or vocational skills to enter the workforce. In 2019, only 13% of high school students reached the national mathematics standard.
What is your solution?
A future network of 1000 solar-powered Community and Digital Education Centers, or SolStations™, will offer a digital literacy training program, in the most remote communities throughout the country.
The key objectives of SolStations™ are to optimize power usage for a variety of education, production, and social needs articulated by a community, while enabling Internet connectivity and introducing technology skills development. With energy access as the anchor, SolStations™ with serve as an activity hub, and rely on close partnerships with local organizations advancing education, health, and possibly economic outcomes, aiming to accelerate and broaden these outcomes via connectivity.
On International Women's Day - March 8th 2018, the opening of a pilot Community Center and Computer Laboratory was celebrated in the Mixed Rural Official School of Aldea Llano Grande. The new technology center, optimized for the climate, was installed and equipped with NSR's SolStation™, consisting of solar panels, batteries, Internet connectivity, and a high-tech system capable of precise, automated remote monitoring and control through NSR's Stellar Power Platform™ software, and SolSense™ sensors and circuit control devices. The center holds 20 computer stations.
Since the center's opening, computer literacy, digital training and STEM education programmes were held, benefiting youth and adults, mostly females.
Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?
Youth face increasingly difficult conditions in Guatemala, including high levels of unemployment, social and economic marginalization, crime, and lack of basic services. Unfortunately, these difficult conditions can compound when people attempt to migrate to other countries in search of employment opportunities or improved quality of life.
For instance in many Guatemala villages, secondary school students have to hop on a bus and travel hours to access the nearest Internet café where they can conduct online research, complete assignments, and print papers. These are costly in time and money, especially for many rural households living below the poverty line, and present an additional security risk for young women traveling alone.
Increases in power access and Internet penetration can enable schools to provide a better service for their students, improve the learning environment and possibility to study after dark, access to quality content, maximise the use of technology, enable better education outcomes, thus opening a range of job opportunities unavailable to people who are technology illiterate.
Centers also improve access to healthcare, economic and governance information. Ultimately, educational outcomes improve, rural economic development & productivity accelerates, community resilience increases, carbon emissions are mitigated, and the digital economic and gender gap is reduced.
Which dimension of the Challenge does your solution most closely address?
Reduce the barriers that prevent girls and young women—especially those living in conflict and emergency situations—from reaching key learning milestonesExplain how the problem, your solution, and your solution’s target population relate to the Challenge and your selected dimension.
With their robust solar power, connectivity, computers, and remote monitoring technologies, New Sun Road's SolStations™ will help reduce the fundamental infrastructure barriers preventing rural populations, women and girls in particular, from accessing basic Internet services and information technologies.
By their integration to basic community schools and partnership with the Ministry of Education, provision of dedicated digital literacy and STEM education for girls and women in partnership with Guatemala universities, the Centers can provide physically accessible, affordable, and safe learning, professional development, and ultimately employment potential, previously out of reach of this especially vulnerable group in Guatemala.
What is your solution’s stage of development?
Growth: An organization with an established product, service, or business model rolled out in one or, ideally, several communities, which is poised for further growthIn what city, town, or region is your solution team headquartered?
Richmond, CA, USAWho is the primary delegate for your solution?
Susana Arrechea, PhD.
If you have additional video content that explains your solution, provide a YouTube or Vimeo link here:
Which of the following categories best describes your solution?
A new application of an existing technologyDescribe what makes your solution innovative.
- Technology: the unique value of the SolStations™ is that solar energy and connectivity come with a precision energy management system designed for remote areas with poor access to on-site technical assistance, thanks to NSR's Stellar Power Platform™ software, SolSense™ sensors and circuit controls. These allow precise, automated, and remote visibility and control of entire power systems on a portfolio basis, optimize power usage, detect failures and performance declines, send alerts, enable preventive maintenance, promote better operational practices, while extending equipment life, minimizing downtime and reliance on expensive 'dirtier' back-up power.
- New ways of increasing uptake of proven solutions: taking energy and connectivity as anchors, SolStations support local organizations aiming to broaden and accelerate positive education, health, and economic outcomes. Social impact programs historically depend on largely physical means of reaching beneficiaries and monitoring outcomes. Whether education, HIV-prevention or distribution of water filters, services can be greatly improved and made more efficient through this central delivery point, while amplifying educational reach.
- New ways of financing goods and services: SolStation is a new and modular approach to power and Internet delivery for education and productivity in unelectrified areas. It blends public and private capital, ranging from completely subsidized to fully commercial deployments. The model in subsidized environments, such as schools, positions it as digital access platform for remote communities. Small SolStations feature guided learning in online educational, health, agricultural, and revenue-generating business service programs. Large SolStations produce enough supplementary energy to add fee-based physical productive activities, like agricultural processing.
Describe the core technology that powers your solution.
SolStation™ is a pre-fabricated, precision-controlled system that optimizes the use of available solar energy. It leverages two core technologies: NSR’s Stellar Power Platform, cloud software for fleet control of solar hybrid plants, and NSR’s SolSense™ IoT devices, which act as data monitors and controllers for these plants. Around these two technologies SolStations wraps integrated, manufacturer-agnostic solar hybrid systems. The IoT core is based on interoperability with a large universe of system components, preventing dependence on a particular manufacturer and allowing global reach. The software platform and IoT systems enable control and monitoring of hundreds to thousands of stations as an ensemble, reducing O&M costs while helping ensure system function and longevity.
As a more cost-effective adaptation to existing solutions, the Stellar Power Platform™ fleet-control system allows remote power providers to scale by reducing O&M costs. Current commercial customers in Latin America and East Africa use it to manage more than 150 off-grid and bad-grid sites worldwide. The IoT platform is a key enabler for decentralized electrification: as solar becomes competitive with grid extension and diesel generation, solving the O&M challenge is key to serving remote communities. The platform uses AI technology to manage supply and demand, reducing capital costs for expensive items such as storage, providing energy efficiency, and optimizing backup generator runs and reliance on fossil fuels.
Provide evidence that this technology works.
In 2018, New Sun Road developed a project to create a community center and computer laboratory in the rural school of Aldea Llano Grande in Guatemala, out of which it launched a pilot digital literacy education program. The project was developed in partnership with the Ministry of Education.
Based on the success of this first pilot, Guatemala’s Education Minister signed a MOU with NSR in May 2018, to provide solar energy and Internet connectivity to 1,000 unelectrified schools, with potential extension to 4,000 more, and for which NSR is currently raising funds.
In 2019, NSR implemented a second digital literacy program “Tr@nsformed at SolStation”, targeting women and girls. Participants acquired basic computing, hardware, STEM, software and Internet knowledge, and participated in dynamic science experiments to build a basic understanding of electricity, magnetism and solar energy. Around 80% of the participants of the program went from knowing nothing to having above basic knowledge in digital skills such as problem resolution, communication, information and software. And the program's 100% female instructors testify that the course was very useful to “inspire girls to pursue careers in science and follow their dreams regardless of where they come from”.
The program is run by Dr. Susana Arrechea, an internationally recognized Guatemalan nanotechnology researcher and STEM for girls advocate.
NSR has deployed proprietary energy monitoring technology to over 15,000 users, 200 microgrids, and 16 countries around the world, but the fully integrated solution for schools installed in Aldea Llano Grande is the first of its kind.
Please select the technologies currently used in your solution:
What is your theory of change?
New Sun Road, in partnership with the Ministry of Education of Guatemala, is seeking to deploy a large network of rural, solar powered, sustainable, community-run, digitally connected, Education and Economic Development Centers, or SolStations™, and offer a digital literacy training program, in the most remote communities throughout the country.
The key objectives of SolStations™ are to optimize power usage for a variety of productive needs articulated by a community, while enabling Internet connectivity and introducing technology skills development in tandem. With energy access as the anchor, SolStations™ rely on close partnerships with local organizations advancing education, health, and/or economic outcomes, aiming to accelerate and broaden these via connectivity.
Thus, thousands of communities gain access to education and Internet connectivity, thereby opening new opportunities for education, digital literacy, productivity and enhanced livelihoods. Increases in power access and Internet penetration can enable schools to provide a better service for their students, improve the learning environment and the ability for students to study after dark, enable improved education outcomes and access to information, as well as indirectly improvements in healthcare, economic livelihoods, and governance. Connectivity, combined with training and quality content, enables students to access more varied educational content and learn how to use technology, which opens a range of job opportunities unavailable to people who are technology illiterate.
These services assist households and women entrepreneurs in accessing basic health, financial and business information, and enable young women to pursue professional development and employment that were previously inaccessible.
With digital literacy and educational outcomes improving, rural economic development and productivity accelerating, community resilience increases, carbon emissions are mitigated, and the digital gender gap is reduced.
Select the key characteristics of your target population.
Which of the UN Sustainable Development Goals does your solution address?
In which countries do you currently operate?
In which countries will you be operating within the next year?
How many people does your solution currently serve? How many will it serve in one year? In five years?
NSR's pilot digital education center model is currently serving a community of approximately 300 people in Guatemala. NSR's remote power monitoring technology alone is currently benefiting over 15,000 users, 200 microgrids, in 16 countries.
In the first year: a conservative expectation is NSR will expand its digital education center model to directly benefit an additional 5 sites, or close to 2,000 people in Guatemala.
Low 5-year Scenario: the hybrid funding model, and its mix of corporate and institutional sponsorship, brings SolStations slowly to the poorest communities in Guatemala. This model assumes 200 schools deployed. We assume 500 inhabitants per community on average in Guatemala, 50% of the community impacted directly, and 25% are impacted indirectly (family member’s use of SolStation/enhanced economic growth). Thus in a low scenario approximately 75,000 people are impacted.
Medium 5-year Scenario: (most likely) SolStation digital community centers are deployed at 1,500 Guatemalan schools, fulfilling, and expanding on the MineEduc MOU. In this scenario, 560,000 people are reached.
High 5-year Scenario: full implementation of the project above is complemented by commercial and hybrid replication in neighboring countries, such as Honduras and El Salvador, and across to Africa (where average population/per community doubles at 1000) such as Senegal, Uganda, Kenya, and Malawi. 3,000 schools in Central America and 700 in Africa. In this scenario, 1.65 million people are impacted.
The replication models above across hundreds of sites in Africa and Latin America will be in part accelerated by NSR's partnership with Portuguese education technology provider jp.ik. (https://www.jpik.com/).
What are your goals within the next year and within the next five years?
In Guatemala, New Sun Road plans to deploy an additional 5 education technology centers in the next year, and at least 200 in the next 5 years.
Worldwide, New Sun Road is planning to increase its number of users from 15,000 to 19,000, and expand its presence from 16 countries to 30 countries in the next year. This will be achieved through reinforcing existing and establishing relationships with 20 channel partners. In the case of integrated SolStations for education and community centers, each represent a user-point that will serve a population of approximately 500 rural men, women, girls and boys.
Within 5 years, NSR is hoping to reach 120,000 sites across 100 countries.
What barriers currently exist for you to accomplish your goals in the next year and in the next five years?
1. The main barrier that is standing in the way of New Sun Road achieving its goal is funding.
Funding for supporting business development activities and project design, platform integration, asset deployment, partial grants and subsidies for semi-commercial models such as schools, and access to favorable financing that would allow to convert upfront capital costs into annual or monthly leasing payments.
In the case of the Guatemala Women and Girls' Digital Education Project, initial grant funding is a critical foundational element to putting a larger program on a path to self-sustainability at scale, which in turn will enable energy and connectivity access for hundreds of thousands of families across Guatemala, Latin America and countries in Africa, well into the future. Grant funding early on in the program will support the implementation and refining of successful revenue models which then allow for a second phase debt funding of the initial capital components of the projects, and financial sustainability based on incoming revenue by the end of the project.
2. Although New Sun Road has already successfully identified some key technical, social and commercial partners is a selected number of countries, New Sun Road is continuously seeking more partners with the commercial appetite, financial backing, social and environmental ambitions, and operational capacity to own and operate assets on the ground.
These can be government institutions deploying school and health infrastructure, rural cooperatives serving rural populations, NGOs and donor institutions implementing socio-economic programs, corporate investors and sponsors, and community entrepreneurs.
How do you plan to overcome these barriers?
1. Funding barrier: New Sun Road is currently seeking to raise Series A funding and pursuing grant opportunities in direct support of individual projects and seeking funds from impact oriented organisations and networks such as MIT Solve.
2. Partner barrier: New Sun Road is regularly participating in renewable power and education forums around the world to meet potential clients, investors, and partners. NSR has also been able to actively leverage its partnership with Microsoft to access the Microsoft wide network of Airband partners offering complementary services anchored around connectivity, and pursuing similar goals as NSR.
What type of organization is your solution team?
For-profit, including B-Corp or similar modelsIf you selected Other, please explain here.
New Sun Road has been registered as a Public Benefit Corporation since 2014.
How many people work on your solution team?
New Sun Road had 11 employees, 7 contractors, and 2 interns as of early 2020.
How many years have you worked on your solution?
New Sun Road was founded in 2014, originated from rural electrification work its founders conducted in Viet Nam, followed by a microgrid project they developed on an island of the Lake Victoria in Uganda in 2016. With Microsoft, NSR has worked on the SolStation™ for productive community uses described in this document since 2016. The first fully integrated SolStation as such, was deployed in Guatemala in 2018.
Why are you and your team well-positioned to deliver this solution?
Headquartered in California, New Sun Road is a Public Benefit Corporation (PBC) by charter, enabled by law to pursue environmental and social, as well as profit, objectives. The company’s mission mandates it to develop clean-energy technologies for remote and underserved communities in lower-income nations. It collaborates with industry, government, nonprofit and academic partners around the world to deploy technology solutions that accelerate energy and Internet access to off-grid communities.
NSR was founded in 2014 as a spin-off from a UC-Berkeley research group to deliver solar microgrids to emerging nations. It maintains through its co-founders close ties to the research community at UC-Berkeley. NSR’s R&D is led by research PhDs from Berkeley, Stanford, and Duke.
NSR’s core expertise lies in small-scale solar power systems, networking, and software development. Its Stellar Power Platform™ is the world’s largest energy access microgrid platform, helping operators of multiple power systems manage their fleets. Its SolSense™ IoT devices, enable local data acquisition as well as control of system components and AC circuits. The project team also brings extensive experience designing, building and deploying digital connectivity solutions in emerging markets, including cellular and “TVWS” networks.
NSR has implemented logistically challenging projects in remote communities with its own equity, and with more than $1M in grants from private and public entities, including significant energy and Internet access deals with Microsoft and Facebook. Project sites include Uganda, Guatemala, Honduras, Kenya, Malawi, and Tanzania. The company maintains R&D testbeds in East Africa (2), Guatemala, and the United States (2).
What organizations do you currently partner with, if any? How are you working with them?
Regarding the 2018 Guatemala Project, New Sun Road partnered with Microsoft, the Guatemalan Ministry of Education, CESA, E10, the University of San Carlos de Guatemala, UC-Berkeley, and Ecofiltro to bring a SolStation to the Aldea Llano Grande community in Santa Rosa department. New Sun Road designed and built the main SolStation™ structure and control technology, including a precision energy management system. Microsoft provided financial support and digital curriculum. CESA installed solar panels and batteries, while academic partners provided student research support. Notably, content and training programs for digital literacy already exist in Guatemala, from groups such as FUNSEPA—who have tied content to the national curriculum. NSR is incorporating and supplementing these efforts with community-oriented courses based on a broader set of digital skills.
NSR has discussed ongoing funding for initial tests and scaling with major corporate and government partners. A relatively modest investment from an MIT-Solve partner can unlock tens of millions of dollars in project finance.
NSR is also associated with Microsoft's network of Airband Initiative partners which includes equipment makers, Internet and energy access providers, and local entrepreneurs, all eager to make affordable broadband access a reality for communities around the world.
NSR also has an ongoing partnership with the international NGO Heifer International, and a nascent partnership with Portugal-based education technology provider JP.IK, who co-exhibited a joint solution at BETT2020 Education Technology Exhibition. Heifer is currently deploying a NSR SolStation for an agricultural community in Uganda. Further deployments will likely spring from both these partnerships across Africa.
What is your business model?
The business model, and supporting financing and revenue strategy, follow a two-phase process. Initial capital investments will be subsidised by grant financing until the model is fully tested and community earnings are generated to fully cover center operational costs and leasing payments.
In the long run, New Sun Road and its partners will collect revenue for the SolStations in three primary categories:
Onsite Community Services. Useful services provided to the community include Internet café, wifi hotspot provision, member services such as advanced coding, and copying/printing;
Onsite Institutional Services. Services performed onsite for government, private or NGO stakeholders, such as telecom mast power, rental to local groups, and adult continuing education, vaccine chilling, etc.;
Remote Corporate and Individual. Services performed “offsite”—corporate and NGO advertising and sponsorship, individual donations and grants, and other services to geographically dispersed stakeholders such as aggregate data access.
Thow-phase approach: Foundation Building and Deployment to Scale
Phase I - 2020-2022 focuses on establishing the foundations of a scalable, sustainable network of solar-powered digital community centers throughout Guatemala. Specifically, the team will prioritize 1) project design and planning, 2) community development and training, and 3) establishing operations, as well as the capital equipment and site works.
Phase II focuses on deploying the initial set of digital community centers throughout Guatemala, taking them to scale, monitoring impacts, revising the approach as needed, based on feedback from communities and partners. In this stage, the team will deploy curriculum, manage ongoing operations, and measure training results within local communities.
Do you primarily provide products or services directly to individuals, or to other organizations?
Individual consumers or stakeholders (B2C)What is your path to financial sustainability?
1. Funding sources:
Grant: Phase I funding will consist mainly of grant funding to allow the testing and development of replicable business models. In this phase, partners must prioritize securing funding, identifying and hiring a strong team, and procuring and installing necessary equipment for the initial 100 community centers.
Debt: New Sun Road is currently in discussions with several financing partners interested in financing of SolStations across the world.
Equity: New Sun Road, via its lead investor, Skyview Ventures, intends to raise corporate and project equity to support the project.
2. Ownership structure: New Sun Road proposes an ownership model of Build-operate-transfer (BOT) with 10-year renewable concession and will offer 3% of revenues as royalties to local communities as microfinance or site expansion loans. Additionally, in the BOT ownership model the project assets are transferred to the Guatemalan government after a 10-year period.
Why are you applying to Solve?
Public Benefit Corporation New Sun Road (NSR) has already deployed a first solar-powered, remotely-controled, and AI optimised digital literacy training and community center in Guatemala. The center has already hosted multiple training sessions for school girls and young women covering the following topics:
- Understanding of hardware and software
- Microsoft Word, Excel, and Powerpoint
- File management / Software downloading
- STEM- Science and technology (electricity, magnetism & solar energy)
- Internet searches / Online communication
- Entrepreneurship skills and business services / Online sales and purchases
- Internet applications for health, education, and finance
The power generated from the center also serves the school as a whole and can support business and community-center activities after school hours.
The operation of such a facility in a remote area where operations and maintenance capacity is limited is possible thanks to NSR's robust design, and remote power monitoring, control and optimisation technology that uses a combination of sensors and online platform enabling IoT and AI to optimise systems operations, trigger maintenance and system failure alerts, reduce downtime, and extend asset life and economic viability.
In which of the following areas do you most need partners or support?
Please explain in more detail here.
New Sun Road is aspiring to draw the interest of funding partners, corporate sponsors, investors, and providers of digital literacy and online education platforms that would be most adapted to its target population of off-grid communities around the world.
It also is looking for strategic partners interested in replicating and/or adapting the model in other countries in Latin America or Africa.
What organizations would you like to partner with, and how would you like to partner with them?
New Sun Road would like to partner with corporate sponsors, investors, providers of digital literacy and online education platforms, and other relevant digital information and service providers (financing, health education, agriculture extension) that would be most adapted to its target population of off-grid communities around the world.
It also is looking for strategic partners interested in replicating and/or adapting the model in other countries in Latin America or Africa.
Solution Team
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Dr. Susana Arrechea Global Programs Coordinator , New Sun Road
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JE
Mrs Jeanne Everett Manager Global Projects, New Sun Road -
Dr. Jalel Sager CEO, New Sun Road, PBC
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Solution Name:
Solar & Digital Power for Women & Girls