Samsung has officially handed over a digital village to the Malibongwe Ridge village in Cosmo City, Gauteng, South Africa, to provide the community with education and health services.
The digital village model is aimed at improving the lives of Africans through renewable and environmentally sustainable solutions that harness the power of the sun, and addresses one of Africa’s largest economic challenges – electrification.
“Everyone speaks of the need to bridge the digital divide, but we can only really achieve this if we focus on the core objective of changing lives for the better. The United Nations says being online is now seen as fundamental to human development, and access to the Internet may soon become a basic human right, like access to water. Our challenge was to look at what was needed versus what was available and devise a plan that connected the two,” said George Ferreira, vice president and chief operations officer (COO) at Samsung Electronics Africa.
It is estimated that less than 25 per cent of rural areas on the African continent benefit from electricity, resulting in isolated communities with limited access to education, healthcare and connectivity, key areas to socio-economic upliftment.
The digital village comprises a solar powered internet school to increase accessibility to education and connectivity, a solar power generator that will provide easy and affordable power, and a solar powered health centre providing a range of medical services and education on health matters to the public.
Also included is a solar powered tele-medical centre to ensure access to remote medical assistance through a centralised pool of medical expertise and experience, and a solar powered admin centre.
