African technologists and entrepreneurs are applying blockchain in innovative ways, creating a new financial infrastructure for the continent with wide-ranging benefits, including for the humanitarian sector.
Through its Blockchain Ventures investment programme, supported by the Ethereum Foundation and GSR Foundation, UNICEF Office of Innovation provides funding and technical assistance to emerging market startups building innovative blockchain-based solutions.
Kenya-based Autonomous Systems Research (ASR) began by exploring how drones could support disaster response, wildlife and environmental conservation. Working in remote areas led founder Moses Gichanga to investigate another challenge: generating electricity without transporting fuel into the field. ASR is developing ways to turn waste plant material into gas and electricity, and using blockchain to track traceability of biomass, payments to suppliers as well as applications in mobile money and disaster response.
How did a hobby building drones turn into Autonomous Systems Research?
Back in 2011, my daughter was two and a half and needed amusing, so I made her a kite. When the kite got boring, I built a small aeroplane out of paper bags. One early version had an eight-foot wingspan, with a laptop strapped to it and car wiper motors working the controls. Then I asked myself what would happen if I strapped a camera to one and flew it in a national reserve. That was when I started flying drones in Tsavo National Park.
I began asking how we could use this technology to help elephants and other wildlife, and to conserve ecological areas. That grew into Autonomous Systems Research. Later, ASR received its first grant from UNICEF Office of Innovation. We used it to explore whether drones could be useful for disaster response planning, ecological conservation, wildlife and agriculture, and what data would come out of that work. Since then, we have flown missions with government agencies, including Kenya Wildlife Service.
How did conservation work lead you from drones to producing energy from plant material?
Some of the places where we work are very remote and have no electricity. Our drones need charging, so we used a generator. But it became unsustainable to keep carrying fuel into the wilderness. We looked at solar panels, but they took up space and time. So we thought about modifying a generator to run on gas made from biomass. Later, people in communities saw that we had electricity in places without a supply and asked where we got it. We began thinking about making gas and electricity available to them too.
Where would the biomass come from, and what could the gas and electricity be used for?
We still use drones to look for potential sources of biomass. Once we identify some, we send someone to find out whether we can purchase it or otherwise acquire it. We want waste biomass. We do not want to cut down trees, and we do not want people planting biomass to sell to us instead of growing food. Coffee bushes, for example, produce material when they are pruned. We can turn that into gas.
We have developed equipment that converts biomass into gas, which we can use to run an engine. Gas is the primary thing we produce, but we can generate electricity as well. We have a site near our rural office where we are working with people who provide biomass and receive gas. We are also in the process of bringing local primary schools into the project. We are also in the process of brining local primary schools into the project. We want to see whether – with the right safety checks, ventilation and supervision – the gas could be used to cook meals and heat water, as an alternative to open fires.
You began using blockchain to track biomass. What does it record, and where else might you use it?
We wanted an audit trail that someone else could inspect. For the biomass, we record where it comes from, what type it is, the quantity, who gave permission to clear it, what they were paid, if anything, and how much gas we produced from it. We also have a payment mechanism for people who provide biomass, connected to mobile money platforms, M-Pesa and Airtel Money. We are interested in carbon credits in the future, and for that we would need a record people can trace.
We are looking at other applications too. Through our work on payments, we have engaged a local bank and are building a platform intended to offer mobile money services using blockchain. We also do volunteer work in emergencies, and we have developed a ledger system that can record where survivors are and what help they need after a disaster, though we have not applied that in a real-world setting yet.
What is holding the gas project back from operating at a larger scale?
We can produce the gas, but we have not reached the point of liquefying it efficiently. At the moment, we store it without liquefying it, which takes up more space. If we could liquefy it, we could fit more into a cylinder and look at selling it on a larger scale. We have tried some basic methods, but they use too much energy to work commercially. Finding a better way to do it would require substantial investment.
ASR began with drones, but you are now developing energy and other technologies. Is the idea to test solutions at ASR, then build separate businesses around the ones that work?
Yes. ASR does research into systems that can run themselves. That includes the drones and, eventually, the gas plant. When we develop a project, we intend to incorporate it as its own company, with its own governance structure, while ASR continues doing research.
We do not plan for ASR itself to become the gas supplier. The gas business could sell the product and make money as its own company, although we would still expect to have a role in its governance. We want to take an idea through the research and testing stage and then allow it to become something that can stand on its own.
ASR is a for-profit company, but you describe social good as central to its work. How do those aims fit together?
Social good is front and centre in what we do. Our tagline is “tools for transformative change”. We are structured as a limited liability company and we intend to make a profit, but we engage in projects that have a social good component.
We hope to make a lot of money. We want to do it in a way that helps our neighbours make money too. The more money they make, the less they need from us or from donors. There is a limit to how long someone can keep holding your hand. At some point, you need to become self-sustaining.
Take the gas project. We intend to sell the gas, but I also think about children collecting twigs for firewood. If we can make gas affordable to their households, they would not have to do that. I do not see a conflict between the social purpose and the business: we want to produce the gas cheaply enough that we can sell it at a price people can afford. As we see it, it is easier to get a shilling each from a million people than a million shillings from one person.
UNICEF was ASR’s first backer. Beyond the grant, what did its support make possible?
The first grant let us explore whether drones could be used for disaster response planning, conservation, wildlife and agriculture. Later, when we approached other organizations, we could show them what we had done and what we had learned. We have since received grants from other organizations, including Kenya’s National Commission for Science, Technology and Innovation, and done business with local government organizations.
We have also remained part of UNICEF’s alumni community since its investment. UNICEF organized a session for us with Google for Startups, and we later graduated from that programme. They organized seminars and workshops and supported our attendance at the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting of the New Champions. Those opportunities helped us think differently about what we could do.
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