Introducing ‘Get Power, Give Power’

Only 8% of rural Indian villages are fully electrified. In Sub Saharan Africa, almost 600 million people are still without any access to electricity at all.

That means for over a billion people, finding somewhere to charge phones, lights and other electronic devices is still a difficult and sometimes impossible, task.

This lack of power has consequences. It creates disconnected communities, unable to keep in touch with friends and family, or access information online. 

This is why today we’re launching the “Get Power, Give Power” campaign, to raise awareness of the global power problem and to play our part in helping solve it.

Watch the video below to learn more.

At the heart of our campaign is the Buffalito, a smart power bank and multipurpose lamp which will be distributed free to the people who need it most. It will fully charge most smartphones and other devices and act as a lamp for hours. 

The Buffalito is designed to act as a portable and cost-effective way for millions of people to transport and store electricity. It was created to compliment our solar-powered BuffaloGrid Hub, a solar-powered charging station designed to sit in the centre of a village in a shop or public building, which has already brought power to villages in the Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka through trials with Airtel and Vodafone. 

The “Get Power, Give Power” campaign will help us mass manufacture the Buffalito and disperse even more of them for free across India and Sub Saharan Africa. Support our mission and get your hands on your own Buffalito by clicking here.

Our impact with Airtel: 6 months on

Last year, we announced a partnership with Airtel to bring mobile power services to 10 of their exclusive outlets across rural Uttar Pradesh.

6 months later and we’ve charged over 10,000 phones, helped fight fake news, boosted business for local store owners and helped thousands of people stay connected during frequent and unpredictable power cuts.

We recently travelled out to some of these villages to speak to the people who depend on BuffaloGrid every day to stay connected. Watch the video above to hear their story.

Solar powered charging is just the start of what BuffaloGrid’s technology is capable of. If you’re a company interested in accelerating global internet adoption, we’d love to hear from you.

We’re helping WhatsApp tackle fake news in rural India

Read more about our work with WhatsApp over at The Drum and VentureBeat.

Here at BuffaloGrid, we believe life is better with the internet. But it’s clear fake news is a real problem. Across every continent, rumours spread across social media and the internet like wildfire. In the worst case scenarios, misinformation can have deadly real-world implications.

As a company on a mission to bring mobile power and internet to the next billion, we believe we have a responsibility to help people getting online for the first time understand these risks.

That’s why today we’re pleased to announce we’re working with WhatsApp to help bring their ‘Spread Joy, Not Rumours’ campaign to villages across Northern India through our network of solar-powered community-level mobile phone charging Hubs.

If you charge your phone on our solar-powered BuffaloGrid Hubs today, you’ll be shown a message from WhatsApp on the simple steps to protect you and your loved ones from falling foul of fake news.

Bloomberg recently reported under 50% of all homes are electrified in the Northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. BuffaloGrid Hubs are quickly becoming a simple and reliable solution to the biggest problem preventing people from getting online; finding somewhere to charge their phone.

We worked with Bosco Zubiaga at WhatsApp on this initiative who had this to say:

“We’re humbled by the impact that WhatsApp had on people’s ability to freely connect with their loved ones. We recognise at the same time connecting people can also lead to the spread of misinformation, which has to be confronted. We hope this campaign will help educate people how to stay safe on WhatsApp.”

“We’re grateful for the support from BuffaloGrid in bringing this campaign to villages across Northern India. Power is fundamental to getting online and without companies like this, the internet adoption rate in many places of the world would be much slower and difficult to support.”