This is what it was all about. Here the Asus Eee PC is being powered by solar on Duncan's (pictured) solar set-up. His equipment is fairly standard and not at all unlike the kit we wanted to take to Kenya but weren't able to. A solar array on Duncan's roof goes through a charge controller to charge the huge twelve volt battery also pictured (bottom centre). The battery is then used to power light bulbs around Duncan's house as well as his radio and provides charging capability for his mobile phone. The dongle hanging out of a USB port on the Asus provides Internet connection through a GPRS/EDGE connection on Safaricom which is pretty much comprehensively available around Kenya we are told. So, this is "the first solar powered computer in the village".

We also used the HY Mini to great effect as reported on the temporary blog. It was used to charge the Palm Centro PDA which became the tool of choice for Blog Posts, SMSs and regular PDA features such as tasks and calendar. The Centro certainly came into its own during this time. Pictured here are a few pupils from Bogoria High School who were really interested in the HY Mini in terms of charging their own mobile phones as not everyone is hooked up to the mains electricity. It seems most people instead pay around 20 Kenyan shillings to charge their phone at the 'mobile phone charging shop'.

So, we're back in the UK and ready now to examine all of the 'data' (as Scientist put it) which should hopefully paint a picture as to the success or otherwise of this past Kenyan trip. Certainly, on the face of it, it looks like the trip was a great success since we met our mission objectives of 'championing the use of renewables to power ICTs...' although the qualifiers of 'to enable access to education, healthcare and governance' require further work. This will be something for a future more longitudanal study we suspect.

For now, we are happy that renewable technology was introduced to a rural Kenyan developing community demonstrating the usefulness of associated computing technologies.The picture though is quite complex, for instance, there may be other more basic needs which must be met in some communities before ICTs are ready to make an in-road. Although it may be that if the above qualifiers can be met and that, for example, an impoverished community can 'reach out' beyond its limited locale then resources and/or knowledge may become available which facilitate solutions to bridge 'basic needs' gaps? Let's consider all this carefully before jumping to conclusions though...