Date: May 2022
Amount: $109,648

Researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) will partner with a social enterprise start-up (Wakoma) and a non-profit organization (VPUU) based in Cape Town, South Africa, to study usage of a community network that provides Internet access to over 60,000 residents in three townships and informal areas outside the city suburbs. This network serves users who are among the least able to otherwise participate digitally in online education, governance, and business venues. The ability to study the curated network usage at scale of such a user base is rarely found in formal research settings and so has become a growing area of interest.

For more information on UCSB, go to https://www.ucsb.edu.