Why we do this, and why here

Africa is the most disconnected place on earth. That's the whole reason we exist.

We didn't choose Africa at random. It's where the gap between "online" and "offline" is widest — and where a single connection does the most good.

The numbers

Africa has the lowest internet usage rate of any region on earth.

According to the International Telecommunication Union's 2025 Facts and Figures report, the global picture is improving — but Africa is being left behind.

Africa online
36%
of Africa's population uses the internet, vs. 74% globally — the lowest of any ITU region
Rural gap
21%
online in rural Africa, vs. 55–57% in urban areas — the widest urban-rural gap of any region
Offline worldwide
2.2B
people remain entirely offline globally — disproportionately concentrated in Africa
Malawi schools
85.8%
of Malawi's 8,939 schools have no internet access at all (2026 Ministry of Education / Giga data)

Sources: ITU Facts and Figures 2025; ITU State of Digital Development in Africa 2025; UNICEF–ITU Giga initiative; Malawi Ministry of Education, Science and Technology School Connectivity Landscape Analysis Report (2026).

Why it stays this way

It isn't that people don't want to be online.

The barriers are structural — and they compound each other in exactly the places we work.

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Infrastructure gaps

Rural and low-income areas often simply lack the physical network infrastructure — towers, fiber, and wiring inside buildings — that connectivity depends on.

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Cost

Affordability is repeatedly cited by the ITU as the single biggest barrier — the cost of connectivity relative to local income puts it out of reach for schools and nonprofits already stretched thin.

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No electricity, no path

In Malawi specifically, nearly 47% of schools lack electricity entirely — making internet connectivity structurally impossible before cost is even a factor.

Who it affects most

The people paying the highest price are children.

UNICEF and the ITU's Giga initiative — a global effort to connect every school in the world to the internet by 2030 — found that school-age children in sub-Saharan Africa are among the most disconnected people on earth: roughly 9 in 10 have no internet access at all. That's not a gap that closes on its own. It's a generation being asked to compete in a digital world with no door in.

Why we think it matters

A connection doesn't just deliver internet. It delivers a door.

We think about it as a chain — one that only starts once someone can actually get online.

Connect → Learn → Achieve → Earn

A student who can reach online learning resources has a real shot at outcomes their parents never had access to. A hospital that can reach medical databases and coordinate care digitally treats people better. A foundation that can communicate with the partners funding its work survives longer and serves more people. None of that starts without the connection first.

Where we start

We started in Malawi — one of the least-connected countries on earth.

Every project on our Projects page is in Malawi. It's where we're proving the model — before taking The Cable Boy to the next community that needs it.

Apply for connectivity →