Samsung Providing Solar-Powered Internet Schools To South Africans

October 30th, 2012 by James Ayre

Samsung’s new program to provide solar-powered “internet schools” to African communities has been a big success. According to the children that benefit from the school, it’s “purely greatness, happily madness.”

Samsung has previously described it as an “exclusively solar-powered, mobile, and completely independent classroom that is geared towards increasing accessibility to education and connectivity across Africa”.

The project recently won the “African solar project of the year” award and is currently supporting around 21 students.

The design of the system features roof- and side-mounted solar panels made out of a rubber-like material. These rubber-like panels were used rather than conventional ones primarily to limit breakage during transportation, and also to make it easy to track them if they are stolen.

“The container has four inches of insulation and extraction fans to keep it cooler (and 21 kids inside warming it up). The solar panels will probably act a bit like sunshades and help keep it cooler,” Lloyd Alter of TreeHugger notes.

Source: TreeHugger
Image Credits: Samsung

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About the Author

James Ayre 's background is predominantly in geopolitics and history, but he has an obsessive interest in pretty much everything. After an early life spent in the Imperial Free City of Dortmund, James followed the river Ruhr to Cofbuokheim, where he attended the University of Astnide. And where he also briefly considered entering the coal mining business. He currently writes for a living, on a broad variety of subjects, ranging from science, to politics, to military history, to renewable energy. You can follow his work on Google+.