Some Income generating Ideas

Its early days yet for the Digital Hub here in Mombasa but the hope is that it can ultimately be a self sustaining entity generating not for profit income to sustain its operations and outgoings whilst providing a valuable educational service to the community.

This may seem like pipe dream idealism! And if you had asked me a year ago how possible was it to make the Digital Hubs self sustainable within a few years I would have said its not possible.

Over the last few weeks I am really beginning to change my mind. Here are a couple of ideas that have occurred to me following interactions with various trainees over the last few days:


(a) The hub could charge for internet access (even at a rate of a schilling (a cent) a minute) this would more than pay for the monthly internet connection fee.

(b) The hub could charge for printing. A simple per page charging system would cover the costs of a good colour laser printer and on going cartridge costs within a few months.

(c) The hub could rent out its van (if it had one) as a low cost bus service to and from the training facility.

(d) With a good internet connection the hub could charge a small fee for VOIP calls abroad.

The above projects just require a bit if investment. I wonder would people be more willing to put money into 'development investment' like this? For example

500euros would buy a really good colour laser printer here.
1000euros would pay for a good internet connection for a year.
5000euros would buy a 13 seater van that would last for a couple of years.


(e) The hub could be an Open Source centre of excellence offering installation and maintenance service to Open Source Cyber Cafes

(f) The hub could charge a nominal fee for training and maintenance services that it offers. Schools and small businesses are quite willing (and capable) of paying for ongoing maintenance of their computer systems. They also require on going training. As long as the fees do not alienate people with minimal resources this would be fine.

Its easy to forget how little things cost out here if you are a local. Without exception all the trainees I spoke felt they could live quite comfortably(as in having the basics like shelter, food and transport) out here on 500 schillings a day (that' s about 5 euros) or a monthly allowance of about 150euros.

A combination of a few of the projects above could provide this basic allowance to key trainers whilst they are based in the hub.

If it is invested correctly money can really go a long way here. The projects above will not make the hub sustainable on their own but they suggest that there are simple ways of generating income for the facility that collectively can go a long way to that end goal.