Power shortage puts some African countries like Uganda on the list of the worst performing countries in Information Communication Technology (ICT).  Much as ICT is seen as an important tool in changing the lives of people, the rural population is hard hit when it comes to communication through mobile phones. For instance, a person in a local village where there is no electricity will have to pay money to charge a phone away from his or her location, and that involves traveling. The time spent for one to collect a phone being charged in the nearest town affects the manpower that would have been invested in say farming or business.

Worse still, sometimes the phones are not fully charged and it means spending more time and money recharging. In Western Kenya’s Bungoma district, phone charging in rural areas is done on car batteries and small solar pannels.The power at times is not strong enough to fully charge several phones at ago. Worst of all, some phones are opened and wires from the source of power mechanically joined to the phone battery terminals. This reduces the life span of batteries and the phone.

If one pays five hundred shillings to charge a phone, plus one thousand shillings for transport, yet the phone takes only three days to go powerless, it means one has to pay twelve thousand shillings per month on charging alone. In a year, one spends close to 150,000 shillings, not including the money spent on air time cards. In order to save the battery, people prefer calling than sending short text messages because it takes long to type the message hence consuming the battery.

Such amounts of money mean a lot to a peasant in the rural village who has to pay school fees and meet other family needs. A hundred thousand shillings is enough capital to grow an acre of beans, sorghum or maize.

However, there is a ray of hope to remedy the problem. Motorola Company has introduced a new innovative technology of phone charging called Motorpower Kiosk. The project was launched on May 10th 2007 in Kampala.  Each Motorpower kiosk is charged by a 55 Watts Direct Current (DC) inverted solar panel, capable of charging twenty phones simultaneously.

The project will offer free mobile phone recharge services for Motorola phones, and is mainly targeting women in the rural areas, intending to start up small businesses. This will enable them to communicate and therefore know how to market their products and sell at a profit.

Motorpower, according to Nikesh Patel, the Senior Sales Director for Motorola Africa is designed to empower entrepreneurial women by providing them with the foundations to manage their own sustainable motorpower businesses. The MotorPower team will give the women an introductory business start-up package including four Motorola handsets and a business skills training course. This is the first of its kind initiative in Africa.  Such welcoming moves should have been impressed in the initial place by government. ICT like radio, computer and telephone has proved to transform people from poverty and it should not be too costly to a local person.